Valentimes Day

We stepped up our game for V-day this year: Lucia and I made cards for her teachers at school. Each one basically said the same thing: I love you so so much. Super sweet. She decorated each one differently using our new art supply kit which included Pom-poms, Popsicle sticks and most importantly, glitter glue. We took them in today and she told me tonight her teachers loved them. She also came home with a valentine for us. Peter and I are thankful our anniversary is so close to V-day so we generally acknowledge today with a hug or something. We thought about going to Whole Foods tonight to get a dessert or at least strawberries to dip in chocolate but we both ran out of steam. Maybe we can do that this weekend. Lucia on the other hand, was thrilled to have dark chocolate for dessert tonight.

Vacation Recap!

Welp, we're back. Tired, but back nonetheless.

Our last hurrah weekend was indeed fun. We started on Thursday afternoon and headed down to Pete's office to pick him up so we could get to the hotel while it was still daylight. We booked a room at an awesome hotel, and man, did it deliver. The valets, bell man, concierge. As soon as we got into our room, I promptly laid down on the bed and fell asleep. Pete took Lucia to explore the hotel, and when he came back he said something was going on, there was tons of security and secret service around. Lucia, naturally, had made friends with some CHP officers so she came back thrilled with her new stickers from them. We headed out for dinner at a quaint little Italian restaurant, and I got on Twitter to find out who was in town. Surprise! It was former Presidents Bush, Carter and CLINTON (faints). WHAT? All in Monterey for the Pebble Beach golf event and STAYING AT OUR HOTEL. Whaaaaaat. (link to picture of Clinton at the hotel)

So there was that. Thursday night we talked and thought it would be really special and memorable for Lucia if we ordered room service for breakfast. So we did and she was indeed absolutely thrilled. She kept saying, I get to eat my fruit ON THE BED?????? LIKE A PRINCESS??? Yep, kid, just like that. It was great. I have only ordered room service on other time in my life, and Pete had never ordered it. So it was memorable for all three of us.

Friday we headed out and on the epic Highway 1 to Hearst Castle. Being the planner bee that I am, I had bulleted out an itinerary in my head of how things would go down: leave the hotel at 10:30 a.m., arrive at Hearst Castle (90 miles away) by 12:30, depart by 2:30, arrive in Santa Barbara by 4-4:30.

Except I failed to realize that HWY 1 is very windy. And long. And Pete really loves going for drives, and thought I knew that anytime you take HWY 1 you basically double your travel time. Add construction to that, and we arrived at Hearst Castle at 2:20 and the next tour wasn't going up until 3, so we decided to bail. I just wasn't that invested in it. We drove to Santa Barbara and checked into our hotel, then went to dinner at a really awesome Mediterranean place (minus the snotty server). But unfortunately our hotel wasn't that great and wasn't cheap, so we complained the next morning when we checked out, and thankfully got some money back. We ate breakfast at a Danish place that was freeeeezing but OK, then checked out the view from the tower on the Santa Barbara courthouse (on the tip from our waiter).

FINALLY, we drove to Pasadena to see Mary and David, which as always, was blissful. Like visiting family. So fun. Their new house is amazing, and had plenty of space for all of us. I took a long nap and the rest of the gang walked to the playground for some fun times. We went out to dinner for David's birthday and were thankful to Mary's brother and his lady friend for watching the kids so we could actually have an adult conversation without 1,000 interruptions. Yesterday morning we gnawed on leftovers and a mish-mash of things for breakfast and just sat and talked, like we always do. So fun. So great.

We hit the road around 2 and made it home in 6 hours flat, which included about 40 minutes total stopping time. Perhaps a new record for getting home from SoCal.

It was a great trip. More pictures to come.

View from the lobby at the Monterey Hotel.

So tired.

View from the Santa Barbara courthouse

Right around the corner from our hotel in Santa Barbara

Morning!

This morning on the way to school.

Today's lesson

At each of our many errands over the weekend, when we'd be paying for stuff, Lucia would enthusiastically announce to the clerk that they were opening a "market" at her school in her classroom. And sure enough, when we arrived yesterday it was the opening of the market. The parents had loaned a cash register, shopping carts, play fruits and vegetables, etc. to create a market. Super cute. 

Until Lucia came home last night and excitedly said, "Guess what I have in my pocket, Mommy?" And she proceeded to tell me she took all of the pretend coins out of the market's cash register. 

Um. You did what, kiddo? 

So I explained that taking things that weren't hers was not OK. We put the coins by the door last night so we couldn't forget them this morning, and when we arrived I told her teacher that Lucia had something to return to the classroom and to tell her. 

The three of us sat and talked about how taking things that weren't hers was not OK. What if everyone took things home from the classroom and the market? She nodded and gave her teacher a big hug afterwards. Then her teacher had her apologize to the kid who owned the cash register. 

I tried to tell her I did the same thing when I was 5 or 6, and got in big trouble. Stealing is not OK. I think that experience when I was so young really stuck with me; the other day I bought and ate a larabar at Whole Foods while shopping and shoved the wrapper in my coat. As I was walking to my car with my groceries, I reached in my pocket and discovered I hadn't paid for it. I went back in and paid for it. Hopefully Lucia learned a lesson today that will stick with her as long. 

Pre-Baby Bucket List

We decided a few months ago to come up with a loose bucket list of sorts of things we wanted to do before baby arrives, and we're excited to start ticking them off this weekend.

Lucia's only request was to go to Fenton's for ice cream. My list was more like, let's go out to dinner, let's travel, etc.

Superbowl Sunday is this weekend, and you'd think it would be super special for Pete and I, given we met at a Superbowl party and the teams are Baltimore vs. San Francisco. But nope, we don't plan on doing anything. If we can get our new TV, then we might watch it, but I have to be honest, I'd only be doing that for the commercials and Beyonce.

Tuesday we celebrate our anniversary; seven years since we met, six since we wed. We managed to somehow score reservations at the #2 restaurant in San Francisco, Boulevard, and by some miracle our babysitter is available. We're excited to have a night out, and I'm mostly excited to get dressed up and feel fancy for a night, as opposed to the walking egg in ill-fitting maternity clothes, as I do most days.

Next weekend we're headed to Monterey Thursday night (woo-hooooo!), then onto Hearst Castle and Santa Barbara Friday, then South Pasadena on Saturday to celebrate David's birthday with the Pants Department. It's a last-hurrah family roadtrip as a family of three, and we're so excited to go (and thankful to Pete's family for the Christmas gifts to fund it!).

In early March, we're having a last hurrah adults-only get-together, in the theme of a chocolate tasting. We're planning on having fancy meats, pates, cheeses, wine, and chocolates for the tasting and some other desserts for our non-chocolate loving friends (yes, we have one, and somehow manage to still like him). We haven't had any big gatherings at our place other than Thanksgiving, but we decided it would be nice to do (it also helps that we'll have a nesting/cleaning goal to work towards).

Later on in the month, we have a trip to go to Sonoma for the evening to stay at Beltane Ranch, and have dinner at the Girl and the Fig, as a last hurrah romantic getaway before Baby Boy makes his arrival.

Baby Boy will be here in about eight weeks; we can't wait, but we're excited about the activities we have planned in the coming weeks.

On the Mend and Into Full-Blown Nesting

We are gradually recovering from the flu. Forgive me if I've already posted about this; my brain is slowly being consumed by Baby Brudder, I am sure of it.

We are all still coughing. And tire easily. And I'm still achey, as if I've been coughing. Oh wait, I have. 

But we're getting a bit better every day. This weekend we had enough energy to launch my long-crafted Decluttering Plan. We cleaned out the entire hall closet and got rid of three bags of trash and took two bags of shoes and clothes to Goodwill. We got rid of all kinds of stuff, but mostly it was stuff we had just put off making a decision about or thought we would use but reality was far different. 

We also tried rearranging the living room in various ways to make our space look fresh and well, larger. We flipped the direction of the sofa with the entertainment center and uh, didn't like it. Then we thought about trying the entertainment center further down on the wall (closer to the door) so Pete's desk could fit there, and we hated that even more. So after moving stuff all day (maybe this is why I was sore??) we moved everything back to where it was. 

BUT. The good news is we were able to deep clean as we went, so there was lots of vacuuming and dusting and hey why do we have four extension cords out of this one outlet kind of decluttering. We were able also to put one of the items that were in the office area floor space into the newly cleaned out closet, which means more floor space and a cleaner appearing space. That is not a bad thing, friends. 

I have a Pinterest board created to pinning things we'd like to purchase for reorganizing our space; we're still trying to figure out where we're going to put Baby Brudder's clothes (seriously). One idea is to use our old shoe rack, but the only things that fit in it are baskets, and well, we both are not fans of baskets. I could be talked into it if we sand and repaint the thing, then line the baskets with fabric or felt to prevent clothes from getting stuck in the wicker, but man that sounds like a lot of work. We can't really do tons of shelves in the second bedroom because of earthquake concerns. We're trying to figure it out; we have one minimally used bookcase that I think we might be able to move into the closet for baby stuff. You'll see on that Pinterest board that we're contemplating big girl beds for Lucia, and I think we'll probably go with just this one given 1. the price and 2. our need for additional space 3. it matches the crib. That one isn't as big as a twin, so it'll fit. We're not transitioning yet though; we plan on waiting until around her birthday, when baby boy is around 4 mos and trying to leap out of the bassinet. Lucia was standing at 6 mos, if you recall. So we'll move stuff around at the 4 mo mark and move our sofabed to our friend's house for storage. And voila, we'll have space for the crib. 

Our goals this week are to continue to declutter the bar area, which will become our diaper changing station, take bags of stuff to Office Depot for shredding, take stuff to the post office and continue to work our Freecycle/Craigslist ads to give away/sell old stuff. Making progress! Only 10 weeks until baby is here. GULP. 

Flu

We all have the flu; me the worst. I'm writing this from bed, where I am soaking up the mist of the new cool-mist ultrasonic humidifer, and trying not to get into a coughing fit since it already feels like I've been kicked in the ribs from the days upon days of hacking. My fever is down today, which is a good sigh. Lucia's is up, however. We have basic groceries to get us by for the next day or so and are hopeful Pete can get out tomorrow for a quick trip of necessities. 

Say a little prayer for us, if you could. 

Uncle

I've been sick off and on since OCTOBER, with maybe three periods of approximately 7-10 days of wellness where I'm able to feel good enough to hit the gym and rock our daily routine. I had a cold going into Christmas, was feeling better, then inadvertently ate gluten, which aggravates my allergies and asthma, on Christmas Eve and picked up another cold on Christmas. Gah. So I went from almost no coughing and operating at 75% to back down to 50-60% and coughing my head off. I had JUST turned the corner this weekend, and was back up to about 80%, when here comes another cold or something. Only this time it was with a fever and with less-than-optimal phlegm color. Ugh. Also, my asthma took a freaking nose dive, which is dangerous given the pregnancy and well, in general, let's be honest. So I finally called the doctor Tuesday as I was feeling super bad, and got an antibiotic, new nose spray to hopeful curb the post-nasal drip and instructions to double my preventative asthma inhaler.

I am feeling better, thank god. My asthma has settled down and I took leave without pay today, as I have exhausted my vacation and sick days (UGH), but thought it was worth the investment to feel better. 

But then tonight Pete picked up Lucia and they RAN to Chipotle, where our dinner order was waiting, to get her to the bathroom. She had diarrhea. He got her home and while washing her hands before dinner she threw up. Then I checked, and sure enough she has fever. 

UNCLE, people. We are tired of being sick over here; it's unrelenting and we are sick of not feeling well. 

New Car in the garage!

Amazing handling, incredible acceleration and design. Love it! Thanks Josh for demonstrating! I'm sold.

As cold as it gets

These mornings are extremely cold, as evidenced by the ice on my car in the morning. 

Brrr!