Our Week (so far)

This week has been pretty much like all our other weeks. Busy, fun and exhausting.

Monday:
Chip went to school to study in the morning. Since it was such a gorgeous Spring day outside, we went to the outdoor shopping area near our house and had lunch outside over looking the green and stream. Then we walked to the Nestle Tollhouse store for cookies. On the way home we stopped off at the park real quick to fly a kite before nap time.

A Spring storm came through Monday night and this was waiting for me as I came out of spin class:

A beautiful rainbow! I was too close to get a good photo of the whole thing, but we could see both sides as it stretched across the sky. It was awesome.

............................

Tuesday:

After school, Lily and I had to return the extra earrings I bought for the bridesmaids in Mindy's wedding. And before we left to go grocery shopping, we treated ourselves to some frozen yogurt:

Also on Tuesday, I used a crock pot for the first time ever! It is newsworthy since it may just mark the beginning of a lifetime of crock pot use. It was so easy and yummy. Doree inspired me last weekend when she made a delicious green salsa chicken for tacos. So I copied her and recreated the meal at home. Chip loved it! I already have friends sending me tons of new crock pot recipes to try and I am excited to experiment some more.

.................................

Wednesday:

We went to the Grapevine Mills Mall with Courtney, Elise, Trent and Courtney's mother in law, Pat, who is visiting from London. I'd never been to this mall since it is about 25 minutes away (and you literally pass about 15 other malls on the way there), but it is huge and all outlets so I'd been wanting to check it out for some time now.

Elise, Lily and Trent had fun with all the coin operated rides throughout the mall.

But they did not have as much fun at the Rainforest Cafe. Above Courtney is trying to show them that the gorilla is not scary at all!

Trent was terrified and refused to even sit in his seat. The big ape was waving his arms and pounding his chest, so I told Lily he was just waving hi -- so every 10 minutes when he would turn on, Lily would wave with an uncertain look on her face. As you can tell by Elise's face, she didn't like it much either, but was not as afraid as Trent who screamed the whole time and yelled "Take me home now!"

It is quiet in the restaurant, but they are still not too happy.

Lily and Elise (still at the Rainforest Cafe.)

Outside the restaurant.

When we first got there, they did not want their strollers and ran amok around the mall. Then Elise got in Lily's stroller and Lily took Trent's spot and Trent got into Elise's seat and suddenly it was super fun to ride in the strollers!! They wouldn't even get out to take a picture. :)

Back home. Did I mention there was a Disney outlet? :)

Lily can hardly carry in the bag! They had pajamas for $3.99! So I got like 6 pairs in size 5 (she is in about a 4 now) so she will have them for awhile. Since we really don't need new jammies now. They also had plates, cups, sippys, utensils for $1.49 which is another great deal. I think we'll be driving down there more often! :)

Mindy's Bachelorette

Thursday after I dropped Lily off at school, my Mom drove me to the airport and I flew out to California for Mindy's bachelorette party. As I mentioned in my last post, both Lily and I had a little anxiety about this trip. I hated to leave Lily!!! But we had been talking about it for months and by the time came, she was well prepared and did really really well with my Mom during the days and Chip at night. I even did really really well and didn't call her 100 times a day. In fact, I didn't talk to her on the phone the whole time I was gone -- at first we didn't want to upset her when she was doing so well and then the last day she was too busy "holding baby Elmo" to talk to me!

The party was technically Thursday - Sunday, but three nights away was a little much for us (and my Mom who was worn out already after only 2 days), so I came home on Saturday. It was a quick trip -- I flew into the OC, rented a car (don't ever think the $9 a day car is a great deal -it was a piece of crap!), and drove straight to Temecula where we had rented a house for the weekend. I didn't even have a chance to see my sister or anyone since I just wanted to get out there and get back home to Lily since I had no idea how she would behave my first time away.

Thursday night there were seven of us (a lot of people couldn't come for all 3 nights, we there was a constant changing of people as some would leave and others would arrive) and we just hung around the house, played games, had dinner and relaxed in the hot tub. It is what Mindy wanted -- a more relaxing girls weekend.

The house was awesome! It had a bar that came with a beer on tap!

Me and Mindy who had her wedding hair and makeup run through earlier that day.

Natalie, Doree, Me, Mindy and crazy Old Lady Gail. Don't even get me started on that old lady Gail --- Mindy has some interesting friends and this lady was one of the strangest ever.

Doree cooked all the meals. We had Italian on Thursday night and Mexican on Friday night. She even made pancake puffs for breakfast. She was a great host!

Doree and I shared a room.

View of the pool from the Master suite. Unfortunately it was too cool to swim while we were there.

The house is also rented for weddings and there is a big grassy patch all set up for ceremonies.

View from the front balcony.

Game room and bar.

Foyer.

Living Room

Living room and kitchen.

Mindy and the pool.

Back of the house.

The walkway to the grassy area.

Garden area.

Front of the house.

Like I said it was a nice house!!

.....................

On Friday at noon, a limo arrive to take us all wine tasting.

Moncia, Laura and Mindy

Me and Mindy

Me, Laura and Doree in the limo.

Mindy hated that we had her wear that sash, but then she seemed to have a lot of fun with it.

Me, Laura, Mindy and Natalie.

Doree, Monica and Pam

All of us.Back home after 4 hours of wine tasting.

With the limo driver who seriously asked Mindy if this was her 2nd or 3rd wedding! (it's her first)

....................

We all needed a nap after wine tasting, plus we had three new girls coming in later on Friday night and we didn't want to disappoint them. Surprisingly, I didn't get any pictures on Friday night, but it was fun and similar to Thursday night. Saturday I woke up and headed back to the OC for my flight home. It was fun and actually nice to get away for a few days. I am glad it all worked out so well! I'll be back in CA (and Temecula) in 2 weeks for the wedding!

Busy Week

Last Tuesday and Wednesday we were pretty busy running around town on errands, doing laundry, cleaning the house and packing for my first ever trip away from Lily. I went to Mindy's bachelorette party in California from Thursday to Saturday and I have been more than a little nervous to leave my baby behind. But she is three already and I suppose it was time for both of us to learn that we could survive a night apart. :)

Tuesday after school, Lily and I went shopping for jewelry for the bridesmaids in Mindy's wedding (of which I am one). After picking up the jewelry, we stopped to share some gelato:

On Wednesday night I had to do a scrapbook page to bring to the Bachelorette weekend. I used to scrapbook constantly, but since I've started blogging and printing my blog, I haven't done any pages at all! So it had been a few years. It was fun to go through my hutch crammed filled with supplies!! Lily sat next to me and did a couple pages too:

Nice use of ribbon.

Here is my page. We were supposed to pick a photo and tell a story -- but I have known Mindy since we were 7 years old. We were roommates our freshman year of college; we traveled for 6 weeks around Europe together and she even came with our family on vacation to China, so there was no way I could pick a single story. Instead I got a variety of photos and listed a bunch of memories and jokes at the bottom.