Too long without a post

Yes, I said that. According to Bill, and he is right, Twittering does not take the place of blogging. So, I'll pull myself away from Packrat for a bit to give you some snippets of what we've been up to the last month.

The first week of May we traveled to Disneyland for the girls 4th birthday. That's right, 4th. I can't believe that much time has passed. Wasn't it just yesterday that my beautiful little bundles came home from the hospital?

Anyway, we had a full week of adventure and birthday celebrations. Hopefully I'll be able to post some pictures this week. We also did something we never had before. We stayed at the Disneyland Hotel and the Grand Californian. I liked both for different reasons, and we'll probably end up staying there again. The Disneyland Hotel upgraded us to a suite that had me saying, "Swwweeeettt." The living room alone could have encompassed our living room, dining room, and family room at home. Also, it has a tub with a shower AND a seperate shower, and two bathrooms. I could move in. At the Grand Californian we splurged and stayed on the concierge level - TOTALLY WORTH IT. I wish we could afford to do that all the time. They fed us all day long, had wine at night, and story hour for the kids where they could enjoy the time in their jammies, on the floor with blankets and pillows. All in all, a good Disney week (is there any other kind?)

The girls are taking a little break from their science classes, dance classes, etc until the fall (with the exception of a couple of camps. They're just finishing up their clay class where they had fun making a variety of projects, but with more help from Mom than I would like. I think the classes need to be stretched out for the little ones so they could have more hands on.

In the middle of the month we also celebrated Valerie's 2nd birthday with her. I made a cake which I was very proud of since I created it start to finish by hand including carving and decorating.

Along with the happiness of the month, there must be some sadness I suppose, and this was totally brought on by me. I haven't written about it previously, and I'm not sure how far I'll get here as it's still emotional to me. With Valerie's 2nd birthday came the last day that I officially watched her. She's now a big preschooler. As I said, this was brought on by me. Earlier in the year I told Liz and Andrea that I could no longer watch her as I'm planning to go back to school with the end goal of getting my masters degree in nursing. As a result I will also be putting the girls in preschool (yep, no home schooling for us.) Though I still think it was the right decision it makes me sad. My house seems a little emptier during the week, and when she has a bad day at school like she did this last week, it makes me cry and kick myself for not watching her. To say I'm still torn up over this decision would be an understatement. That's as much as I can say now as I've got myself crying at work, and that's no good.

On to some funnier stuff:
Riley (after checking out preschools with me): I'm too little to go to preschool. I only get to go for a little while then I have to come home.
Sam (while watching videos of her birth and first few days of life): Why is he crying? (We repeatedly told her that was her, and he seemed to get it, but every time the crying started the baby became a he.) She also noted, "I'm cute."

Later this month we will celebrate Bill's birthday as well as a belated party for the girls.

Due to popular demand (Liz)...

I bring you this blog entry.

There have been so many things to blog lately and yet I have remained silent. Why you ask? Simple apathy on my part. I don't like the line breaks put in when I email my entries, and I haven't really had time to sit at the computer and do more than throw fish at people. (Those of you on Facebook will understand that reference.) So, I bring you my life for the last two months in a nutshell (no, I wasn't in a nutshell for 2 months).

Sept:
-Labor Day BBQ (a day early): We had a few friends and family over, bbq'd (of course), and had a generally mellow time.
-Started many classes for the girls including ballet, science, and art while continuing with gymnastics, soccer, and ice skating.
-Took Harrison to puppy training where he excelled, but we as parents failed miserably. Ok, maybe not miserably, but we could have done much better. We are still working on it.
-Wished Liz and Andrea a Happy Anniversary even if they were 3000 miles away at DisneyWorld.
-Made Red in hockey.
-Missed Grandparents day, again.
-Car maintenance (oil change, new battery, etc.)
-Celebrated Andrea's birthday
-Had a couple of MNO's (Mom's night out)
-Helped host the NICU grad party at work
-Played my first Red game where I almost threw up beforehand because I was so nervous.
-Missed all of my quilt related meetings
-Attended a scrapbooking workshop

October:
-Continued with the girls classes, and Harrison's puppy training
-Got to go on a couple of fixed wing (small plane) flights for work
-Saw Guys and Dolls at the Center for Performing Arts with my sisters.
-Wished Cheddah a happy birthday.
-Played more hockey with Red and with the A-Team 2
-More MNO's
-Went to the pumpkin patch with our twins club. It's a pretty impressive pumpkin farm with lots of activities for the kiddos.
-Went to Gilroy Gardens (Bonfante for us old timers) to celebrate Halloween by following the treasure map to collect pirate booty.
-Went to Disneyland where we celebrated at their Halloween Spooktacular event.
-We also "won" 3 things in their Year of a Million Dreams celebration. 1. As we entered the Dumbo ride, an employee came up and asked us if we'd like to ride right now. Of course we said yes, but Sam started crying when we stepped out of line because she didn't understand. She quickly became happy again when she realized we were going to get to ride it right then, and not have to wait. 2. Sam was crying (over-exhaustion) and someone walked up to her and handed her a Year of a Million Dreams Castle pin. Apparently a cast member had given it to them, and they were to pass it on to someone to cheer them up. It worked. 3. As Liz, Val, Riley, and I headed from Fantasyland to the restaurant for lunch, there were two cast members there that gave us lanyards with 2 pins on them for the Year of a Million Dreams. Liz very kindly gave hers to Bill who was thrilled because he has really gotten into the pin collecting.
-Ate at the Steakhouse 55 (in the Disneyland hotel). Pricey, but worth every penny. Finally had Kobe beef, and it more than lived up to it's buttery good reputation.
-Went to Knott's Berry Farm where we followed the treasure map to collect pirate booty (they're owned by the same people as Gilroy Gardens, so it was very similar.
-Made Halloween candy corn costumes for the girls (thanks Liz for the pic).
-Participated in a hiptop scavenger hunt where we came in 6th out of 40 teams. Not bad considering we were coming back from Disneyland when it started and most of the team was working all day.
-Trick-or-treated in the neighborhood with the girls.

November:
-The girls started violin lessons.
-May start pre-school. I have to call and talk to the director, but I'm not sure I'm ready to cut the cord yet.
-Had blood drawn for my TB test at work.
-Will be going to Hawaii in just over 2 weeks.

I'm sure there's something missing, but if you made it this far into the post you must be sick of the list, so I'm done. Happy November to all.

A little paddling fun from Disneyland

Sam did a nice job paddling and generally in sync with her side of the boat.

Riley dictated the paddling pace on her side of the boat. Since she was 2/3's of the way back, it made it a little difficult for her side of the boat.

So very zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Stupidly I stayed up till 4:00 A.M., yep 4 A.M. folks, sorting through pictures from Bill's birthday and Disneyland. I just got involved and didn't realize how late it had become. In any case, you can see Bill's birthday pics, but the Disneyland ones may be a while in coming. I have managed to sort the 350 down to 200, but that is way too many to load to Flickr, even for me.

Disneyland and other news...

Last week was Bill's birthday. We had a very nice party attended by many friends and family. The BBQ was great, but the company even better. After the party we hung out with his sister, had a bottle of champagne and went to bed. The next day we got up and headed for the house of the mouse for a few days.

New things about Disneyland.
1. It will not be our last trip with the stroller though I thought it would be. We used it more than ever before on this trip. Don't know why, but the girls were much more in need of being carried, so it's a good thing we had the stroller to put them in.
2. Pirates of the Carribean is constantly changing. Of note this trip is that the crab is missing from the first scene after the waterfalls. The girls were the first to notice this as it is one of the first things they look for. That, and the seagull on the pirates hat. Also, they've added a boat to the scene where Cap'n Jack Sparrow is hiding out in the dress shop. The pirates over the archways have changed too. One is now holding a powder keg and the other two are posed differently though still drinking. The disturbing part is that all the pirates were a bit more dressed up. They were a little too fancy, and not as piratey as they use to be.
3. WE GOT TO RIDE THE NEW NEMO SUBMARINES BEFORE THE GENERAL PUBLIC! Woo hoo! That's right, we got to preview them before their official opening date. We got to do this because as Annual Passholders we entered into a drawing to be one of the first to see it, and we won. It was pretty cool. The submarines are roomier, don't have that diesel smell anymore, and have been spruced up a bit. The ride, while still a submarine ride had a few Disney special effects that were surprising. Bill tells me there is a YouTube video out there with the whole ride posted, but I don't want to link to it as I think that spoils it for when you get to ride it. BTW, it officially opens today.
4. ToonTown has way better pizza than the Pizza Port in Tomorrowland.
5. There is NEVER a time when Peter Pan does not have a line. This is not true for the rest of the rides. Everything else we could time so we didn't have massive line waits.
6. The girls are now tall enough (barely, and only because they had shoes on) to ride the bumper cars over in the bugs life area of California Adventure.
7. Kids meals come with a whole tray of fresh fruit in the picnic area just past the bugs life area whereas in the rest of the park you get a fruit cup with the kids meals for the same price.

I'm sure there's more, but that's it for now.

Little Bing Bong update.

Apparently Little Bing Bong is now in Disneyland and we have to go get her. That was the update from Big Bing Bong this morning.