Mystery Party Theme????

Someone in our house is getting ready for a birthday just around the corner!
Can you tell what her theme is????

Little Charlie is soooo transparent! Pretty easy to solve the mystery, right?

Sweet San Diego

Ahhhhh San Diego... maybe my most favorite place ever. It might be that I spent 5 of my most fun, crazy, wonderful years of my life there going to college but truly, there is just something about this city that I love. This summer we spent almost a week there enjoying all the great things (and people) that San Diego has to offer! On our first day we joined my best friend Jenn and her family at their house in North County. Jenn and I love any time we get to just hang out and chat (don't mind the 4 kids getting in our way)... just like old times (almost)! The last time we came to visit, neither of us remembered to take out our cameras at all. This time we remembered, but I can't believe in the chaos of 3 toddlers and a baby... Jenn and I never got a picture together! Bummer.
SWIM DAY

Here is Ryan (the big girl of the group) with Charlie and Holden (TOTALLY, two peas in a pod these two). They were adorable to watch together. Ryan kept rolling her eyes at their silliness (you know, kindergarten girls are sooooo mature!).

This is Baby Cash. He just wanted to be part of the big kid fun too!

You should have seen these little swimmers! It was amazing to watch their little skills.

The country club area of their development not only had a pool but this amazing water park area. The girls openly wished we had "one of these" in their yard! Me too...So awesome.

LEGOLAND
We all got a good night's sleep and spent the next day Legoland. We met some more friends there and had a great day! It is truly amazing what can be done with Legos.

Holden, Charlie, and Ryan posed with the camera guy by the front entrance. Their first experience of the day with a large Lego man! Charlie looks truly amazed!

Ryan rides the train.

One of Charlie's famous poses.
Seriously... what is with this kid and her poses? Who taught her this?

Charlie on the bumper cars.

Holden on the bumper cars... a total natural! This kid is amazingly coordinated! He started riding a 2-wheeler bike without training wheels at two!!!

The Lego raceway. Look how real it looks! Amazing.

Awe... a princess was found! Charlie kept asking where Ariel was! Haha... we luckily found this princess to make her feel content.

The girls and I posed with Thomas.
(Check out the pose on Charlie!)

LA COSTA
After Legoland, we made our way to our hotel for a late afternoon swim on the highly anticipated water slides.

Sister love.

Pure joy.

Tons of fun.

SEA WORLD
The next day was all about Sea World. Jeff's girlfriend, Julie, met us there for the day. Ah, she is such a godsend! Steve spent part of the day with us but then headed to Seal Beach for the night to sleep and work so Julie filled in as the best helper EVER! We had a great day!

This is where we fed the seals and sea lions. A bird totally swooshed in a took a fish just as a dropped it for a seal. Oh my, so scary.

We had lunch with the killer whales. It was awesome to see how the girls got so excited to be so close to the whale in the lunch show.

This is our table. You can see Ulysses behind us under the water. So cool.

After the lunch show, we went underneath to see Ulysses in the tank. What a truly neat experience. And then off to the Shamu show.

This picture was while we were waiting for the dolphin show. A lot of waiting for things at Sea World... it was so nice to have Julie to help me snuggle, cuddle, and help me entertain little munchkins.

A break from the heat in the arcade. Charlie immediately spotted the dancing machine. My little Back Street Girl can cut a rug!

Ryan was awesome at earning tickets. The girls were destined to win these big items. Julie and I had to work hard. It started with skeeball... but at an average of 4 tickets a game Skeeball wasn't going to cut it. We relied on Basketball hoops and a wheel of fortune game that got us to our goal. We needed approximately 500+ tickets all together to get "equal" prizes that they wanted so off to work we went!

With a little hard work and perserverance, we earned those prizes. Oh ya!!

Our favorite show of the day... the Sea Lion and Otter Show. Totally hilarious.

Did I say Julie was a godsend already? Oh ya, I did! This proves it! The girls wanted to go on this jungle gym and they were too young to go alone so Julie (oh heavenly Julie) took them up there while I waited on the sidelines. Whoa, so great! They loved it.

A DAY POOLSIDE AT LA COSTA

I had to get a picture of this... Charlie turned the bar area of our hotel room into her personal little play area and played so well in there throughout the whole vacation. This bar area play was the best because it made a nice break for mommy! We were lucky that we had a separate living area from the bedroom because here is Charlie late into the night just playing away at her heart's content while the rest of us were dozing off.

Here is Ryan enjoying a break from the sun... coloring and doing word puzzles!

Charlie could not get enough of the pool! She was trying to tell me that she wanted her goggles!

Me and my lovely girls.

Lunch time!

Swimming with daddy is always the best part of the day!


DINNER ON THE BEACH

After an exhausting day at the pool, we took a long nap and headed out to dinner. The girls got to use the real glasses to toast and drink their water. They loved it.

CORONADO
On Saturday morning, we headed to Coronado for our final stop on our trip. We checked into our hotel and then headed to the beach with Julie. Her family has a condo on the island that is so perfectly situated on the beach in Coronado. We were able to hang out with the girls all day on the sand and not worry about normal beach day worries like access to bathrooms and a place to rinse off. We felt so at home and loved our time there.

My posers... Charlie and Ryan.

Frolicking in the waves.

Using the sand toys to build some fun stuff.

A yummy snack.

The view of the bay from the condo. So awesome!

A night out on the town to get ice cream after a big Mexican dinner.
(Again, check out the poser)

Thanks Julie for all your help and hospitality. We had a great time visiting.

Ah... San Diego!!! We'll see you again next year my friend! You'll be missed!

Ryan's Second Tooth

Now that Ryan understands the whole Tooth Fairy thing. She really prepared for the visit for the second visit from the Tooth Fairy. Unfortunately, the tooth Fairy was really busy this night and may have overlooked our address (see previous tooth fairy post for the whole story).

Luckily all worked out well and Ryan was satisfied by the Tooth Fairy visit this time.
The Tooth Fairy better be more on her game next time, that's for sure!

Big Bear Lake Vacation

Oh my gosh, sorry for the long delay between posts! We have had quite a couple of weeks around here and then some major computer issues to boot! Anyway back in July, the girls and I spent 3 days with my parents in Big Bear. I L-O-V-E Big Bear, especially in the summer. As a kid, I spent many, many weekends up at the cabin and I have such fond memories of that part of my childhood. It's really important that Ryan and Charlie have experiences up there too!

My Grandpa Shen (my mom's dad) built this cabin when she was just a toddler and it has been in the family ever since. I'm very proud of it. It's a true log cabin and every time I sit up there in the living room, I ponder all the work that went into building it. My mom has pictures of her family staying in a tent on long weekends outside of the cabin so that her dad could get some work done on the cabin. He even built a wash basin with concrete on top of a rock so that they could wash their faces and brush their teeth. Now it's a bird bath. I didn't take a good picture of it from the front (I meant to but forgot, I guess) but this is the side of the cabin.

A lot of time at the cabin is just spent relaxin'! Mommy was tired of driving so Grandpa helped out to entertain the kids while mommy rested!

Nona and Grandpa showed the girls how they like to hang out on the porch and feed the blue jays. This was definitely a very educational trip for my kiddos.

We ventured into the village to show the girls around and go to a movie at the Village theater (an old staple where I saw ET for the first time as a kid). The last time they were in Big Bear, Ryan was only 16 months old and Charlie was still in my tummy (she obviously didn't see much...LOL)!

The girls and I took a hike back into the woods a little bit... A very little bit actually! They got pretty tired, pretty quick. Plus, about 5 lizards into our hike and some loose rocks that are tough on the toddler's balance, the girls were quick to say, "Can we try this later maybe mom?"

Ryan did find the biggest dandelion ever! She wanted to bring it home. I said, "No way Jose!" She wanted to then make a wish and blow on the porch of the cabin. Grandpa said, "No way Jose!" Nobody wants those strangely monsterous things growing by their house!

Charlie insisted on having a ponytail like her sister! What cute smiles though, they loved it up there.
Big Bear even has a zoo. None of us had ever been there before but we were genuinely amazed by the fantastic animals they have there. We stood about a foot from bald eagles and and just a few feet away from a snow leopard. All the animals were alert and fun to watch. Seriously, better entertainment than most big zoo visits I've had. (Bubba, I know that you love a good zoo visit. You'd love this one!)
The Big Bear Zoo Photo Opp!
We had lunch overlooking the lake. It was gorgeous like always.


The afternoons meant very long naps for the girls. The altitude and Nona's everlasting energy equals two tuckered kids!

We enjoyed a trip to the Big Bear Arcade. I can't tell you how many long hours I spent here as a kid playing skee ball! Nona took the reins teaching Ryan how to play. Then Ryan beat me in air hockey. Charlie enjoyed the motorcycle the best.
What was this game called when I was a kid????? I can't remember but Ryan loved it!

And Charlie loved crashing into things.
Ice Cream and window shopping.
A mighty good time had by the Grace Girls!

Thanks for treating us so wonderfully Grandpa and Nona! We can't wait to come back!