Day 1 San Diego Trip

Our first day of vacation we left our house around 5:30 Wednesday morning. We had some issues with our luggage on top of our van, but we got it resolved and got to Yuma for a late breakfast. After everyone got fed and went to the bathroom we were able to drive the rest of the way to San Diego. Since we got there before it was time to check in to our hotel, we decided to grab a quick lunch and head out the beach. It was overcast and kind of cold but Mission Beach is always fun!

Daddy and Avery checking out the water. Her reaction was pretty good, she usually loves the water.

Mom and Avery snuggling to keep warm. Our beach umbrella was perfect at keeping the wind off of Avery.

The boys played in the water and sand until they got a little too cold.





Avery just chilling in her bumbo chair.

After we played for a little bit and were good and sandy, we packed up and drove north to our hotel in Carlsbad. We cleaned up and went to Olive Garden for dinner. A pretty good first day of vacation. We decided 3 kids are a lot of work to take on vacation, but we sure made some good memories.

Riding a Bike

Our Ethan has a lot of talents, physical skills such as riding a bike are sometimes lacking though. This is mostly from a lack of confidence and a fear of getting injured (he gets this from me). We've been trying to get him to ride his bike without training wheels for probably a full year, we had even bribed him with $20. Still Michael would take him out and he would whine and cry the whole time and just allow himself to fall over. Well about 2 weeks ago Michael found this video on youtube, Ethan watched it and was actually inspired to go out and ride his bike. Just last night he earned his $20 bribe by starting himself and riding all the way down the street and back.
I couldn't figure out how to post the video but this link should take you there.

http://youtu.be/eaIvk1cSyG8

Extreme Couponing Uggh!

I don't usually share my negative thoughts on here but I need to get this off my chest. I'm sure some of you out there are getting into extreme couponing and I am really pro coupon use but its just getting to be too much. I use coupons from my Sunday paper, off the internet and use them effectively with the in store ads. I just only buy a couple of each product that I actually need. So this is my beef with this new trend:
1. products get wiped of the shelf because the extreme couponer in front of you just bought 30 tubes of sausage and you can't get the 2 you wanted to cook for dinner
2. someone is always fighting with the cashier holding up the line because they weren't able to use all 4 of there coupons on the same product
3. and the one that really pushed me over the edge, my sunday newspaper is getting stolen for its coupons!!!!!
I think extreme couponing pushes people to be more dishonest than they would ordinarily be, because they are so driven to get everything for free. When I watch the show it seems so obvious to me that this is a form of hoarding and not just being a smart shopper.

Summer is Fun!

Last month I was not too excited for summer to come, I was thinking about the heat and going back to work. While both of those things are still happening we have filled my days off of with lots of fun summer activities. We have our kids movie at the theater on Wednesday mornings. Even if its not a movie we are dying to see, its fun to take my kids to the theater and Avery has been so good during the movie. Next we have our summer reading program at the library, the boys get so excited to earn the prizes. These next two weeks we have swim lessons almost every night. I sit and watch my boys bob up and down in the water, they are always looking to see if mom is watching their moves. It just warms my heart to see them having fun. And finally at the end of the month we are going to San Diego for some beach fun and Legoland!
When I was a kid I dreaded summer too, it seemed so long and boring. But it now it seems my summer days with my kids are already flying by fast.