Our Forever Family

Our Forever Family

Thursday, April 30, 2015

Peanut Butter Adventures

His peanut butter stache looks like it belongs in the 70's.


"The difference, Mother, is that I look good in a peanut butter mustache."
If you say so...


Trying to get the last dregs of his orange juice.


There's still a drop left...it won't come out!


Stomach Flu

Sterling had it first.  His tummy is still bothering him nearly three weeks later.

Then Everett.  He bounced back after three days.

Followed by Riley.

He was so hot, we took his shirt off and gave him a freezing cold water bottle to hold. 



He's now up on his feet and testing out adding dairy back into his diet.

As I fell down the rabbit hole, Riley made me these pictures.

The first picture is of me in a cute skirt taking care of him as he lays by the puke bucket.


The second is of him watching me (in my cute skirt) as I puke.  Yes.  He drew me throwing up.  So tasteful.  But, still heartfelt. 




I threw up but survived.  Now I am slowly crawling back to health.  I can't have gatorade or jello.  So I had some melon and I made a Hulk smoothie for dinner.  OJ, Bananas, Peaches, and Spinach.

So far it is staying inside.

But it is bouncing around a little.  We'll see.  I'll either get better and see my green smoothie again.  Hopefully the first. 

Now we are all looking at James.  Last man standing.  

Bedtime

But I'm not tired!



Strawberry Delight



New Shirts

Riley is showing off his new shark shirt from Cabo - while reading a shark book.


And James is showing off his new Scott Sterling shirt.  I happened to wear mine the same day and I offered to get out at his school and take a few selfies of us in our matching shirts.  Oddly, he declined.  What thirteen year old doesn't want to be twinners with his mom?  Weird.


But seriously, our new Scott Sterling shirts are awesome.  And if you have no idea who Scott Sterling is you can check it out here.  And then you can judge me for letting my kids watch that kind of humor.  Oh well.  Here's a Christmas version.  

Bread Thief

After returning from Cabo, I had to replenish the food stocks.  While at Costco, I got the boys a treat that they haven't had in a while.  Cinnamon Bread.  

In truth, Ev chose it.  He angled his body so far out of the cart toward the bread that I had no doubt what he was telling me he wanted.  Alright.  You win. 

Then we nearly had an international incident on our hands when I wouldn't open the bag and give him some right away.  I swear I felt like pinning a piece of paper to my chest that said, "He is not abused.  He is screaming because I won't give him cinnamon bread without paying for it first."  Oh the concerned looks over Ev's bread meltdown...  

Then he wouldn't let go of the bread so the Costco checker could scan it.  

She laughed and worked around his doggedness.  Now that's a good person.



Is that someone trying to take my bread?


He held the bread the entire way home, never letting it out of his grasp.

Once home, I put two pieces on a plate.

Baby crawled into my lap and took over.


He refused the middle pieces, insisting on eating all the crusts.  Which for normal bread would be weird.  Who wants only the crust?  But for cinnamon bread makes sense because it is the most incredible bread crust ever.  Which Baby has learned.  


So I separated the middle from the sides and Baby finally decided that something in his life was going right. 


Look at that grin...

Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Cabo

I have some pictures here but the gopro is with husband so I will upload the pics of us in the sea and on the wave runner at a later date.  

In the meantime...

Hello Cabo!




Hello Arches!

As I previously wrote, I was working on a writing project and the main character ends up in Cabo for a little while.  She is very artistic and there are several scenes where she is sketching the local landscape, including the famous arches.  I was excited to see them for the first time.  

(This picture is far away but Husband and I took a wave runner out and tooled around the area for quite some time up close.  It was amazing.  And the visuals gained will be so important as I refresh that scene).



There were cruise ships every day, in and out of port.  Lots of tourism here in Cabo.


On the first day, when we flew in, Husband had a meeting for several hours.  I took off and explored, checking out the beach and resort. 

The sand was very deep, large grain, and mostly shellless.  These are important details for my scenes.  I took copious notes on the beach, probably looking like a bookish weirdo.  Which is fairly accurate.  



I tested the water, which felt cold at first but later was perfect.  

I also noticed the nasty undertow.  Not sure if this is year round but it seemed like it because the locals said that not many people actually swim in the water on the beach because of the push and pull of the sea.  I can attest that it was very strong.  The waves broke almost on the beach so there was definitely no bogey boarding.  And you kind of had to get up your nerve, jump over the wave break, and get past the undertow to really get in the water.  Then it was so deep that you had to enjoy treading water the entire time.  And once it was time to come in, you had to fight the undertow tooth and nail to come out.  Definitely not a family friendly beach.  James probably could have handled it but it was too strong for the others.     

Husband and I braved the wave break a couple of times and swam with the fishes beyond.  But those pictures are on the gopro.  So until then...enjoy pictures from the picturesque shore. 



Notice the lack of people frolicking in the water...?


 But still so tempting...


This picture actually makes the water look tame.  Don't believe it.  
But it does look pretty.


And no people frolicking in the water the other way either...


Me and the Arches.  
And my many layers to keep the sun at bay.


Most of the time, it was just me and the birds...


The hotel.  
Looks nice.  
Super expensive.  
Non potable water.  
Reminds me how lucky we are to have clean water come out of our faucets whenever we choose to turn them on.  
(At least for the next year or so in California.  Then it's any man's guess.)   



I loved the cheerful looking flowers.  Pretty flowers make me happy. 


A view of one of the pools with the sea beyond.  


 Me enjoying the view.  While my husband worked.  And worked.  


These little towel creatures get me every time.  I love them.  Happiness is funny animals made out of towels.    


Beautiful Sunset?  Well, don't mind if I do.  Incredible colors.  



***
Day Two
Husband (and me) after another day of meetings.
When he finally could relax and enjoy the resort.
It was a little overcast the second day.  Probably a good day for him to be in meetings.


We headed off to lunch.

I found some good, healthy eats...



...and Husband downed every ceviche he could get his hands on and almost two dozen virgin strawberry daiquiris.  Over the period of several days, of course.  He's not an animal.   


Bottoms Up!


***

Day three we checked out the beach and spent time together.

Can you see everyone struggling with the wicked surf in the background.  What an undertow!


Me...Basking in the Sea











Ah.  Tropical paradise.  Husband ordered a couples massage for us on a balcony that overlooked the beach.  Mmmm...




And this was after the massage.  

You know how some people want a cook or a maid or a nanny to support their household?  In a dream world mostly.  Well I have decided that in my dream world, I would have a masseuse stop by every day.  Yes.  Every day.  That would be nice.  


And yes, according to my friend, Lillylicious, I do in fact own shoulders.  Who knew?  Surprise, surprise!  They just rarely see the light of day.  

If you would like to hear my crazy nutjob treatise on modern day bathing suits, you can read this old post where I tried to explain to someone how odd I thought it was to walk around in underwear - if there was a body of water nearby - and it was perfectly normal - but heaven forbid we walk in on someone changing - then it is super awkward.  Like would you walk in on your boss' wife changing and think nothing of it?  Probably not.  But throw a body of water somewhere close, and you can watch your boss' wife in her underwear all day long.  

And it only looks like underwear for girls.  Boys wear normal shorts.  Splain that to me so I can understand it.

I know I am weird.  I just find it really odd.   

But I do wear bathing suits.  Really cute, very modest bathing suits.  Sometimes. 

I did have one suit that was a little more uh...fun and normal.  Sort of.  It is a super cute pinup rockabilly suit.  Adorable.  But still no Brazilian bikini.  That just isn't me.   



Getting ready to go to a nice dinner off resort.

Where the waiter actually asked beforehand if anyone had any allergies.  What the what?  It was fabulous.


One of the many heart trees on the other resort for dinner.  They looked happy to me.  Trees of love.


The restaurant was right on the edge of the pacific ocean (on the other side of the arches from our hotel).  It was literally built into the rock on the cliff.



The ocean is just below the restaurant.



And because I tend to be chilly, I brought a long, warm sweater on my tropical vacation.  Which proved to be brilliant.  The restaurant provided blankets.  So I had a blanket on my lap and a sweater on my top.  Guess who didn't freeze at dinner as the sun went down? 




Me Sitting at the edge of the Pacific Ocean


Husband and his amazing employee.  She has been his rock.  She earned employee of the year.  Well deserved!


Guess who started downing virgin berry sunset smoothies?

Not me.

This is Husband's first.  I think he had three in total.


Beautiful View


Even better with him in it.


Lots of boats sailed around the arches to take people on sunset tours.


Must make this bruschetta.

I couldn't eat it because it was a cream/mayo mixture and I wasn't quite certain the bread was kosher for me but I bet I could replicate this at home with organic ingredients.  Tell me this does not look delicious.  Go ahead.  I dare you to be wrong.

This appetizer was a work of art.


The waiter made me steamed veggies with the largest asparagus ever.

And he made all the fish for me with just salt and olive oil.  Bless that man!

I had red snapper, sea bass, ahi, amberjack.  Oh...it was bliss.  I ate and ate and ate.  I wish that I could have eaten more.  I love to eat and I so rarely get to just eat for pleasure and enjoy.

Now I need to experiment with fish more at home.  I do a good salmon and a decent halibut but I need me some amberjack.  I wonder where I could track that down in Cali.


Husband and the Giant Asparagus




Everyone sang happy birthday to Husband at dinner and had a good time.  

***

The next day was our last.  We took the morning to enjoy the sea, renting a wave runner and exploring the arches.  

No this is not a tank top.  
Yes.  This is my bathing suit. 

It is long and flowy and feminine.  And not underclothing.




We took it slow at first.  I didn't want to end up in the drink at the beginning.  So we explored the rocks and inlets for a while, looking for sea life and enjoying the natural architecture.  Then I let Husband open up the engine and we raced around the Sea of Cortez, laughing and having a good time.

Those pictures are on the gopro so those will have to be loaded later.

Until then, I want to express my thanks to all the people who helped take care of our kids while we were gone.  And to Husband's work for the amazing trip.
We truly appreciate it.