Back from California...

my girls playing at balboa beach... they both hated the water and loved the sand!

vacation report starts here:

never ever again. never. never ever. It was HOT in Palm Desert. And I mean HOT... we hit 118 degrees. I think it is still too soon to give a positive vacation report. It was a typical week for me (cooking, cleaning, taking care of kids & thomas), just removed from the comforts of home (read TERRIBLE bed & painfully slow internet connection). The drive down to Las Vegas was great. We stayed in a great hotel, the DoubleTree Club by the airport. AMAZINGLY comfortable beds. Wow! Loved them! We went and walked around the MGM Grand & the M&M store. Hannah loved the lion cages at the MGM Grand, but she was more fascinated by the "human beings in the cage" than the lions. What a nerd! We had a scare while we were there. Hannah escaped out of the stroller to get a closer look and we lost her for about 30 seconds. Thomas & I were terrified. She wasn't allowed out of the stroller the rest of the night unless we were holding her hand! She loved making her own mix of M&Ms. The kids got really cranky pretty early, so we went back to the hotel and went to sleep. We got up and headed to CA the next morning. What a NIGHTMARE of a drive. Traffic was bumper to bumper, stop and go, from Vegas to Barstow! Then we decided we were sick of that so we took a little side road through the mountains and around the Joshua Tree National Forest. It was sooooo pretty. And there was NO Traffic!

Monday we hung out at the pool for a while, Tuesday more pool, Wednesday morning we got up early and drove to Newport Beach, only took us two hours to get there. We actually went down to the Balboa area. It was pretty and quaint, but by the time we got there, we were only able to stay 2 hours and then we had to leave so we didn't get stuck in rush hour traffic. Well, it ended up taking us 3 1/2 hours to get home! And Thomas, my oh-so-smart husband, forgot to put sunscreen on. He was a LOBSTER for the rest of the trip and spent much of the rest of the week laying in bed with Aloe slathered across his chest and shoulders. Thursday, more pool. Friday, more pool. Then we left all the kids with babysitters and headed out for an adults only dinner. It was the first time I have left my kids with sitters. Hannah had a lot of fun, Ainsley was pretty traumatized. She would let me put her down for two days. I couldn't leave the room without her having a meltdown. I am happy to report that she is back to her normal monkey ways these days! Saturday, more pool. (When I say "pool" read "one hour of sitting by the pool, then we got too hot and had to go back to our room and sit around and re-hydrate so we could go back the next day!) Sunday, we took the TEN AND A HALF hour drive home. What a NIGHTMARE! Our kids were actually pretty good. I just got really carsick and had to take Dramamine and slept most of the time. Our car is really uncomfortable, though, and I am still having muscle spasms in my back. And I am still feeling the effects of the Dramamine. All i want to do is go back to sleep. BUT my house looks like a really messy tornado (aka AINSLEY) swept through it!

I get to watch Thomas' cousins' daughter tomorrow. She is a cutie-pie! Her parents are going to a wedding, so she is going to come play at our house. Hannah is looking forward to having a NEW cousin to play with! You seriously can't walk through my house without tripping on something, though, so I am going to go clean my house. AND we have another trip in three days. We leave Thursday to go to Chicago for a few days. I can't even go grocery shopping because we are leaving again in a couple of days. So, we have sandwiches and cereal for the next three days! Eh, they'll live!

Ainsley is a full-blown toddler now. She is fully weaned, all by herself! She can now climb out of her exersaucer. She can climb up a chair to get to my lap. She can open Ziploc bags. She can unzip zippers. She can get on the couch & bed all by herself. She is already WAY too independent. And she loves baby dolls. She and Hannah fight over the same baby dolls every day, all day. And she fake laughs. It is so funny. She now has her four top front teeth, three on the bottom and at least two molars completely in on top. The bottom two keep coming in and then the skin swells over them again. She is a complete monkey and has the funniest personality! It amazes me that both of our kids have such fun, strong personalities.

Okay, off to give those fun strong personalities a bath and get them dressed and start unpacking and cleaning my house.