What's Up Wednesday

The last Wednesday of every month is my What's Up Wednesday post. Today I'm linking up with Mel and Shay and you should too.

Here are the questions.

1. What we're eating this week...

whatever is left in the fridge and Chick-fil-a

2. What I'm reminiscing about...

Warm summer days as it's been cold and drizzly here

3. What I'm loving...

watching C & E's relationship develop. I hope they become best friends

4. What we've been up to...

watching lots of baseball, a few outings with friends between the rain storms and going to the gym

5. What I'm dreading...

flying alone with 2 children this weekend, at least it's non stop

6. What I'm working on...

packing and cleaning the house

7. What I'm excited about...

hanging out with my family and friends over the next 2 weeks and visiting my favorite city Chicago

8. What I'm watching/reading....

Baseball, Orphan Black and Veep. i need new summer shows

Baby-Led Weaning/cookbook, What Alice Forgot (i liked it, but felt like i had read the story before), Leaving Time and I'm participating in a book review for a not yet published book

last month i mentioned that i was reading the One and Only, but several pages into the story i realized it's the only other book i have actually read this year LOL

9. What I'm listening to...

meghan trainor. her songs are incredibly catchy 

10. What I'm wearing...

it's been cooler here in SD so most days it has either been leggings or workout close and my fleece. classy i know. i am looking forward to wearing shorts soon

11. What I'm doing this weekend...

see #7

12. What I'm looking forward to next month..

celebrating my hubby's birthday and our 10th wedding anniversary. we were babies

13. What else is new...

i'm working on cleaning/purging my closet. I have a hard time letting things go

14. What is your favorite thing to grill/BBQ...

i love most things grilled, but right now i'm loving smoking chicken on our smoker. it's so much juicier. i would also like to trying grilling pizza and pineapple is delicious grilled

Happy Memorial Day and Summer Bucket List

Memorial Day has always been one of my favorite times of the year. For half of my life it meant the end of a school year, summer camps and long summer nights. In my adult years I came to understand what it truly meant. We lived in DC for 5 years and every year I thought about attending the Memorial Day service at Arlington Cemetery, but never did. Even though, today was one of the coldest Memorial Days I can remember and we didn't have any plans I still took a minute to remember the fallen who gave the ultimate sacrifice. I thought it would have been appropriate to end the day by watching American Sniper, but Redbox didn't have it.

With the official kick off to summer underway I wanted to share this year's bucket list. Some of these are repeats of things we've already done and there are several new things. I love having activities to look forward to with friends.

Summer Bucket List (in no particular order)

1. Celebrate our 10th Anniversary
2. Visit Tijuana (this probably won't happen, but we are so close...)
3. Leatherhead Aviation Museum (Did this last week)
4. Birch Aquarium
5. Apple Picking in Julian
6. San Diego County Fair
7. Take a ferry ride/walk around Coronado
8. Donuts @ #DonutBar and Farmer's Market
9. Firehouse Museum (Free 1st Thursday of the month)/Tour of Firehouse  
10. Hikes
11. Lunch with Daddy
12. Roasting marshmallows on the beach at sunset
13. Pool party
14. Swim Lessons
15. Takes pics in Balboa Park
16. Camp on the beach
17. Road trip to LA
18. Movie in the Park
19. Register for summer reading program
20. Trip to Visit Family in MO & IL
21. Grunion Run
22. Check out the tide pools

What are your plans for the summer?

Mother's Day Festivites

This past week was filled with Mother's Day festivities and it all started with a MNO on Thursday. These lovely ladies are part of our mom's church group and we met up for our second MNO of the year. We were missing a few ladies, but it was great to leave the babies at home with dad for the evening. 

On Friday morning I hosted a mom's brunch. We had everything from mimosas, cheese fondue, zucchini muffins, Starbucks treats, etc. It was delicious. The kids enjoyed pulling out every toy we own, but I think that means it was a successful morning. I didn't get any pictures, but I guarantee we had a blast. 

Saturday night I hung out with two other mommas. We ate, nursed babies and gabbed. It was another fun night. 

Sunday morning was Mother's Day and Baby dedication at church. We decided to have Everett dedicated and it was a perfect addition to the day. I loved celebrating this day with my loved ones. The coolest part was having grandma and grandpa watch the dedication from their computer in MO. 

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I am so blessed that God entrusted these two to me and their dad. 

Life Lately ...

We've been keeping busy here with activities while the weather has been moderate. First up the Carlsbad Flower Gardens followed by the SD Botanical Gardens. 

Checking out the birds. You can always count on seeing birds. 

Getting stamps on their "passports" was one of the highlights. 

Wagon ride was the second highlight.

Flower fields. We went the weekend before the last week the Gardens were open and you could tell the season was coming to an end. 

Me and my girl and boy.

The following week we meet some friends at the San Diego Botanical Gardens. We didn't see much of the Gardens; instead we spent the majority of our time playing in the kids section. She could have spent all day playing in the sand. For all my SD friends the first Tuesday of the month the Gardens are FREE and it was worth it.

Disneyland

When we decided to buy tickets to the MLS game we contemplated staying an extra day and tackling Disneyland. While Anaheim is fairly close spending 3-4 hours in the car driving and walking around in the sun all day with two kids doesn't sound fun. I've been hinting since last summer that I wanted to take C before she turned 3 so we could get her in free. We were lucky to have our good friend Yohan join us for the day. He was a trooper too, carrying C around the park when she got tired of walking.

Up bright and early and ready for Disneyland

We ended up getting the park hopper pass and I'm glad we did. I didn't realize the parks are right next to each other and went back and forth between them several times. I did some Pinteresting the week before and read several blogs for tips and tricks to making the most of our day. Plus I asked several friends what they recommended since our kids are the same ages.

Riding the tram from the parking lot to the park.

When we arrived I split from the boys and went directly to Royal Hall. The boys headed off to reserve Space Mountain fast passes. The line was so short they got passes and rode the ride. Our line was pretty short too and we only had to wait 20 minutes to see 3 princesses - Mulan, Cinderalla and Snow White. While on our way to the princesses I picked up passes for the Frozen show later that morning. After meeting the princesses we headed back to Tomorrowland for a few rides. We rode Space Mountain and some other spaceship ride which I think was the longest line we stood in (20 minutes) all day. After we finished the ride it was time for the Frozen show. We made it back just in time to wait and find out they were canceling the show due to technical difficulties. They brought Anna out for pictures to appease all the angry parents. By this time C was solo hungry that she almost gave up her spot in line for a snack. Girl gets cranky when she's hungry.

Riding the spaceship ride

We headed over to Adventureland for lunch and a few rides. On our way we grabbed fast passes for the Carsland ride. It was around 11:30 and our passes weren't good until 8:00 that night. We weren't sure if the kids would last that long, but we got them anyway. For lunch we devoured corn dogs. They were so good and I highly recommended them. Next we rode the Ariel ride and headed off have our picture taken with one of the Disney characters. We were happy to find out that Minnie was the character of choice. We rode a few more rides in Adventureland before heading back to Disneyland. By this time C decided to take a nap, something she rarely does anymore and we thought our time at Disney might be over. While she slept we waited in line and grabbed a Dole Whip. It was delicious and worth the wait.

Riding the Ariel ride

Since the parade was getting ready to start we wandered over to watch. I had read that reserving space could be a challenge but I didn't expect grown ups to be so rude and stand/sit in front of our strollers in the 6 inches that were available. Seriously, I think Disney brings out the worst in some people. We stayed for most of the parade before heading back over to see more princesses. This time we saw Meridia, Rapunzel, Belle, Cinderella and Snow White. We had hoped to see Ariel (C and my's favorite princess) but she was no where to be found. We rode a few more rides, met Mickey, ate some more snacks and headed back over to Adventureland to ride Cars. We had an hour to kill before our fast passes were available so we grabbed another corn dog, bought a hat and relaxed.

The Cars ride was worth our 10 minute wait. The regular line had a waiting time of 90 minutes. I don't know if I have the patience to wait in those kind of lines anymore. The ride was well done and my favorite part was racing another car at the end. We watched the Cars movie this past week and I was amazed at how much the ride mimicked the movie. We left after the ride but heard the fireworks going off as we were riding the tram back to our car.

The day/weekend was so much fun and the kids did so well. Neither one of them whined or complained the whole time. I have to say that I expected Disneyland to be much bigger. And I thought we'd see Cinderella's castle, but I found out it's a much smaller Sleeping Beauty's castle or as I called it Cinderella's vacation home. I would love to take C back before her birthday, but I don't know if we will make it.

Souvenirs from our trip