February Report!

Let's see what happened in the month of February...

I was able to find time to start painting again... and once in a while if a mood hits Madison joins me in... This is the only time I really like having this old linoleum flooring in the kitchen where I don't care what gets on! Our plan/hope is to move my studio/workshop to our garage this Summer so Madison and I can make much bigger messes there:-)

Here are our finished paintings...

First, Madison's Howling Wolf...

Hope for Heaven

Mr. Owl

Ms. Bunny

Our silly Madison...:-)

We signed Madison up for her very first Kids 1K Fun Run at the Base this year which takes place at the Los Alamitos Air Force Base every year and for the last 3 years we've been there to cheer and support our good friends from Church. This year Dave was hoping to try his very first Reverse Triathlon but Violet came into this world last year and messed with his workout schedule so I think he is gonna try next year... or we are gonna have to return all the triathlon gears he's gotten in the past;-p  Well fortunately a lap around the Cubberley is almost exactly 1K so after we got over a cold early this month we started our daily run around and tried to encourage her to keep running and keep the walking to 2 or 3 times at the most. We were surprised to see that Madison got pretty into the running and was ready to go when Dave got home every day. The day before the race we went over to the base to pick up her bib and her race tshirt which was good idea since Madison got to see where she will be running at the next day and we were able to avoid the race day chaos somewhat...

This year Brian's girlfriend Afton was gonna try her first Reverse Triathlon plus she was asked to sing the national anthem for 4 or 5 events that day so we were there to support her.
When we got to the race Madison got a really cute present from Brian and she was pumped and ready to go! Us of course was anticipating some kind of nervous/freak out situation from our daughter since she has never done this before... and a big crowd has done that to her before... Dave stood with Madison at the starting area and wasn't sure if he was allowed to run with her or not but we looked around and saw parents standing around with their kids so we decided to just play it by ear...
Madison did just awesome! She didn't freak out at all and even though Dave ran along with her but I think she totally forgot about him during the last straight stretch and took off leaving him a tiny dot:-[)

 

 

She wants to do it again next year so maybe a tradition starting in our family:-)

 

And lastly please enjoy Madison singing and playing Let It Go...:-)

March Report!

In March or should I say at the very end of February into 1st of March we took a mini vacation down to San Diego since our Zoo passes were expiring at the end of February and wanted to fit in a trip to the Safari Park... The easiness to get to the San Diego Zoo usually prevented us from visiting the Safari Park more often but oh that place is cool:-) Really LOVED the Safari ride, for about 30 minutes I totally forgot we are in a Zoo and not some African wilderness...:-)

This time we finally remembered to bring Madison's camera so she can capture some of the cool wild lives...

 

A huge hot air balloon Madison wanted to ride... I was glad it wasn't free:-)

 

 Since we packed our lunch all we had to do was to pick a bench with a view...

 

The view!!

Some of the cute animals we saw...

 

 

 

 

A special picture for Grant:)

On our way back to our car we even saw a hummin bird enjoying what the Park had to offer...:-)

During this vacation we stayed at a Double Tree in Del Mar, we wanted to earn some good double Hilton points and some before our trip to Japan... We usually find a hotel around the Hotel Circle for convenience but we wanted to explore other part of San Diego so this place was about 20 minutes from Down Town but right off 5 so was really easy to get around to AND look at the pool!! It was such a perfect heated pool for the kids! Even had a 1 foot kiddie pool for Violet:-) AND we got freshly baked chocolate chip cookies when we checked in... 4 Stars!

Violet officially pool debuted and she just loved it! I think we have another fish in the family:-)

View from our room... to the right you can see the cool pool...

then the patio area that extends from the restaurant inside... Can you spot the big flat screen TV in the picture? It was like having two TVs at night especially...

The reflection is weird but at night the pool was lit up so pretty...

I'm writing this post in middle of May so kind of miss the time when Violet could only threat to move then...:-) She got a nice crib for her which was our first time since Madison always slept between us so no need for a crib, well this baby likes her own space and we like our good crib sleeper!

 

At San Diego Zoo the next day we went down a path that is not part of our usual big circle route and discovered and really enjoyed the Cats path that is there until their new cat exhibit path gets completed...

On our way back home we stopped in Enchinitas for some play time for the kids and we kind of fell in love with the area a little... well just the beach/playground part...:-) I think the residents said it's kind of a hidden gem of San Diego:-) And we met the Giant Bubble Guy! We got his business card thinking maybe we will hire him for Madison's Frozen Birthday Party but we decided to try it ourselves and save money... Sorry bubble guy!

On the way home we stopped at Carlsbad to shop at the Crate and Barrel Outlet and noticed the hill right behind the outlet was covered with flowers!! You have to pay to get in so we enjoyed the view from afar but apparently it's a very famous spot in Carlsbad... I wish we could take a better picture though, it was just rows and rows of beautiful flowers!

That's it from our San Diego trip! What's next?
I guess we can focus on our girls to end this months' post...:-)

This leopard PJ was given to Madison first from Aunt Alyson but once again it's proving to be one of the cutest PJs of all to put on our girls... Thanks Alyson!

That's her buddy Giraffe... I seriously think she can't fall sleep without him so they are quite close although Violet pounds him against her crib pretty good when she is bored or upset, so it's more of a love-hate relationship...:-)

On March 18th!? We stood in line at Best Buy to get our hands on the Frozen DVD/Blue-Ray Combo that came with a cool Frozen Chronicle Book...:-) We are sooooo excited!!

In March she became the Trader Joe Coloring Contest Winner for the first time!! She has been working on her color contest for a while and finally hers got picked and we took home a bag of Trader Joe's goodies:-) Wish we got the coloring page back though:-)