Pictures from Gilroy Gardens

At the entrance.

Riding the Carusel.

Another carusel, her favorite.

All aboard the train. 

The photo Lucia took of me. 

Test Drive

So our trip to Disney World is coming up quick, and thanks to our beloved guide book, they suggested going to a local amusement park and test driving sunblock, socks, shoes, hats, strollers, who tires out first (raises hand), etc. etc. So off we went today to Gilroy Gardens. We found a coupon so with our ticket price came all-you-can-eat BBQ, which is always a losing game with us, since our food allergies cancel out about half the food, but I digress. 

Off we went. Lucia wore a $6 comfy dress I found on the sale rack at Target, with a long-sleeve T-shirt over it. Apparently Gilroy has bizarro weather, as it was 46 this morning and 97 when we left this afternoon. Seriously. I wore new sandals to get 'em nice and broken in. 

On the way down, I realized I forgot my sunglasses, so we made a pit stop to Target and I ran in to get sunglasses for me and Lucia, bottles of water and maybe some peanut butter cookie Larabars for me. Maybe. I came out to the car with these for Lucia, and I don't think I've ever seen Pete so horrified. Dude, I said, they were only $1.78! He was not amused. 

We arrived, FINALLY, despite Lucia whining almost the whole way, I'm hungry. I'm thirsty. When are we going to be theeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeee? Off we go. I had packed a bag with a first-aid kit, plenty of snacks for us, a change of clothes, sunblock, hat, wipes, etc. etc. We paid and went in, but wait! We forgot the water! Pete made a dash back out to the car. THEN off we finally go. We headed to the carousel first. Lucia refused to ride on the horses, saying she was scared, so we rode on a bench the first time. Then she warmed up asked to get on a horse, and wanted me to get on a horse too. Fun! 

We rode a few more rides, then it was time for the BBQ. Which was kinda a disaster. I was grumpy hungry, so once I had my plate full and sat down there wasn't much distracting me, but then ALL THE BEES. TRYING TO GRAB MY CHICKEN. Bees! Everywhere! I looked around, and it seemed like everyone else was not affected by this! What the what. So we tried to finish our food, but it was just kind of a disaster. We figured out they wanted chicken so we left a chicken bone with some scraps on it further down on the empty table as bait to keep them occupado while we ate. It kinda worked. 

After "lunch" we decided to ride the train so we could see what else was in the park. Which was awesome and totally the highlight of the day, except for the fact that we could see we hadn't even seen a 1/4 of the park. So we started walking, and tried to get Lucia to sleep (no dice). We saw tons of cool stuff and Lucia played on the playground for forever as I broiled in the sun. We found an air-conditioned spot and cups of ice to help us cool down, but man it was hot. We found a waterfall area and hooboy was it refreshing. We surveyed what we still wanted to do and made a complete loop around the park. Lucia wanted to have her face painted, and I'm not sure why, but there was like ONE lady staffing the booth and pushy parents in front of us insisting on full-face painting (read: takes a zillion hours) but fine, we got it done. She got a unicorn on her cheek. Which Pete and I laughed about later, saying it looked like a dolphin with a pink wig on.

Pink-wigged dolphin picture to come

We headed home as we all reached maximum exhaustion, and she and I slept on the way home. Overall, we learned some good lessons today:

1. Lucia doesn't like our new minimally-toxic-as-possible-but-still-effective spray sunblock. Gah. 
2. Naps = mandatory. The plan for Disney World is to go back to the hotel everyday from 1-4 or 5 for naps and a swim. Sounds dreamy. 
3. Snacks = mandatory. 
4. Extra water = also mandatory
5. Having a game plan with a map and knowing where to go for the day = essential. 

Brains for dinner

Guess we have a zombie fan?

Sleep Tight!

I came home from a one-day business trip to Fresno and saw this when I came in the door. Sweet dreams, Cinderella. So sweet.

Easygoing weekend

Last week I was out of town for work, which was beyond exhausting for both of us. Me = traversing across towns, holding public workshops in sometimes hostile communities in 108 degree weather. No big deal. Pete = preschool pickup/dropoff, making lunches and commuting three hours for at least some days this past week.

By Friday we were spent and ready to do absolutely nothing. So that's what we did. Saturday we made muffins, walked to the farmers market and got a balloon flower from the clown, tons of fruit and vegetables and a different kind of muffin and cookie from the bakery. Followed by naps and just hanging out. Sunday was more of the same plus swimming lessons and a much-needed trip to the car wash. Batteries recharged.

Fun with Ninny and Farfar

Ninny and Farfar went home last week. We miss them. We had tons of amazing food and Lucia got to stay home from school most days to spend time with them. I know she really enjoyed it. We loved having them visit. Thanks for coming over Ninny and Farfar! We love you.

So I guess we are doing that now?

I guess she can write her name now. Uh. Guess they taught her at school?

Hockessin Bliss

We went home for my high-school reunion over the weekend, and well, it was such an awesome trip. My parents really rolled out the red-carpet, as usual, to make it amazing. Mimi borrowed a Lightning McQueen bed for Lucia to sleep in, which was really, really helpful after our redeye flight Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Let me also just extol the virtues of Virgin America again. The in-seat entertainment is KEY with traveling with kids. They also had a hilarious paper airplane race to entertain us while our flight was delayed, and gave Lucia a prize for entering it. (I flew the airplane and didn't win, unfortunately). It was pretty hilarious: they called over the speaker, is there a Lucia? (we had written our name on our plane AND told the flight attendant her name) And Lucia perks up and forgets for a second that it's 11 p.m. at night and she's super exhausted. Then the flight attendant calls out, "with rainbow pants on?" (she wore her jammies on the flight) and sure enough, Lucia had to look down at her pants to make sure hers were rainbow. Then she loudly yells, I'M WEARING RAINBOW PANTS!!! And went to collect her voucher for a free show on the way. She chose Dora, and yelled out SWIPER DON'T SWIPE a zillion times, which I googled today and apparently there's a fox that follows Dora, et al, around and Dora asked the audience to help her watch out for him. 

ANYWAY. We slept when we got to Mimi and Big Pappa's house, then headed over to see Dick's mom and sister. We had a nice time, aside from when Lucia took a running header into Gran's antique chair. The chair was fine, Lucia was not. I was impressed with my mom's lightning fast reflexes -- she yanked Lucia up so fast and checked to make sure she hadn't knocked out teeth. Teeth intact but a wicked skin abrasion under her chin. She cried. :( 

Friday my mom and I headed to the mall for long overdue girls day of shopping. Minus Lucia. Which meant we could just lollygag and try on ridiculous new blushes and debate dress after dress for aforementioned reunion. Actually the dress shopping was pretty simple; I picked out a few and decided on one and rocked it. Not to brag, but OK, I'll brag: as someone who was a size 16 after Lucia was born, I never ever ever thought I'd have my body back. I have my body back. I was thrilled to pick out a size 4 and rock it on Saturday night. I have worked so, so hard to get to where I am. No diets, no gimmicks, just hard work. So yay. Pom-poms for me! 

Friday night we went to my stepsister's house to convene before going swimming with Lucia's cousins. Turns out once we actually got in the pool, Lucia liked it more in theory than anything. She didn't want to jump off the sides. She didn't want to practice any of her moves. I decided to see how far she was progressing in lessons and in about three feet of water, I let her go. Let's just say it didn't go well. Some coughing and general panicking on her part. I asked her why she didn't do balloon cheeks. She said she didn't want to. Sigh. Looks like we'll be making swimming lessons more of a priority. After swimming we had dinner with their family and then played kickball. Lucia thought it was soccer and Pete didn't know to run to second base once I kicked it and was headed to first. Those foreigners! 

Saturday morning we headed over to my high-school friend's house for a BBQ. I put a lifejacket on Lucia and she happily played in the pool. Win-win. Saturday night was the big party, so Pete and I checked into our free hotel (yay points!) and got ready for happy hour. The girls and their spouses, who we've kept in touch with and see pretty frequently, arrived around 5:30 and we proceeded to have a hilariously fun happy hour. Those girls and their husbands are so damn funny. So funny. 

The reunion was great. Having happy hour meant I was elated to see people and forgot about their high-school transgressions and just loved every bit of it. Regrettably, I didn't eat enough dinner so the latter part of the evening is a bit blurry but my god it was fun. So very very fun. One of our classmates' dad drove us back to the hotel in the van, then the rest of the crew home. Man it was fun. Did I already say that?

Sunday we went to brunch with Megan & Jon, which was awesome, then hung out with my stepsister and her family some more. The highlight of the day was seeing Lucia on a bike: Katie found an old bike and helmet and let Lucia ride it. It was pretty adorable. We're hopeful we'll soon live in a non-hilly neighborhood that's more conducive to bike riding. Although riding down by Lake Merritt might be OK. As a result of that day, we're talking about getting Lucia a bike for her birthday. 

Sunday afternoon we went to Pizza By Elizabeths, my favorite place to eat. I regret choosing the gluten free crust, it was not good. Next time I'll know better! 

We flew back yesterday. It was a blissful but super fast trip. My parents and family are really the greatest. I so wish Delaware was next door to California. Until that happens, I guess we'll have to get by with keeping in touch between visits. 

Pictures to come...

Serenity Now (Literally)

Pete had long complained about our bed; how it was impossible to read in bed without the iron (steel, really) poking you in the back. I wasn't happy with the overall look and feel in our bedroom and thought it was just a trainwreck. It was not relaxing and serene. Unless it was spotless, felt cluttery. Also, it may have actually been cluttery. And the white duvet/bedding, while very nice quality, just never did it for me. It always felt too stark for that room.

So in our recent let's feel better about our current living situation mass-purge/redecorate, I listed our bed on Craiglist one night, thinking it would take at least a few days to sell and even then, we'd probably have our fair share of CL shenanigans. We recalled when we lived in Redwood City, this one lady showed up in the Cadillac Escalade and tried to haggle over $10, and then called me practically sobbing over an IKEA chair. CL peeps are weird.  

So a few hours later, I got an email asking about it. I wrote back and didn't think much of it. Until they wrote back again and said they'd come and buy it the next day. Pete and I were kicking back with some Saturday night libations, and I did the buzzed-whisper-snicker thing and said, I THINK I SOLD OUR BED. Which? Again, we thought those crazy CL peeps will either 1. flake out or 2. bring like half of the cash and be all this is all I have, so we didn't think much of it.

The next morning, sure enough, there was another email saying they'd pick it up at 10 a.m. I went to wake Pete up. Uh, Pete? Can you wake up so we can disassemble the bed?

$100 later, our bed was sold! Woo! But ehm, we didn't have a bed to sleep on. We also had a jam-packed social schedule so we couldn't really take the time to go shop for one. So I pinned about a zillion of them on Pinterest and then we agreed on a few. In the meanwhile, we put the mattress on the ground like this.

It was like camping! Only not! Also, note the mess. As soon as I took those patterned curtains down, I felt a sense of calm. Phew. We put up some old ones and planned on purchasing some nicer ones in the future. 


We finally got around to selecting a bed, which included Lucia's first hang-time at the IKEA children's area. (While fueling up on free coffee with the IKEA Family membership, we spied her watching TV rather than coloring with the other kids, which we thought was hilarious.) We sat on a few beds then selected one and its matching headboard. But Lucia's carseat being in the way, meaning either Pete or I had to go get the bed solo, not as a family. Plus we had other plans that day, I think swim lessons or something. 

Pete went to get it a few days later just before the store closed. Mission accomplished. I made the mistake/blessing? of googling the bed instructions beforehand and there was a YouTube video saying it took about 4 hours to put together start-to-finish. So we postponed assembly for a few days and set aside a Saturday to git 'er done.

Headboard complete

Six hours later, we had it 90% done but realized we were missing the wooden slat things, which we had GIVEN away with our bed to the CL buyers. Fiddlesticks! We had plans at a friend's house for dinner, so we left a little earlier than planned and I ran inside to fetch it while Pete and Lucia waited in the car. 


Slats in hand, we finally put the finishing touches on our new bedroom. The surprise awesome curtains came from a dyeing accident, where I was trying to have our living room curtains progress from Ivory to light beige, and they ended up the exact shade of the old bedding, which I loved and had hung onto. Hurray!! We also moved that leafy pillow into the living room (post on that effort coming soon). 


We decluttered the room also, inside and out, meaning I finally gave away all those post-pregnancy clothes (a mere 5 sizes larger than my current size -- wooo!) and tons of other stuff cluttering the room. The bed's storage drawers are great for linens. 


We love the new look; it's wonderfully relaxing and serene in there. Ahhhhhhh. 

Happy birthday America!

We spent the day with who else, Eddie and his family. It was awesome and super relaxing.