A beautiful day in the bay!

The weekend before Andrew started school, we decided to officially end our summer with some good ol' American ball! We headed out early in the morning and decided to take the Bart from Concord into SF. Nothing like a Giant's game with friends and family to end the summer!

On the Muni to the ball park:

I was literally smashed against the door, I wonder where all these

people were going?? ;) hehe

It was indeed, a beautiful day in the bay

Andrew ( with Lou Seal ) and my niece Emma enjoying the game

My sister n law, don't worry she doesn't bite!

The hubby and I

Mama and Andrew.. just being... well, Andrew!

I love this picture

Snow days

Saturday we decided to take a trip to the snow. For the boys it would be their first. The last time I went was the February before I became pregnant with Andrew in 2003. Super fun! Unfortunately, we could not find the same hill that we went sledding on. As a result we ended up further into Lake Tahoe than we wanted. We ended up at Lake Tahoe Adventure. What a chore this place was. We just wanted to kick back and go down some hills. First off the place was a zoo! Stupid us for going on a holiday weekend. We get up to the entrance to find there's a 10.00 fee for sledding and we have to use their Sleds! Okay fine 30 bucks it's! Not after running back to the car to grab cash because they won't take Debit/credit for sledding, running back again to put our sleds away, We fill out the waiver's get our hand stamps all while working up an awful sweat! Thank goodness we were in 39 degree weather. Finally, we're off! Up the hill we go... no belt? Sheesh! by the time I get to the top I'm whooped! The place was a mess. People cutting in front of people to go, people falling off mid way and just laying there, people walking up the divide rather than the side to come back up. I mean it was ridiculous! Despite the craziness of the resort, it was all in all a fun time for us. Luke is suck the little dare devil. He got so man when it took a long time to load back on the sled. The first time I went down with Andrew he got mad because we flipped, I landed right on top of him pushing his face right into the snow.. he was not a happy camper but I could not help to laugh! And best off all was the 4 hours drive home! Talk about some family time eh?

All Andrew wanted to do was fill his sled with snow balls!

Luke just wanted to explore the snow as he does everything else!

Olema Ranch Camping 2009

I was starting to think that our camping trip was not going to arrive. With a couple minor bumps we were loaded and off bright and early! We had stayed at Olema Ranch before, this time not so crowded. Which, in a way, was probably good. During our days, we have some people camp next to us. Some people stayed 1 night and were gone early the next morning.

We kept busy. We pretty much did a beach a day. It was so much running around. I'll be honest, I would of enjoyed a little more down time, but Steven does not like just sitting around relaxing as I do. He did take Andrew one afternoon to a second beach and Luke and I napped. Nothing like taking a nap in the afternoon right in the great outdoors!

We also made the much anticipated stop for the Oysters! They are a big thing down that way. We were actually invited to try them by a camper the last time we were there. That guy had the small ones but Steven got the big ones this time. He eat 10 of the 12! I passed this time.

Despite the nightly raid to our camp site by the Raccoon. All was really well. We had one night we were awakened my a man yelling. It was rather strange. I almost thought I was dreaming, but Steven said something the next morning. The boys slept amazingly well considering how chilly the nights were. Luke slept like a baby that he is. He was well bundled so I did not worry about him, but Andrew, we had to show him the proper way to sleep in a sleeping bag.

All in all, the trip was just what I needed. Does not solve the problems but surely lets you forget about them for a few days.

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Team Dempsey!

I must admit I was originally super excited to go to Monterey just to be away from the 100 degree heat. But when we got there, and if felt like a melting pot , I was quickly turned off by the trip. I love Monterey, however, normally when we go, the weather is divine. A little sun to get a light tan, and just enough of a breeze to keep you from sweating. I felt bad but Luke and I spend most of the time in the back of the car. We arrived at Laguna Seca around noon. The parking was ridiculous! We hiked down hill to the track, to quickly spot the highlight of the trip for me. This guys is a sure thing, and owning his own racing team, really increases the odds of me seeing him! Ahhh Mr. Patrick Dempsey, Aka Ronald miller Aka Dr. McDreamy / Dr. Derek Shepherd. Never gets old! The first time I met him was by complete luck. Right time at the right place kind of thing. (This was a few years ago, just found out I was pregnant with Luke) We were standing at the entrance of the race track, just as the cars were coming off from the race. Once all the cars were out, out comes the knight and shin... so kidding lol. He just comes strolling out. You could not miss him.. and he was walking right to me. I mean, wouldn't you be curious if a woman was staring at you with her jaw to the floor? I suppose he thought he would be nice and come and help me attach it back to my face. He is such a nice man, kind as can be. He is always a pleasure and, what I thought was odd was I did not have to go to him. It was clear I was a fan and was just super excited to have seen him, he willingly walked up to meet me. I have met other celebrities, an it's not like that with him. I had met Jessica Simpson and at airport once, before she was really even big. She was a snob! I asked to take a picture and she did not even answer, her Mom had to say yes. But anyways... I managed to keep my jaw off the floor long enough to get a pic of him. I was literally in line for 5 min, and by the time I got up to him, I was beat red, sweaty, and my hair was wet - I felt so gross. But got my pic =)

We had probably been down on the track about 20 min or so and it was right around lunch time. Steven wanted to go back up to the car and eat, which was fine, but I had no idea what I was in for. We parked on a very steep hill, of course, it does not feel so bad coming down, but trying to climb back up pushing a stroller was insane. It was so hot and I felt like I was going to pass out. Because of that hill I had decided to Stay back with Luke and try to give him a nap in the back of the car. I folded the back seats down, and we had us a cool little hang out. It was hot but sitting in the cool car gave us just enough of a breeze to be comfortable. Luke wanted no part in napping. He thought our little set up was the coolest thing! I had the tail gate closed but the pop up window portion open. He was just tall enough to pop his little head out. We relaxed for a couple hours and then the boys decided to come back for some snacks and water. By this time I had found a parking further down the hill, so the guys did not have to hike up again. They seems grateful for that ( I know I would of been ). By this time I think the heat was getting the best of them and they decided it was cool to leave. Andrew has his undershirt on only and he was wet and beat red. We stopped to get had and off to Capitola we went.  I love this little town. We usually make 2 stops when we are there. One is Pizza my heart  I am going to put it out there and say this is probably the best pizza I have ever had! The second is a little shop in the town that sells soap. We love the soap so I always grab some when we are there. After sitting on a bench watching the water, we were loaded with Pizza and soda and back on the road. It was a nice ride home. The closer into Sacramento we got the hotter it started to get. It got me excited for the little trips we are hoping to take over the summer. 

Saturday in the City

One of our most favorite things to do is take little day trips or drives. Saturday we ended up taking a drive into the city with my N-laws and my niece. It was a nice drive, no traffic and the weather in the city was prefect as always. We took a walk across the Golden Gate Bridge, and then headed to In--N-Out for some lunch. We got home early evening to move my desk from our bedroom into the new office.

Bishop's Pumpkin Farm

Today we visited Bishop's Pumpkin Farm. It was a spur of the moment trip. I was completely content with staying home and enjoying the over cast sky and the smell of the nights rain still lingering in the air. Steven and I were just surfing the net and he was looking at a list of Farms.

My parents had given us the coupons for this place, so it was definitely on the list of things to go do before Halloween. It's located in Wheatland, so, it is about an hour away. Which is fine, we love taking drives anyways. We went to Fog Willow Farms last year, which I like too, It is smaller and Andrew will be going on a field trip there on the 24th, which I will be chaperoning.

Bishop's is huge. I was impressed. There is so much to do there! Not just for kids, but even adults can really enjoy themselves. You have to pay for some of it, but, it's is very reasonable. I think we will go back next year, but we will have a picnic instead of buying food. We came home Pumpkin-less, only because Andrew and I will both get one on his Field trip and we end up throwing the un-carved Pumpkins away by Christmas anyhow! I will probably buy an additional one for Luke then too..

Reptile show

Yesterday, I was still not feeling very well, still don't today either. But, rather than lay around the house all day we went to the Reptile Show at the convention Center. Having a scorpion, I have got used to the whole creepy crawly thing, I am sort of warming up to it. There are still limits. This place had tons of reptiles. The majority of them snakes. I mean there were snakes at every singles display. People were wearing them around there necks, waist and arms. There was even a man who had a tarantula crawling on his shoulder *eek*. At the very end we found one display with Scorpions. This guys ( among other interested parties) were allowing this thing to crawl all over him. We have done lots of research on these things and the # one thing people will say is do not handle them. Interesting to watch none the less. We were there for a couple hours. I kinda felt like all Steven wanted to do was to buy stuff for the Scorpion cage, and silly me, I thought we were there to look at the animals.

Anywho, Andrew has this big plastic rattle snake, we call him "Banana's", he's yellow. As soon as we got home he went and got the snake and was wearing it around his neck all night, just like the guys he saw at the show. He was feeding it his little tiny snakes. I did not have the heart to tell him they eat mice.

SF Zoo 9/6/2008

Saturday was an amazing day. We decided last minute to take a drive to SF. Before leaving we decided to go to the Zoo. I have never been to the SF zoo myself. We left the house about 11ish and made the drive. For some reason it felt longer than I had last remembered it to be. I generally can get to SF in a little over an hour.

it was a pretty nice Zoo, bigger than Sacramento's. And much more expensive. You have to pay for parking at this zoo, you do not have to at The Sacramento. They selection of animal's was a bit bigger. Lunch was 32.00 ( I could have got a steak dinner for that)

I must mention I will be getting a ticket in the mail as Steven, for the second time, went thru the fast track lane. I get so pissed because the lane clearly said fast track and he got me a ticket another time driving down there for gong thru. I told him just to slow down and stay where you are. There was so much traffic at the toll. He is always such in a hurry and tried to get in the shorter lanes. As he takes off he says " see, know body is even over here.. as I shake my head and say because they aren't supposed to be. Now the car is registered in my name, so of course the ticket, for the second time, will be on my record. Something that is only supposed to cost 4.00 will, I'm sure be triple or more. I was so pissed I cannot even tell you.

Anyways, the weather was perfect, the drive was beautiful and it was an amazing day out with the family!

Make a Smilebox slideshow

A trip to Reno

Friday we loaded the car and made our way to Reno for David's college graduation. We left pretty early as it was our first long road trip with the baby. We left at about 10:30 ish and we only stopped once. I believe we ended up arriving at the Atlantis at about 1-2. Steven checked us in and then we headed up to the room to feed Luke and freshen up. It was a very warm day so we needed it! Steven wasted wasted absolutely no time! After his second trip upstairs to take the clothes in, he met me back at the gift shop with a beer =) My husband is not a random drinker, so I found it amusing. I will not try to hide it, I had my fair share of Melon Balls on Friday too. We had the kids so I was good, besides I have to drink like 10-15 to really feel anything, and at the pace I was drinking them, it might as well of been water. We relaxed in the hotel a little bit and then went down for some dinner. We were not going to meet David until 6 .We went down to eat about 4:30 and got a call from David an hour early at 5. He met us at the hotel restaurant with his girlfriend, mom dad and sister. Andrew could not have been more happy to see them. He is in love with Kira ( his girlfriend ) and adores the Ellis family.

Andrew with Kira at Friday nights dinner....


David aka Days with Luke at Friday nights dinner ( Looks how tiny looks with David )


While they finished eating, we headed to the game room so Andrew can have a little fun. I must comment though, he wants to play the other "games" a.k.a - the slot machines. I am sure that would have gone over well with Casino management. He was perfectly fine with what we offered him. He just runs from game to game, it is adorable. When the card ran our, we headed back to the room, David called looking for us, so Daddy and Andrew headed back to the game room. I stayed since it was getting close to Luke's next feeding. I went down once I was done, but we were not there long. We were back and forth doing things, but I pretty much settled back in the room after the second trio to the game room. There is only so much you can do in a casino with 2 kids. At this point we were waiting for Grandma and Grandpa to arrive. Meanwhile Daddy took a walk with Andrew while I made several attempts to get Luke to bed.

Traveling no no # 1: NEVER I repeat NEVER travel with a 4 month old over night and NOT bring the play pin/bassinet.

Because of my mistake it took hours to get him to bed, and no sleep. He was not comfortable and I am sure felt that we were not at home where he was comfortable. Andrew had no problems, he does not mind going places. He brought some of his toys and he was a happy camper. Grandma and Grandpa along with Auntie Shantie finally arrived about 10:30. The made a short stop up to the room to say hi and then everyone left me to go gamble. Left out? No! ( tear) I suppose it is the duty of the mother hen to stay back and look after her little Chickie's. Andrew took a bath, Luke finally fell asleep then I got stuff out for the next day and took a shower myself.

I settled in to watch some TV, Luke woke up, again, for another feeding. It was shortly after that when daddy rolled back in empty handed. =( No Range Rover for me.

We started the next day at 6:30. The alarm never went off, we had intended to be up by 6. I got ready first, we ordered room service, we eat, Daddy got ready while I got the boys ready. We checked out and headed to the graduation about 8:30. What an Adventure this was. We went down there for the graduation and we were there for about 30 minutes. It was a hike. The parking was atrocious and it was hot. We made it to the quad to see David get his diploma JUST in time! He came to the back where we hung for a little and then they headed off to his house. We decided to head back home. We both had to work Sunday and the kids could only last for so long. In addition Luke exploded while trying to depart. I had to stop at a bus stop to feed him while Daddy ran and got the car. The only thing I did do right is bring some formula for back up in the event where I was not in any position to nurse. Smart move for mama. He was so hungry he did not care it was not me. I was delighted to get to the car, load and get in on the road. We got home nice and early to unwind.

Luke hanging out at the Graduation


Andrew with Lindsay and Kira


David and Kira


David and Andrew


My family




We left our house and our dogs in my 19 year old brothers hands. This was mistake #2 I made. We come home to find our entry way rug stained with dog doodie. And our TV stand broken. All the while , when I asked my brother what the pegs in out fruit bowl were from he said he did not know. He lied to my face. Have some dignity and tell me the truth!

I cleaned up some and made a yummy dinner. Which was very nice considering all the eating out we did while in Reno.
I must say, in all, aside from the sleeping issue, Luke did not do all that bad for his first trip. I cannot say I see the next one down the road any time soon, but it was a nice test trip.

Blue Angels 2008 Air Show

Living near Mather has served to be an advantage rather than, what some, might call an annoyance with all the air traffic. To be perfectly honest, it is not that bad, and half the time you do not even think twice when you hear air craft. When you have kids, well, they could not be more thrilled with the endless amounts of Helicopters and Airplanes that pass by. So, when the Blue Angels were in town, we were more than happy to hear all the Jets blowing over the house. Andrew has always loved airplanes but once he knew he could watch them from his bedroom window, I'll just say his Thomas the Trains are collecting dust. In the mean time, we will just put them aside for Luke, with the hopes he will love trusty ole' Thomas as much as Andrew did. And as Andrew's wide variety of interests change from one thing to another, that is what will happen with all the other toys.

Needless to say, with our view, who needs to actually go to the Air show? That was our plan: to catch it from the driveway. However, Andrew had other plans. On Friday, the weekend of the Air show, they were practicing. So, while we were out running around that day, we drove home through Mather, Daddy and Andrew wanted to stop and watch for a bit. Frankly I have had enough of watching them while being outside, so I decided to go get my wonderful, Venti Soy iced white Mocha. I might have been gone 15 min, and when I came back Daddy was waiting for me waving something around in his hands. Apparently, while standing at the gate, Andrew decided to blurb out to one of the Blue Angel pilots ( not knowing he was a Blue Angel ) saying " where are the Blue Angels?" He came over and talked to Steven and Andrew and somehow managed to get VIP tickets to the practice that afternoon. I know the Blue Angels are very much into the whole " The kids are the future" Which is awesome. We headed home, feed Luke, and back over we went. It was very windy, and even started to rain for split second. We got a little taste of the show and watched the rest over the weekend from where we have been watching it... our drive way.

Fog Willow Pumpkin Farm

Today was a perfect day for our trip to get some pumpkins. We generally go to Davis Ranch, better known as the "sloughpenhouse" to our family ( compliments of Andrew ) a.k.a Sloughhouse. We like going there because you can get large Pumpkins without breaking the bank. However, since I knew we would not be getting 4 like we normally do, I thought it would be nice to try some place different. I had seen last year the sign for the "Fog Willow Pumpkin Farm" but we had already did the "sloughpenhouse" trip. So, this year was prefect since we do not have our own house to decorate and go all out on.

Andrew had a blast. He wants every other Pumpkin we walked by so when we found that "perfect one" I had to make sure it was a really big deal that he found our pumpkin. We did 2, which will be easy for Andrew and I to carve instead of the normal 3-4. since Daddy will be at work and will not be able to help me lift them. Halloween will be a big day for Andrew and I. We will carve the Pumpkins and make some Halloween Cup cakes. We will start at Grandma Carmen's and Grandpa Tom's and then make our way back to Manama and Papa's to do the majority of out Trick of Treating.
















And here they await there Wednesday execution!

No Apple Hill for us...

It is that season... perfect weather for Apple Hill. The weather, the Pie's the treats. the drive! I told Steven I wanted to go so, we planned on Friday. The weather was in question, however when we woke up you could tell the rain had died off and it was lookin good, a little cool but good. We headed up the hill to drive into nothing but dark black yucky clouds. By the time we got into Placerville it was raining/sprinkling, enough for us not to want to take the chance. Man, I got up really early working til 1am the night before just to drive back home. Sucks! You wanna know where we ended up? At a car show at Cal Expo! A stinnkin car show. We went from going to Apple Hill to a car show. How boring was this for me? Oh yea, torture. The boys loved it. Sigh* and I am going to have another boy.. what oh what will I do with myself?

Jelly Belly Tour

A little late to post.. I have been so busy and excited with the house I have completely left out our Jelly Belly tour. I did not really take any pics , just one of Andrew with the Jelly Belly guy! It was pretty neat. Have never been before. It is something you really only do once ( to me ) but then again I would not mind smelling the parts where is smells like sugar. I did not enjoy the areas that smelled like machinery, but I made it through.

I know now why they do not charge for the tours. That gift shop is dangerous. Who knew you could spend soooo much money on Jelly Belly candy? I mean we did get a Jelly Belly machine, and the Jelly flops were 2 for 16 and the third is free.. that stuff adds up. It was a nice thing to do to make some time pass on the weekend.

Chandelier Drive-Thru Tree: Leggett, Ca

We will for sure be visiting again soon. By the time we arrived, it was pretty late and we were not able to visit all the other places like Confusion Hill, One log house and Trees of Mystery. We loved it there.. it was so quiet and peaceful.

Hard to think you can get a car through there!

Mama and all her boys =)

Daddy showing off! =)'

Andrew wanted a picture of his train on the "tracks"

Like a glove!

Papa and Andrew with his cheezy smile

Daddy and Andrew

It was so peaceful watching the ducks, geese and Deer off in the distance..