We're Here!

We have been at the new house a little over a week now and things are starting to come together. The move itself was fairly uneventful with the exception of us having some issues getting the home phone and high speed internet hooked up due to the fact that our home is considered new construction (because no one has occupied it before). I did find it much harder to move with the kids. Although they were troopers, they were constantly asking for toys or snacks that inevitably would be at the house we were NOT currently at. I think in that case the fact that we moved locally and not all at once made it harder.

May is a busy month for us, even when you don't throw buying a house and moving into the mix. Jake is deep into his season of t-ball, Jadyn attended school extra days to prepare for the end of the year promotion/graduation at her preschool and of course on the very last day of the month, this year falling ON Memorial Day is her birthday, which means preparing for her party as well. So now that we have the high-speed internet hooked up, expect lots of posts and lots of pictures about all our activities. In the meantime here are a few pictures of the new house. In trying to photograph it I have come to the realization that taking pictures of the interior of a home is NOT easy. All I can say is that I tried my best.

Here is the front of the house from the bottom of the driveway. Pretty generic. The house will eventually need some front yard landscaping, although living in the desert it is not considered a priority. What I failed to capture was the beautiful Joshua trees in our front yard and the cute vinyl fencing surrounding it:

Here is the dining room table. I am showing this only because the fact that we have a blond table and chairs and all the cabinets in the kitchen are also blond was one of the reasons I knew this was "our" house:

View of the kitchen from the dining room:

View of the kitchen from family room:

Family room. After having the satellite and TV hooked up, we decided not to have the components in that top niche, so now I have to fill that space with something decorative as well. I am thinking a vase set would look nice.

Our bedroom complete with our old living room TV and entertainment center:

The master bath. Big selling point for me was the separate shower and tub. Our realtor said the average adult only uses such tubs three times a year but I am determined to beat that average by at least ten times over.

Jake's room - painted and decorated almost exactly like it was in the old house:

Jadyn's room. A work in progress because her new big girl furniture won't be arriving until next week but I had to show off all of Joe's hard work because he did the chair rail and paint himself and I think it turned out gorgeous!

Here are the kids enjoying our new big bathtub:

And Jazz climbing one of the three Joshua trees in our backyard. Out of all the pets, she is adjusting the best, which is funny because in my experience cats usually FREAK out. She is loving all the new places to play both inside and outside the house:

And three features of the house that are my favorites and I didn't even take pictures of them but the office. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE being able to work as late as I like without disturbing Joe. The laundry room. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE our new laundry sorter and all the extra storage space. The walk-in closet. LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that I have room for all my clothes, shoes and scrapbooking supplies.

Anyway, I am sure I will be boring everyone with more pictures of the house as it becomes more complete, until then I have a birthday party to prepare for. Something else that will need to be overly photographed and documented. It's official. My blogging funk is over and I'm-a-back!

With End in Sight

Despite having every excuse for not blogging, the reality is that even when I have had some spare moments over the last few weeks, for some reason I have just not felt like it. This is truly the first blogging funk I have had since starting this blog over 2 years ago. Now with an end to all this chaos finally in sight, I suddenly feel the urge to write, and what a good feeling that is!

We are closing escrow on the house TODAY! I know how fortunate we are. We had a very smooth, simple and short escrow but it still feels like forever since we first had our offer accepted and found out we would be moving. Speaking of which, the big move will take place next weekend. I am really excited to get into the new place.

Joe has been in Okinawa Japan for the last week and half. He is over there training Marines. For those who don't know, Joe and I lived in Okinawa for a year when we were first married and had the time of our lives. I have to admit to being a little jealous that he is over there taking a trip down memory lane while I am here packing up the house, which carries with it a different kind of nostalgia. It is odd to see the house no longer look like our home - pictures off the wall, knick-knacks off the shelves. We moved in here when Jake was only 4 months old so its the only home the kids have ever really known and we have been happy here. Of course, I have no doubt we will be happy in our new home as well.

So anyway, did I mention Joe gets home Saturday? I can't wait. The kids can't wait. We have gotten fairly used to him taking business trips Monday-Friday but when he is gone over the weekend and through a second week, it starts to get a little rough. Always a flair for drama, Jadyn has taken to saying, "I miss Daddy! I love him! He is so cute and cuddly!". It really makes me think of the huge sacrifice our military families make, having Daddy (or something Mommy) deploy for 6-12 months at a time. It also makes me think that I may not have been cut out for it should Joe have decided to stay in the military. Then again, I just closed escrow on a house and packed up to move with him gone, so I am feeling pretty confident in my abilities right now and so glad to see that the end is in sight.

Coachella Baby!

So it turns out, I was right. I cannot party like a rock star. But what I can do is go to a three day long music and arts festival, take in the sights and sounds, discover new music (like Vampire Weekend) and get to see one of my favorite bands live (Muse). Exhilarating and exhausting all at the same time, it was the experience of a lifetime. So much fun!

Day one: Rose and I drove in to Palm Springs and did some window shopping for the new house at Cost Plus World Market and then pigged out at Chiptole so we wouldn't have to buy over-priced festival food once inside. We then sat in traffic for TWO HOURS to get into the festival and just made it on time to catch the last few songs from Passion Pit before bouncing back and forth between the two bigger stages for Them Crooked Vultures (not as good as I had thought they would be) Vampire Weekend (AMAZING!!!!) and Jay Z. Unfortunately, I could not get into Jay-Z. He kept telling the crowd to get their diamonds out and I just wasn't feeling it. The good news about this is that we beat the crowd out for the evening. The bad news is we missed Beyonce joining him on stage. Guess you can't win them all.

Here are some pictures capturing the scene as we arrived:

Day Two: So since none of the bands we were interested in seeing started until later in the day, Rose and I both put back on our Mommy hats Saturday and went to our boys' t-ball games. I was glad since it was opening ceremonies and Jake's first game of the season (more on this to come). We then sat in traffic AGAIN before heading back into the festival. We caught the tail end of Band of Skulls, checked out Tokyo Police Club and scoped out the rest of the festival scene before MGMT. While they were awesome, their set overlapped with the beginning of Muse so we had to make our way over to the main stage. I will always remember dancing in a conga line type set-up to Time to Pretend. Fun, fun, fun. And then of course we saw Muse who were everything I expected and more. We also stuck around for Dead Weather before heading back to the hotel for some much needed sleep.

Mr. Muse himself on the big screen:

My allergies are working for me here. I DO NOT have a contact buzz:


It seemed like such a waste to stay in such a nice hotel when we had not the time or energy to enjoy the beautiful pools and grounds

Day Three: Rested and ready for the home stretch, we dined on wonderful Asian cuisine before heading back for the last day of the festival. We arrived to see DJ Lance (for Yo Gabba Gabba) closing out the set for King Khan and The Shrines and packed ourselves in the tent to see Mutemath up close. Then things got a little crazy. All weekend I had been waiting for the concert scene that I remember from my youth - crowd surfing, mosh pits, jumping up and down and general screaming until you have no voice. I just didn't expect it to come on day three, on one of the smaller stages from a band made of two people: Matt&Kim. I managed to stay up close and get pushed around for "Good Ole Fashioned Nightmare" but after that I wimped out and went to the back of the tent for the rest of the set while Rose remained in the thick of it all.

It took awhile to recover from that show but we mustered up the energy to go back towards the bigger stage for Phoenix, Thom Yorke and finished out the festival with Goralliz.

Settle down children. Don't get overly excited. But yes, that is the guy from Yo Gabba Gabba:

This is me saying I am hot and tired and want to get away from smelly backpack guy:

And this is me taking a picture of Rose as she continually wandered closer and I mysteriously kept drifting further and further back:

Matt&Kim right before it got too crazy to have my camera out:

This is me demonstrating what I have to do in order to see anything. I have never felt so short in all my life. Everyone there was SO tall even Rose aka Mr. Tall Woman:

Just to give you an idea of how close to the stage we got for several of the bands. Check out the crowd behind us. I believe this was during Pheonix:

The ferris wheel was a major backdrop for the weekend. Of course since Rose and I were not chemically altered or feeling the need to have a cool place to make out, we did not ever ride it:

So by this time it is midnight Sunday and we are ready to make the hour long drive home and get some sleep since Monday is well, Monday. Instead we are stuck in the parking lot for two hours waiting for our turn to get out. The driver behind us passed out, his car running in park and his head completely hanging out the window. It was hilarious. You'd be surprised what one might fun funny when you are deliriously tired and have nothing but time on your hands.

But in the end, the whole experience was SO worth it. Such a fun time and maybe, just maybe I will be recovered in time to consider doing it all again next year.

I'll Tumble for ya

Still trying to play catch-up. A few weeks ago I took the camera in again for Jadyn's weekly tumbling class. For the entire 45 minute class she is smiling and energetic and engaged. You can tell it is something she truly enjoys, which makes it all worthwhile.

Here she is eagerly awaiting the start of class:

Someone said I would eventually get a good action shot of her doing a forward roll and ta-da! Not super sharp but definitely workable:

They are now also working on handstands. I must say Jadyn has pretty good form and check out that ear-to-ear grin:

Wordless Wednesday - Weekend Visitors from Jadyn's Preschool

Super Six

So much has happened in the last week that I have decided to start with the most recent and go backwards and hope that by the end of this week I can get caught up.

And so we start with not only the most recent but the most significant - Jake's 6th birthday. I know it gets old to hear it but I just can't believe how quickly children grow. It seems like yesterday I was holding my newborn baby in my arms, in awe that I had just become a mother. And now here he is - smart and funny, one of the most thoughtful people I know (child or adult) and possessing the most infectious smile and laugh. He is our Jake. And in only the first few days since turning 6 he has already deemed himself stronger and better at his videos games because he is a year older, not to mention our mutual decision that he may be getting too big for me to carry (totally not true but it is ongoing joke between us).

On Friday, which was his actual birthday I surprised him by bringing cupcakes to his school during lunch. He shyly grinned as the entire cafeteria sang him happy birthday before he passed out the cupcakes to his classmates. After school, he got to have his best bud Sam over for a sleepover, his first non-family sleepover (further proof that he is growing up way too fast). We had a pizza picnic on the living room floor followed by pretzels and M&M snacks while watching the movie "Cars". Fortunately, the kids were all tired enough that they went to sleep with minimal fuss.

Saturday after his t-ball game, Jake, Jadyn and Joe all took turns playing Super Mario Bros on Jake's new Nintendo DS. I seem to be the only one in the family not addicted to video games.

Sunday was Jake's big Super Mario Bros party and thanks to all the friends and family who were able to attend, it was a overwhelming (albeit exhausting) success.

The set up inside:

The bounce house (and Easter egg bonus of Utah) outside:

Here is Jake with his TWO best buds, Sam and Gavin:

Check out Jake's face during the Coin Battle tournament I set up on Super Mario Bros Wii. Jake went on to win but I made him give the prize to the runner up.

We did have a little glitch with the pinata, which was a pull string that I thought we could got ahead a whack at anyway. It was a fail as the candy spilled out on the first good hit. Good thing the kids quickly forget they didn't get a turn when they saw all that candy!

Since the stores didn't have a Super Mario Bros cake, I had a NASCAR cake converted by adding my own remote control Mario Kart and fondant mushrooms and stars courtesy of Rose. I think it turned out super cute!

Pictures of the birthday boy, Jadyn and Sam in the bounce house:

Check out the faces Jake and cousin Ethan were making as he opened his gifts. Tons of Hot Wheel tracks and another game for his DS. Major score!

The family as the party was winding down:

The party kids (minus two):

Me and my "not so little" boy.

This morning after we took Jake to school, Jadyn asked what party theme Jake would want to do for his birthday next year when he turns seven. I looked at her with wide eyes and mouth agape as I responded, "Let's give Mommy a chance to adjust to the idea of him being six before we start discussing next year's party.". Please.

Any chance I could party like a rock star?

Not.

I don't think I ever mentioned it but for my birthday in February Joe got me a 3 day pass to the local Coachella Fest. Not too many exciting things happen in our neck of the woods but over the last several years, Coachella has turned into a music and arts event that rivals Lollapalooza in my book. I wanted to try and go last year but it fell on the weekend of Jake's birthday. This year when I found out Muse was headlining the festival Saturday, it became even more apparent that I wanted and needed to be there. And so now the weekend has arrived. The weather is gorgeous and although I am not sure where a 36-year old mom whose last concert was Chris Isaak while 4 months preggos with her first son will fit in with this indie/alt rock fan crowd, I am still super excited to be seeing bands like Them Crooked Vultures, Band Of Skulls, MGMT, Phoenix, Matt&Kim and Mutemath. And of course Muse. Did I mention how much I love, love love, Muse?

Speaking of my birthday, if you recall, my friend Solinda planned a surprise birthday dinner for me and therefore I did not have my camera to capture the moment. Well Solinda made sure to get photos for me and so better late than never, here is me with some of my closest friends: Lindsay and Rose (my partner in crime for this weekend) standing and Ali, Solinda, myself and Maria sitting.

Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend. No doubt I will.

Happy Trails

Friday the kids had off from school so I braved the pollen-filled air and we met with The Beyer Family for picnic, play and a trail at the preserve. This is one of my favorite places because when you are surrounded by all the trees, you can seriously forget you are in the desert. It's beautiful. We took some time out on the trail for some pictures, some sweet and some silly. Rose was playing with my camera as she has a Nikon.

I am so glad she forced me to take my sunglasses off for this picture with Jadyn:

My attempt at a group shot. Gavin's little brother isn't even in the picture because he fell backwards into the brush before I could take it. He wasn't in a picture taking mood after that:

Silliness:

This picture can give you a good idea of why I love this trail so much.