Saturday, August 28, 2021

2nd half of August

 


“I’m gonna be green because green is a champion color and you can be blue because blue is a saaad color” Sia (and she, of course, beats me)
😂



First tooth lost naturally:) YAY!



Building a bottle launcher with Uncle Brett & last pizza plus dinner with Aunt Lili & the boys :(

 
Noelle making the kitty cozy



One of our last hang outs with everyone :(

OLAF game 

One of Sia’s first writing assignments.  So cute.  

Noelle’s cute apple clay creations for her teachers this year;) 

Halloween watching over his humans eating.  Hehe. 




Saturday, August 14, 2021

July

 



Halloweenie bo beanie turned 2!!

4th of July with Michael Joe’s side.
All kinds of illegal high-in-the-sky fireworks around the neighborhood:)

 

Lunch & swimming with Grammy ;)

We all decided his name should be Sheldon. 


My cute kitty comforting me after the near accident happened on the way home from Disneyland.  
He had NEVER done this & on this afternoon he did it twice. He knew. 



Gwinna Jovee is 9!  
We celebrated the day before because we travelled to the family reunion in Tahoe on her actual.  
We ate all kinds of junk food and she got many highlighters and fun new clothes & junk from everyone. 


REUNION 2021 
Happened the weekend after we went to Disneyland so we went into it pretty exhausted already.  

Lil did the best one!


Candy guessing jars & a fun Gwinna unicorn piñata! 

Sia was so excited to win with EXACTLY the right guess for the gummy worm jar!



Making the chunky chalk! 


Talent show time.  ‘Twas so much fun getting to hang out with Tanner and Dean & their parents too:) hehe.  I brought a few videos to show of our family creations (Noelle art & my crochet, Sia setups) and Gwinna read some stories! So brave.  Also, Sia DANCED with the most awesome serious face! So good.  
Lil showcased her family talents through pictures & Eli added some in the end as well:) 
Mom & Dad showed off some tai chi moves they’ve been working on. So nice & peaceful, even to watch.  



Our babies at the beach without their lame parents who prefer to be inside;) hahaha.  

Pictures of overrated food at the Manzanita restaurant at the Ritz hotel.  Not great.  We tried to make up for it eating around Truckee the next day…fish tacos, pie, our normal Thai order of Tom kha gai & spring rolls (at who knows where! I asked Michael to look at the name of it when we left but we both forgot!), specialty chocolate & of course later with the whole family Drunken Monkey sushi.  
Me & Michael had some long, lovely alone time eating & getting massaged…expect the massages almost killed us! I literally had a bruise & am honestly slightly traumatized by it.  Not excited to get another one anytime soon.  

This deep bathtub helped! :)

COUSINS.  Our girls are outnumbered! 

The beds were cozy. . . 


And the views were lovely

 


Many popsicles & a lot of swimming time at Grandma & Grandpa’s this summer😄






Annual window shopping collage 😝

Oh and I also need to note here that Michael had a video made for me from Karine & Paul from 90 day Fiance about how my baths are too long and of course he had Paul run at the end of it & its hilarious & perfect and I appreciate both of them more now.  




Disneyland in July

Michael Joe booked a SECOND Disneyland trip in JULY without my knowledge.  
He showed me the tickets  and hotel reservations after he planned it all out. 
He did this because the Sunday after we got back from Disneyland in May none of us were excited about talking about going back in the summer.  
Masks, heat, exhausting…  Anyway, so here we go….again in 2021. 
Ha!!!! NO MASKS. YAY!


Girls patiently waiting for mom and dad to get ready

On the road…this must be at the end of the trip when Michael drove. 

 

DOWNTOWN Disney where we ate WAY too much sugar & had fun shopping.  

In the middle of the night Gwinna got up and was sick…from both ends… ugh.  Really awful.  In the morning she kept having stomach pain on and off so we held off on going to the park until around 9 and even when we tried to she kept stopping to crouch down to stay in place until she could move.  It was not going to work so Michael walked back to the hotel with her.  Such a BUMMER. Noelle and Sia were still so excited and had such energetic spirits that it helped keep mine up! I love them. 

DAY 1. 

DISNEYLAND with Mama, Noelle & Sia.  

Michael actually took them on the carousel before he headed back with Gwinna:)

PETER PAN 
They were both nervous about “flying” but so fun and magical & they ended up loving it, of course.  

Waiting for SNOW WHITE.  It is a much lighter, brighter, and happier ride now! During the creepy scenes Sia had her face covered with both hands, but not too traumatized. Sweet girls. 

TEA CUPS.  We did this one 3 times throughout the day.  The first two times I did not want to spin but the last 2 I did it for my babies. Haha.  They loved it. 

 

IT’S A SMALL WORLD.   Always a nice, long, cool break. 

After our fantasy land morning we went back for an early lunch with Gwinna and Dad in the hotel.  


TOON TOWN fun.  We played charades with Donald Duck there & unfortunately could not do the coaster because Sia did not want to and had no one to stand with.  We all had to make sacrifices this trip.  



We did BUZZ Astro blasters twice.  Too much fun! 
After this we headed over to do AUTOPIA & I accidentally  bumped the car in front of us .. . “Oops! Sorry!”
The girls love this ride.  So interesting.  It hurts my quad to push on the gas! Haha! 
THEN Mama needed something cold so we preordered waters and dole whip next to the Tiki Room and Sia was curious about where the cold air was coming from and we saw a woman walk in with her dole whip so we followed her and had a TIKI ROOM show! And honestly it was one of my favorite parts of the day! The girls LOVED it.  They got so excited about the singing birds, thunder storm & totem pole faces singing.  

As we were heading out another suggestion from Sia led us to this great museum and we found one of Michael’s new favorite pieces of art :) 

DAY 2. 

CALIFORNIA PARK

Dad took the morning shift and covered Mater, Soarin over the World, Little Mermaid, Emotional Whirlwind, & the Carousel:) 


  

Minnie:) 

Shopping with Mama


After lunch shift was with Mama.  We did Monsters, Turtle Talk with Crush, some shopping at Elias & Clarabelles (so cute inside) for rootbeer floats;) & Mater again.  
Sia is so brave. When we did turtle talk she asked crush what his favorite ride was and he said the EAC current and referred to Sia as Seaweed Sia:) 

Later on….DAD AND GWINNA surprised us when we were in line for Little Mermaid! It was so exciting to finally all be able to be there.  Much better.  We did Mermaid together, Midway Mania, Soarin, the Carousel, Mater multiple times because the line was so short & while we did Grizzly River Run Gwinna and dad did Soarin & then we all ate dinner together next to it.  We ALL went on Soarin together one last time before leaving the park.  
Perfect way to end it.  Then we headed over to downtown for one last salt & straw ice cream and watched the fireworks! Woo! 










Our poor kids…this picture was taken soon after I hit a big pallet of something that fell off a truck to the right of us.  UGH.  Not a fun time.  Sia was pretty oblivious and relaxed enough to fall asleep but Gwinna and Noelle cried for a while & Gwinna felt like she was going to be sick it stressed her out so much.  
Yikes…I am grateful it was not worse.  Of course that’s what goes through my mind…could have been much worse! 

Text I sent mom, lil, soph: 
So please don’t ask me about this in person because I’ll just cry but we just almost got in a car accident on our way home. Freeway … huge pallet of something flew off a guys truck in one lane over and I had a moment of thinking I should swerve but …it was like time slowed down and that went in and quickly out of my mind and instead I just hit whatever it was…went over it and damaged the van underneath (pretty sure) but tire is good and we are driving home.  Michael reacted well.  The guy pulled over and we did too. He got his insurance info and all that. Took pictures. Guy felt bad and he didn’t pack the truck so he was mad about it too :/ anyway. We are alive. Gwinna and Noelle stressed and crying a bit. Sia stayed calm watching the movie and soon after fell asleep 🤪😆♥️