Nice set up! We used some of our tax refund money for some nice camping equipment that will last us a long time. We have come to terms with our having three kids and so we now like to camp in comfort. It was a lot more fun to not have to rough it as much. Although all 5 of us slept in a 3 man tent and there still weren't flush toilets (which that doesn't seem to bother any of us. Leila took a look down the latrine hole and told me to hold on to her because "falling in there would be worse than falling in a swimming pool" I have to agree with her on that one. I can't think of too much else that would be worse than falling in a hole filled with, well you  know what.

The A's Game

Sam had some work to do in Oakland and so he took advantage of that and took Leila with him, met his friend Adam (who lives in Berkeley now and is Sam's friend from High School and college) and his daughter Ellie and went to a ball game or went to see "the basketball team" as Leila kept calling the baseball game. And of course a trip with Dad has to include the play McDonalds. I've long surrendered that a lot of times moms keep the kids healthy while the Dads make sure that the kids know somewhat about cultural things like play McDonalds, Slurpees and Cotton Candy. It's a good balance.

Dance Along

Leila decided that she no longer wants to go to gymnastics and wants to go to Dance Along instead. My friend Vanessa teaches it as a community service. We went for the first time since I was about 3 months pregnant with Lucy. The girls had a great time. This past week we drove to the same area where Leila did gymnastics to go to a sports equipment store. We asked Leila if she was sure that she did not want to do gymnastics anymore. Leila said that she was sure, but asked if we could still sometimes go to "the bagel place" (Panera Bread) next door (both Grandmas have taken her there when visiting). I laughed and said sure and was also ensured that she really is not interested in doing gymnastics right now.

The Love of a mom or a friend...

...or whoever kept calling our house last night. She called I swear more than 10 times and asking for Lydia (or Vivian, I couldn't quite make out the name) in Spanish. I kept telling her she had the wrong number.  She must have thought if she kept calling the number she would eventually reach Lydia or Vivian, kind of like looking in the same spot over and over for your lost keys. "For sure this is a bill collector. Who else would be so admament about getting in touch with this Lydia or Vivian?", I thought to myself.  Soon, I just stopped answering the phone. This morning I woke up and checked our voice mail and smiled when this woman was finally contented when she reached my voice mail recording, "Leave a Message.". She proceeded by saying "Hola!" and then sang Happy Birthday to this Lydia (or Vivian).  Only love could cause someone to call the wrong number over and over and over again, just to simply sing Happy Birthday to someone. So, Lydia (or Vivian) we got your message- Happy Birthday!

Semester End Saturday Celebration! Continued

We ended our day at Jamba Juice in Fair Oaks. I decided Fair Oaks is not such a bad place. I absolutely love where we live at the moment and always tell Sam that I would have a hard time moving. Then I think it really hit home yesterday as we were waiting for our Jamba Juices- we live in the ghetto. Everyone keeps telling us it is the ghetto, even people in the neighborhood and I think I always joked about it, but didn't think too much about it. We hear police helicopters incessantly throughout the week (sometimes with spot lights and sometimes calling out on their megaphones the description of someone they are looking for). I always just saw it as an annoyance and totally uncalled for use of tax dollars on the gas it takes to fly those things, but today I saw it a bit different- we live in the ghetto. A few blocks over is the neighborhood of Oak Park where we moved from a year ago. It was not uncommon to hear gunshots, screeching tires and sirens. I used to hear about neighborhoods like that and it was a bit foreign even though I knew they were out there. I just realized yesterday that we lived in that kind of neighborhood (although I would have you know it is nothing compared to the ghettos or NY and Chicago). We lived in the ghetto, complete with a pimp and drug dealers next door, the food bank down the street and and an emergency relief shelter too, oh and a woman's center around the corner and a major drug park the other direction. I used to joke about it, but I think it really hit home- that is the ghetto. And now we live just a few blocks over. I always saw it as being totally awesome that there were thrift stores all over the place and so close to our home. Now , I think I realize that it is the ghetto and so of course there are thrift stores all over the place. On our way home in the car we passed a huge stretch SUV Limo and commented that I could not believe that people still use those things with the crazy price of gas. Then as we pulled into our neighborhood I realized that this is where the drivers of those vehicles live and are probably just scraping by. It's so interesting how wide of a gap there can be between neighborhoods. I go to a store in our neighborhood and almost always I have to grit my teeth because someone is cussing out their kids or just cussing out. We see drug problems and their effects on people. We see people riding their bikes pulling frozen treats in a cooler to make a living or selling Tamales in hot weather. We see people pushing carts full of cardboard boxes and cans and anything else they can possibly recycle to get a little money. We also have met some of the most genuine and caring people I have ever known. So often we find fresh fruit on our doorstep from people's trees, neighbors have given us presents for Lucy when I know for a fact they have a hard enough time feeding their own family, we find diapers and kids VHS tapes on our doorstep... if you walk through our house almost everything has a story that comes along with it. One day we will probably be able to afford to buy the nicer things in life, but right now I am content with where we are, even if it is the "ghetto". And quite frankly, I think the girls and I look pretty darn cute in the Thrift Town and K Mart $2.50 Specials. But, it was kind of nice to go to a neighborhood for a while where they had a water fountain in the middle of a shopping area (posh) and people dressed nicely, even if they were just going to pick up a video at Blockbuster.

Semester End Saturday Celebration!

I thought it was cute, but also a bit sad and very truthful when I asked Leila what we should write on the banner to welcome Sam home from his last final. I thought along the lines of "Congratulations". I think Leila nailed it. (I'm not sure why this is underlined, but it is. I'm still figuring out this blog thing.)

Leila is excited to go. Mia on the other hand is working to just be there. She had spent the previous day and the night before that emptying the contents from her stomach into a metal bowl. The poor thing, that was her first bad stomach sickness.
Lucy is just happy to be.
We then went to Dairy Queen. Apparently there has been a Dairy Queen hidden on a street that we always drive on. I saw it a couple of Sundays ago and had Sam turn around, just to make sure that was really what it was. Yep, sure was. So, we finally remembered to go there yesterday. I will admit it was a bit ghetto. Sticky floors and tables, only one lightbulb was on in the whole dining area and apparently they don't fill up the dining room completely and so they see no point in taking all of the chairs off of the table tops (as you can see in the pics). They still had the good ole "Hot Eats and Cold Treats". Leila looks like she could be in one of their ads. What a sweetheart.
Mia on the bike in Walmart. 

We did it! We got through one more semester of law school! Sam finished up his last final on Saturday morning and now we have him in the evenings for a whole week before Summer School starts. It's pretty crazy, but from what everyone says life just stays crazy. So, yes, I'm super excited to have him finish up school in December but, I also am doing my best to totally love and embrace today. The thing that I have noticed the most since I have been working on embracing the day, is that there are some really awesome cars on the road. My favorite of yesterday was a dad driving an old Hurst and he had his son that looked like he was about 5 or 6 in the front passenger seat with his dark black shades on and his arm resting on the window. The boy was so cute and reminded me of my little brother at that age. Then Sam and I reminisced about the funny style of shades when we were kids. The black shades with the neon colored on the sides. I think my little brother had several pairs of those. We also saw an ice cream truck for sale. That too reminded me of my little brother, Brad. When asked as a kid what he wanted to be when he grew up, he would say in a thick New York accent. "I want to be an ice cweam man". We tried to dissuade him, but he was pretty adamant.  We'll see what happens.  Here are some pics from our day.

Lucy joins us at the Table...

even if it is just to play with her toys.

The Gardens

Everyone Loves the Sprinklers, Especially Leila and Mia

Monday, April 28th

Tired!, no, Exhausted! yes, Totally exhausted!

My Sister-in-law, Heidi (hopefully she doesn't mind me telling this story, because I think it is absolutely hilarious) gave birth to their third daughter a couple of weeks before Lucy joined our family. It's nice to have someone a little bit ahead so that I can kind of be prepared with what is ahead for me. ANyway, a few weeks ago she showed up at my parents house and my mom said to her, "Heidi, you are so lucky that a police officer didn't pull you over". Heidi was a bit confused and wondered why she would be pulled over. Then my mom pointed out that Heidi was still wearing little Elysse in the baby pack. She had driven the whole way with Elysse in her front pack and had not even noticed it. This story gave me a big laugh and then I thought, "Wow, Heidi must be exhausted".

The Cactus Needle

So, now it is a few weeks later and although I don't think my day yesterday topped Heidi's in manifestation of how tired I am, but certainly would be a runner up. Yesterday morning while Sam was taking his last final exam for the semester I went out to our yard barefoot to clip some roses when something stuck in my foot. I looked down and there was a GIANT cactus needle stuck in my foot (they are about an inch and 1/2 long and very sharp and strong). Sam had removed this giant cactus from our yard a couple of months ago (it was probably about 12 feet tall- who plants those in their yard anyway???!!!??!) as he was afraid it would fall and cause some serious damage. I knew that their were still some stray needles out there, but completely forgot to wear shoes. I could not remove that cactus needle out for the life of me. I searched the Internet for help (but apparently this is not a normal enough thing that there was no information on ridding your body of GIANT cactus needles, only the teeny tiny ones, I even looked on the Boy Scouts of America website, no such luck), I tried called the 24 hr nurse line (I guess the 24 hr nurse had stepped out to use the restroom). Finally Sam got home and was able to pull that sucker out.

The Oven

I had made lemon cupcakes to congratulate him for a semester well done. We had the cupcakes and left the house and the oven on too from 10:30 AM to 7:30 PM. Our house was sure toasty when we got home. No fire, phewwww!

The Bathroom

We ended up at a Walmart (a store we try not to set foot in too often, but it was actually an enjoyable experience, looking at toys, Mia rode a little bike around the whole store (which caused her not to try to pull everything off the shelves, good thinking Sam), we looked at camping gear, we looked at clothes and hats... Anyway, Mia had been sick with a stomach virus on Thursday night and Friday all day, we thought she was better on Saturday. It seemed she was not completely better when she had a diaper full of diarrhea and it was running down her leg (don't worry, we had already returned the bike to it's proper place by then). So, Mia and I walked all the way across the store to find that the women's bathroom was being cleaned and so we had to walk all the way back to the front of the store to go to the other bathroom. By this time her diarrhea was a bit dried to her leg and pretty nasty. So, we go in the bathroom and I put her up on the changing table taking my sweet old time. I put a paper towel under her even to make it feel more at home for her (and hygienic purposes). I start wiping her leg off and a little boy walks in and goes to a stall. I thought it was a bit strange that he was not followed by his mom. I thought, "Why doesn't he just go in the men's bathroom?" I continue chatting away with Mia about how nice it is for Daddy to be able to be with us and about her messy diaper, when I turn around and what do I see? Urinals! Big, huge, white urinals! Ahhhhhhh! "I'm in the men's bathroom!", I exclaim! The little boy peaks out from his stall and says, "Ya". "Oh my goodness I am in the men's bathroom", as I look at the urinals that look even bigger now. I start laughing hysterically and pack up my things and meet 2 men standing in the doorway (who knows how long they were there) with really confused looks on their faces, kind of looking at the mens sign on the door. I told them I was in the men's bathroom and they responded that they had been really confused. Oh! I had such a good laugh about that one as did Sam when I met him out in the car.

The Iron

I try to iron the girls' dresses for church on Saturday night, as we have church on Sunday morning at 9 AM. So, I ironed those dresses and then did some evening chores and then sat down to watch a movie when Sam asked me if I was done with the iron. "Yes, did I leave it on?" I am usually obsessive about turning off the iron (and the oven, believe it or not). I swear I had turned that iron off. Again, no fire, phewwww! Do I have to even mention that I fell asleep in the middle of the movie? (although that IS normal behavior, the rest is not) So, now it is Sunday morning and Mia, Lucy and I are at home. My tummy kind of hurt and my head feels cloudy. I don't know if I am actually sick, but I think I need the rest anyway. Who knows what could happen if I went out in public again as tired as I am. So, Heidi, I am following in your tired footsteps. I am so glad that Sam will have the next week off from school, it's so nice to have him home.