Celebration and loss

For Zoe's Baptism anniversary celebration, she chose to have white spaghetti for dinner, and we made yummy s'mores bars for dessert. God blessed us with a wonderful, outgoing, fun-loving, smart and responsible daughter and we couldn't be more proud!

It has been a bit of an emotional weekend for her (and us) though, with the news that the assistant principal at her middle school was killed in an accident Friday evening. Everyone has been in shock since hearing the news. Mrs. Graesser was a wonderful woman who was a positive role model for the students, as well as the mother of two young children. It's hard to understand loss like this. At church this month we've been studying the book of Job and dealing with suffering. The pastor had a very encouraging message about uniting in suffering, and grieving together. Hopefully the students can come together and support one another this week as they deal with this loss.

Greco-Roman Festival

Today was a fun day for the 6th graders at Vail Ranch. They got to dress up in togas and celebrate with their annual Greco-Roman Festival. Since there are very few opportunities for parents to be on the middle school campus, I decided to take advantage of this chance to volunteer for the day!

 Zoe and Maddyn were dressed and ready to have fun. The groups of kids rotated through 12 stations including Greek alphabet, Make-up/Tattoos and Photos, Olympics, Pythagorean Theory, Mazes, Bookmarks, Food tasting (chicken kabobs, pita bread with hummus, and baklava), and Chariot races. Since I was serving food outside, I was able to watch Zoe being pulled in her chariot.

 They lost the race, but I think she was enjoying her ride!

The kids didn't love every station, but it was a fun day for them to get out of their normal classes and routines. I enjoyed getting the chance to spend some time on the campus, interact with the kids and teachers, and just see how things work around there!

The last couple of weeks...

I seriously do not know where April has gone. The weeks have flown by! I wouldn't say we've been any busier than normal, but it just seems to be moving quickly.

In the last few weeks we have:

Enjoyed our spring weather and had some pool time...

 The kids loved using their new pool toys that they got from Mimi and Gramps for Easter.  It was so warm out that Zoe decided to try burning leaves with her magnifying glass. She got lots of smoke but no real flames. :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 We also got a chance to go visit Poppe. We had a really nice time together, and he did a lot of reminiscing. Although he's been up and down the last few weeks, he seems to be comfortable for now.

 We  headed back to the dentist to get Cooper's tooth fixed. After an hour in the chair, he came out with a tooth that is pretty close to the original. It doesn't look or feel exactly like his old one, but for now it's pretty darn close and it's nice to see his smile back!

He did what??

As I was sitting in the PTA meeting last night I got a call and text from Joe telling me to call him right away. Cooper had been playing out front with the neighbors and fallen face first into the driveway. Unfortunately, his lip and front tooth took the brunt of the fall.
Seriously, this poor kid has been through a lot the last few months! He's given me a lot of gray hairs recently! I had to wait until this morning to call the dentist, hoping for no nerve damage to the tooth. Although the dentist's office was closed for the week for spring break, they took pity on me and met me for an emergency appointment for xrays and an exam after work. Thankfully, the nerves look ok, and they will be able to bond the tooth without major work. We have to wait two weeks, for the trauma of the tooth to settle, and then he will get it fixed. The bonding "should" last through his adolescence!

Also yesterday, I also got a call from my mom that Poppe was at the hospital. After my meeting, she called to update me with the news that he has been diagnosed with cancer. At the age of 89, there is no way he is strong enough to deal with the treatment. After processing the news, my mom and aunt have been working with the doctors and setting up hospice care. At this point, I am praying for comfort and peace for him. We are looking forward to visiting with him this weekend and spending some quality time together.

It has been quite a week, and I'm looking forward to some less stressful days ahead...I hope!

Easter

The kids were hard at work last night dying eggs for the Easter Bunny to hide.
They woke up this morning eager to open up their baskets!
Cooper was thrilled to get the Lakers Skull Candy headphones he's been wanting, along with an electricity science kit and a marshmallow filled chocolate bunny.
Zoe loved her new flatiron and nail arts, and caramel filled chocolate bunny!

They quickly moved on to their egg hunt. The hard boiled ones inside, and the plastic ones outside.

and counted up their goodies when they finished!

I wasn't feeling well due to an unfortunate case of food poisoning. I had been up all night, but I was determined to head out to church, so we all got ready for the 11am service.
It was a beautiful service and I'm so glad we were able to go.

Sonya and her boyfriend decided to come down for the afternoon and have dinner.
We enjoyed the perfect weather, and sat outside for a BBQ dinner. It was nice to get to see them and visit for a while. Since Sonya is expecting a baby in October, Joe got down some of her baby clothes from the garage that he has saved and she had fun going through it all and decided to take it all with her.

Although I wish I had felt better, it turned out to be a nice Easter.

San Diego Getaway!

We finally had 2 days with no sport commitments, so Joe rearranged his schedule, and we planned a quick getaway down to San Diego. Although it wasn't very far, it felt like we were on a mini-vacation, and we really enjoyed it!
On our way down, we drove past the beautiful Carlsbad Flower Field, but decided not to spend the money to get out and walk around. Then we tried to get into Old Town San Diego for lunch, but it was completely packed and there was not a parking spot to be found. Our getaway wasn't starting off with much good luck, but we grabbed a quick lunch off the freeway and headed to Cabrillo National Park on Point Loma and went straight to the tide pools. It was absolutely gorgeous and we hit the low tide perfectly.

We had a great time climbing around all of the rocks and seeing what we could find.

We found tons of sea anemones, sea stars, crabs and hermit crabs, lobster shells, a shark pod with a baby shark inside and even part of a seal's head and ribs that had been eaten by a shark!


After the tide pools, we headed up to the Cabrillo Monument and the Point Loma Lighthouse.
The lighthouse is set up as a museum which you can walk through and climb a narrow staircase to the top. It is set up with the rooms as they used to be in the 1800's and early 1900's and showed just how lonely the families of the lighthouse caretakers would be.

After checking in to our hotel on Shelter Island, we went across the street to the boardwalk on the bay for the kids to ride their scooters (or Zoe's rip-stick.) They loved riding along the water, and it was a beautiful evening!

We spent some time on the old fishing dock too, and watched a ton of different birds come and go. It was fun to watch them try to steal the bait from the fishermen when they weren't looking.

Since I didn't get my Mexican food for lunch in Old Town, I was determined to have it for dinner. We found a great place up the road from our hotel, and enjoyed a fantastic dinner. Zoe tried some calamari sticks, but she wasn't too fond of them. Joe on the other hand, devoured them.
We finished the night in the jacuzzi and pool before getting some sleep.


DAY 2

Joe and I both woke up early, so he left to take a walk, and I sat outside our room on the porch enjoying the beautiful view while drinking my coffee. It was so peaceful...

We headed to Mission Beach for some fun. The kids picked up these groovy new sunglasses in a tourist shop. :)

We walked and rode down the boardwalk to the jetty.
We spent a lot of time climbing rocks and sitting to watch the surfers and boats coming and going.
We then spent some time at the Belmont Amusement Park. We were going to ride the big coaster, but the kids decided they wanted to do some of the other stuff instead.

They had a fun tightrope walk...

They did a rock wall and tree climb...

They did some laser tag, and a laser maze, and played some arcade games...
Joe and I stopped at a crepe stand and had a delicious Nutella and banana crepe...it was delicious!

We headed back to the hotel and the kids spent some time playing at the bay. The water was pretty cold, so they mostly played at the shore and in the sand.

For dinner we decided to go to San Diego's Little Italy, which has been completely renovated. It was a fun place to walk around with lots of Italian restaurants and cafes. We decided on a small casual pizza place.

We walked around through sunset, and had some gelato and hot chocolate.

We finished the night again with some swimming and jacuzzi time!


DAY 3

We said goodbye to the marina and our hotel, and headed to downtown on our last day.

We had been wanting to get the USS Midway for some time and have just never made it, so we thought today would be perfect.

The view from the deck was beautiful!

There were so many cool planes and helicopters to look at. We did a short guided tour and also listed to some of the audio tour as well.

Air Boss and Mini Air Boss...

Sitting at the War Room Table in the Admiral's Headquarters...

They loved going inside the helicopters and jets...

Cooper thought it would be pretty cool to live on this "moving city", but I told him he might change his mind if he were surrounded by 4,500 other people and stuck out in the ocean for months at a time! We really enjoyed walking around and learning more about our military history.

We moved on to Seaport Village to grab some lunch before heading home.
The weather was perfect and the views of the bay were gorgeous!
Joe gave Zoe a dollar to give to the street performer, and he happily posed for a picture with her. He was really good!

Zoe has been wanting a caricature portrait for years! We were going to do it on when we were at Disney World, but didn't want to try to bring it home on the plane. So we passed a guy on the street who was doing them, so the kids both took a seat and got one done!


Time to head home, but we sure enjoyed being away for a few days! It's time to get back to our regular schedule and routine.