Hello – Summer Update

I have been so busy!  Here’s what’s going on…

• We went on a little vacation last week to Oregon.  Visited two aunts, went to the Enchanted Forest, Prehistoric Gardens and Gold Beach.  Had a great time.

• Andrew performed a magic show for Katie’s birthday party and the kids loved it!

• I took the Joann’s sewing class and made this pillowcase… then I finally made the dress for Katie.  Let me know what you think!

• Katie finished her swim classes and will be starting gymnastics at the end of this month.
• Grant is trying so hard to talk… a few words he’s yelling at me: BABY, HERE! and MAAAAAAA!
• Baby is getting big (3 months already)
• We are all sick.

What I did on my summer vacation, by Jennifer.

Well, I’m back… and only 351 posts in my google reader! LOL.  We had a great time and I will try to write about each day at a later time, but here is the breakdown of our 9 day vacation.

Day 1: Drive to Gilroy, CA

Day 2: Gilroy Gardens (that’s me in a giant artichoke above!)

Day 3: Santa Cruz Boardwalk, train to redwoods – my birthday!

Day 4: Alcatraz and San Francisco

Day 5: Jelly Belly Factory tour, Old Town Sacramento and Train Museum

Day 6: Calaveras County: Angels Camp, Murphys (Mercer Caverns) and Columbia – old mining towns

Day 7: Volcano (mining town) Lake Tahoe – 4th of July!

Day 8: Lake Tahoe

Day 9: Drove home

Some days were great, but as Katie is 3, we had some rough times as well.  Grant travels wonderfully…. no issues with him at all.   I think he was just excited to have me sit in the backseat next to him.  We booked a few things online ahead of time and got better rates than if we had just shown up.  We even got 1/2 price coupons from our hotel to Gilroy Gardens which saved us quite a bit of money.  Andrew was recovering from a cold on the way up, but it turned into pharyngitis and he had to go to the emergency room.  Other than that, no problems along the way.  It was a great way to see some parts of California that we had never been to. 

2008 Family Vacation

We leave tomorrow morning for our vacation!  The past several weeks have been spent planning and preparing for this year’s road trip.  Today was spent running last minute errands: oil change, pedicure (WHOO HOO!!  I think it’s been about 3 years since I’ve gone to have one done professionally!), dentist, car wash, etc. 

There are so many fun things we have planned including a visit to Alcatraz, a DUCK tour of San Francisco, Fourth of July at Lake Tahoe, and a tour of the Jelly Belly factory, just to name a few.  Of course I will be posting some pix when I get back.  So don’t forget about me in the meantime!  I can only imagine what my Google Reader will look like when I get back.

xoxo

Going on a road trip…

Andrew and I are busy planning this year’s road trip.  Looks like we will be traveling on my birthday again.  We’re heading up to San Francisco and Tahoe this year.  In honor of our upcoming Alcatraz tour, we watched The Rock last night. (How is it Sean Connery looks so good even at his age?)  My FIL is coming with us, so that should be fun.  Katie loves taking road trips and is really looking forward to going.  Baby should travel well… I’ll be in the backseat some of the time, so I’ll be able to keep an eye on both of them.

This picture is of her a few years ago at Lake Tahoe taking a nose-dive into the water. LOL… our friend Jon calls it the snorkeling picture. 

I plan on making another photo book again this year.  We used mypublisher last year through the Costco website and got about 40% off.  Our book was gorgeous… I just love it!  I’ve been looking at Blurb’s site too, and can’t decide which service I want to use.  Has anyone out there used Blurb yet?

Being creative

Curly wrote about this awesome site where you can be creative and make some collages.  Here is my creation.  My old 90210 collage from high school has nothing on this!

 

190,092

I found a fun Geography game…

That was my score and I couldn’t pass level 6.  Now I have to try to beat my score!

What is your score?

UPDATE:

I am now up to level 8 with 270557 points.

…and I’ve never been to Boston in the fall!

I found a fun site where you can select the states you’ve been to and a map is produced.  Of course I am a little technically challenged, so I was unable to get the code and put up a better copy of it here, but I did save the image to my computer and used that here instead. 

At any rate, I have been to 25 of the 50!  Fun!  I can’t wait to check out the other 25… especially the northeastern seaboard. 

Our Summer

A couple weeks ago, we took a much needed vacation and drove up through Oregon and Washington to Canada.  It was so much fun and I plan to do a full run down of our trip, but for now wanted to at least post what we’ve been up to lately!

Katie is now two and will not stop talking.  Not only does she copy everything I say, but she also will sing the songs that I sing.  How fun is it to teach your daughter Dr. Demento’s Fish Heads?  VERY!

We’ve also learned that #2 is going to be a boy.  Needless to say, Daddy is quite happy.  Boy Scouts, here we come.

I’m STILL getting sick during this pregnancy.  I’m closing in on 20 weeks (halfway there!) and so far, everything is good.  We’re looking at an early December baby.  What a nice Christmas present!

My husband is doing great and appears to be cancer-free with no radiation or chemo needed.  What a blessing.  He is on the job hunt, as his former employer could not hold his position.

All in all we are doing great and hope the rest of this year has nothing but good things for us.

Road Trip: Destination Vegas

The title of this blog can be deceiving… though I did in fact take a road trip to Las Vegas over the weekend, it was not the glitz and glamour you’d expect.

My friend Jenn & I drove up to see our friend Shannon who moved to Sin City almost 2 years ago.  This was a great trip for me on many levels…

Postcards from the Edge

I love postcards.  Getting them, sending them… whatever.  I have stacks that I have collected from various places I’ve visited, as well as ones I have received from places I’ve never been.  I’m lucky enough to have friends that would appease me and send me one while they are on their own travels.