Category Archives: family

the hidden park

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Christina called and said her family would be eating dinner at the “hidden park” tonight and wanted to know if we’d like to join them. I have been trying for two days to get out to Home Depot to get more ant killing liquids and I was going to get out tonight. But man I’m glad I didn’t.

She told me to call her for specific directions, but I didn’t. I was pretty sure I knew how to get there well enough and it was the kind of weather that you don’t mind driving around with your windows down in. It must’ve been in the 70’s and the sky was clear, a slight breeze. Just perfect. Turns out, I did know where to go, and as I drove into the parking lot I thought I should be, it was confirmed by the happy faces and waves from 3 dirty blonde headed boys.

We drove up and parked next to them. Christina and Jeff were eating Chinese food on the hood of their car with Emily in Jeff’s arms, getting noodles every so often. Beautiful sight, no?

I got out of the car, the boys ran off in the half empty parking lot with their cousins and I got Ray in his stroller. We headed up to the park. It’s a gated park, kind of up a tiny hill, really hidden by bushes and small trees. The ground at the park is soft, kind of spongy stuff, like turf, that Ray was able to crawl around all over and that was wonderful! Because Ray is turning into the age where he doesn’t want to be held by mommy all the time. He’s his own 15 month old self now and he can crawl faster than some adults can walk. He’s a man on a mission and does things with vigor!

Nothing really eventful happened. But I had a few moments of pure joy. Watching Jeff play football with all the big boys. And really engaging them, playing with them. Jeff is a good big kid to play with. But the highlight was something so small. Christina and I were holding one another’s baby. I had Emily and she had Ray. We would count to three, then drop the babies back and swing them up again. Ray and Emily were all smiles and giggles. For a minute, I had a flash. I thought, “how funny. I grew up with Christina. I know what she was like as a baby, little girl and teenager. It doesn’t feel that long ago and here we are, holding each other’s baby. Babies?! We each have multiple babies! This is crazy and so cool at the same time”. This little flash, seeing Christina and I as little girls and then seeing us in the moment. It was fast, a flicker really and then Christina turned to me, as if she had heard my thoughts and shook my arm and said, “We’re holding our babies and swinging them around together!” We both laughed.

What a moment.

my life in pictures

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Well, I’m bummed out. Daniel just left on a plane … again. He keeps doing that. So I sat down with my computer and the only sugar I could find in the house was a bag of somewhat stale red vines and started blogging. I feel sick. The red vines were probably not a good choice.

I have had so much going on, but I’ve been keeping tabs with my camera phone. So here it goes, my life over the past few months (aka “the blur”) in pictures with mild storytelling:

Once upon a time, movers came to pack up my house in two days …

And while they were packing, the boys and I had nowhere to go but our backyard. So that’s where we ate, and played and sat and talked on the phone for two days. In the backyard, mostly on the ground.

And so my house was packed. And we began living out of suitcases in empty houses (both in MI for a few days, then CA for ten days).

We ate sitting on the floor a lot over the span of two weeks.

Before we headed out of MI, Daniel and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary and partied in Ann Arbor for the last time. We of course had to visit the Farmer’s Market.

And Zingerman’s.

And most importantly …. Treasure Mart. One of the coolest consignment shops on the planet. Ahhhhh, look at all that wonderful junk around us. It was an awesome farewell and celebration at the same time (even though Daniel wouldn’t let me buy the $6 globe I wanted for the boys’ room. Yes, only $6!!!! I said I could rearrange our luggage and fit it in, but he made me put it down and walk out of there. big mistake. huge! Who’s with me on this??).

I love him anyways :) I actually adore this man. He’s perfect.

Then the goodbyes commenced. Sad, tearful goodbyes to good people and friends in Michigan. I will not miss Michigan. But I will miss my friends there and my boys’ dear Ordaz boys.

Oh the Ordaz Boys!!

Then goodbyes to Liam’s “Woocus (Lucas)”.

But after goodbyes, there are always loving and happy hellos!!!!!!

The California days with family were underway! Trips with Clarks,

dinner and movies with Ben Rocco and Zac,

Playdates with Emily,

Hanging with Blackburns in downtown Claremont,

and eating ice cream!!

But even with all that good family fun, we had hard work ahead of us in CA. We spent a loooooooong time in an empty house and putting together chairs from IKEA (so we could sit somewhere other than the floor to eat).

We had to do laundry at Christina’s house because we didn’t have our washer or dryer yet. And when you’re doing laundry for little boys, you often times come across the needful things a boy carries around in his pocket.

And while you’re waiting for the movers to bring your stuff, you will probably find yourself at Cost Plus World Market with Christina, picking out a dining room table that is 7 feet long. And you love this table, but then Daniel sees it and says it’s impractical to own a table that big. humph.

Then one day (and this day is 4 days later than you anticipated) … your stuff arrives!!! And you spend the rest of your life unpacking.

(side note: I saw this picture and instinctively started stress eating another piece of stale licorice)

I do not have pictures (thank heavens because it was scary and gross) of the billions and billions of ants that have attacked and re-attacked different parts of our new house. But just know that that is a major part of the story – ANTS. So many ants, that one night I kept having nightmares that they were crawling all over me and didn’t sleep well and woke up about 15 times all night long. So yeah, ants. Major part.

Then it gets hot … like 102 degrees hot. So we went to the fountain and farmer’s market!

And finally …. your Cakes flies in town – Daniel cakes is finally in California!!!!! The joy is short lived however. He only gets to stay for 4 days, then flies back to Michigan all day Thursday, so he can go to Ford for his last day on Friday. He was literally in MI for less than 24 hours, but that meant he was away from me for 2 whole days and that I had to pick him up at 10:45 pm on Friday night. sigh. Ford. grrrrrrr.

But he’s home. yes. Buuuuuut, I only got him for 2 days, because tonight he flew away again on a plane. He is training for Amazon in AZ. He’ll come home in 4 days, then I get him for 3, then he’s gone … again. It’s kind of like having a weekend lover. It’s pretty stupid.

But while we had him this weekend, man, we partied! (I know they don’t look like they have party faces, but these guys were tearing it up in the pool on Saturday. It WAS a party :) )

And we squeezed in a date night! Daniel’s face doesn’t look like he’s enjoying date night, but it wasn’t date night that made his face look this way. It was me taking about 7 pictures to try and get a good one. It never worked, so I went with this picture. Gotta document it – first date night in SoCal!

And that’s the end so far … or really, the beginning.

What month is it?

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Noah had to have me sign his reading chart yesterday and I looked at the date he had written. It said 9/5/13 and I thought, “what?! no way. It was just July …”

So the past few months have been a blur. seriously. a blur. Kind of like my wedding day. You remember faces, places, feelings and then a whole lot of stuff happened. I’ve been keeping all this “stuff” off the blog because of Daniel mostly. It gets really dicey when you’re looking for a job and trying to not let the other people at your current job know what’s happening. We knew a lot of people that worked at Ford that we interacted with almost daily, so no blogging. Anyway, it’s all over, he got a job with Amazon, we moved to southern California and somehow I lost 2 months of my life and didn’t know it.

The biggest reason for the secrecy was the tuition reimbursement stuff. Daniel agreed to stay 2 years after he graduated from U of M with his MBA, but the exact date of when that 2 years was up was in question. We thought it was August 23rd, U of M’s academic records confirmed August 23rd, but Ford thought it was October 27th, then they said September 6th and then Daniel ended up using vacation days for this last week of work with Ford, flying back for his last day (because Ford has a policy that a vacation day can’t be your last day) and we still owe Ford $2500. whatever. What a headache. There have been so many, many, many details to this whole move, it’s exhausting to review them, so I won’t. Bottom line – we’re done with Ford and Michigan, we have a renter in our MI house that we can’t sell and we’re renting a house twice the size in CA. We live five minutes from my sister Christina and her family and 30 minutes from my sister Aria and her family. I am tired but happy.

The relocation package from Amazon has been a-mazing. Having professional movers rocks and this whole cross-country move has been so much smoother than it could’ve been, but it’s still a move cross country with 3 boys and no husband and it has been crazy.

The first 10 days here we (me and the 3 boys) were living on air mattresses in an empty house. Christina and Aria did an incredible job setting us up though. Aria, Walter, Luca, Enzo and Chiara all met us at the airport as we walked off the plane and toward baggage claim. They were waiting at the bottom of the escalator. I really didn’t expect them all to be there, so it was a total surprise and they were holding a huge sun sign that said “Welcome to California Forsyths!” My boys and Aria’s boys were so excited and I was so emotionally exhausted from the previous week of leaving MI stuff and then a long full day flight with all the boys alone that I just wept when I saw them all there. I felt like I was really coming home. I wouldn’t have to leave again. It wasn’t like Christmas or vacation. I was here and they were here and I could enjoy it and live it. Just a rush of emotion.

The love kept coming too. Walter took all the kids, except for the babies, and Aria and I went to get the rental car and we drove to my house. Once at my house, everyone came. Christina and Aria had made a welcome basket of food and necessities all beautifully packaged with tiny flags and labels on it! And while I walked around the new house and played with the kids and talked to everyone, they set up beds in each room – complete with lamps and side tables and put toilet paper in each bathroom (I now have three bathrooms, instead of one!!!!!! …. no more peeing in the bathtub when 2 people reallllly gotta go.) They just completely set me up. With things I didn’t even think of yet, like trash bags and lamps. seriously. What would I have done when the sun went down? I had no lights and the house didn’t have any ceiling lights in the bedrooms and family room (weird right?).

But there was a lot of stress the first week. Even with all the love, family and sun, crappy stuff still happened. For instance, Ray was a nightmare. I don’t know what was wrong with him, but he was not taking the change well. He cried all. the. time. He cried going to sleep, woke up crying, cried whenever anyone walked into the same room he was in if they weren’t me … he has been ridiculous. And then we all got sick, within the first 5 days. Then on day 8, Noah threw up, over everything. I am cutting and pasting the email I sent to Daniel about this particular incident:

“You will not believe this.
Noah has been kind of sick, as has Ray and me. But Noah was coughing. He told me on the way to Blackburn’s that he was going to throw up. I asked when and he said, I don’t know. I asked if he needed to right then and he said no. That was weird. So, then we’re at Blackburn’s all night and he runs around with Luca and Liam and plays with fake money and eats dinner, no problem. On the way home he even sang to Ray, who was screaming the whole way.
We got home and I told them to get ready for bed, then right in bed because it was already 8:30 pm and we had school tomorrow. He got ready and I dealt with Ray, who was beside himself. I finally got Ray down and he was still screaming and crying, when I went into their room and said prayers with them and said goodnight. I go into my room and start washing my face and brushing my teeth.
As I’m brushing my teeth, I hear Noah really starting to hack/cough. Really loud and long. Before I had finished with my teeth, he came into my room, flopped back on my air mattress and said, “I’m gonna throw up”. Well, he’d said that earlier tonight too, so I figured I had enough time to spit the toothpaste out. But I didn’t. He coughed and threw up at the same time about 1 second later, all over my mattress and sheets. I still had my toothbrush in my mouth as I quickly grabbed him by the waist and led him into the toilet and said if he needed to throw up anymore, he should do it in the toilet.
And he did. He explosively threw up 2-3 times more in the toilet. He really emptied his stomach. It smelled awful. He had eaten barbacoa pork.
He had it all over himself now, his shoulders, face, forehead, hair, dripping from his mouth … so I told him to strip down in the toilet room and then get in the shower. I turned on the shower and he got in. I gave him a water bottle in the shower to rinse his mouth out with.
Then while he showered, I started cleaning up the mess everywhere. I was really afraid that we would get ants unless I was very careful about getting all the throw up cleaned up. But I don’t have a washing machine to throw everything in and I don’t have all my cleaning products. So I went straight up Peruvian-woman-style on his shirt – using a bar of olay soap on his shirt and all the sheets on my bed. Then I started on the toilet.
That was horrendous. I had to take a deep breath in my room, then head into the toilet room as fast as possible and wipe up as much as I could before going back into my room to breath again. I couldn’t wipe up and throw things in the trash because again, I thought it would attract ants, so I used toilet paper and would flush as I went.
He finally finished in the shower and I had him get dressed for bed. I asked him how he felt and he said better now. Once dressed he asked if he could go to sleep. I said sure and he went and fell asleep fast. I went back to the toilet.
He had thrown up not quite into the toilet, but kind of onto the part where the hinges are for the seat. So the hinges and all their crevices were covered in throw up. I got a screw driver and disassembled the seat from the toilet so I could run the whole thing under water and wipe it with disinfecting wipes. Disinfecting wipes is about all I had cleaning-wise. It was absolutely the low point so far. There was throw up splashed onto the walls. I finished that all and went to check on Noah and Liam. Noah felt warm. I think he has a fever, but I have no thermometer or Tylenol for him. I think I’ll let him go and check his temperature in the morning and have Weedy bring Tylenol and a thermometer.
At this point, it had been an hour and Ray was still wimpering in his bed. I was worried that maybe he had thrown up in his bed too and that’s why he was still awake, so I went in and checked on him. He was just sad. So I held him for 20 minutes and rocked him to sleep.
It was a pretty awful night. But strangely, I do not feel beaten. When I have something to do and an immediate challenge, I feel more focused. I feel very focused. Noah will obviously stay home from school, but Liam will go. I will ask Weedy to come by in the morning with a thermometer and Tylenol. Pray that we make it through the night. I know you won’t get this until the morning, but pray anyway.
This is definitely the worst way to begin a life together here in CA. Not even together, without our stuff, with sick kids, throwing up, and Ray who is acting just absolutely crazy, all the time. Oh yeah, and with ants. Like a bazillion ants.”
Yes. There have been zillions of ants. On day 3 here we looked out at the back porch in the morning and there were about 12 thick lines of ants marching into the base of our house. Liam summed it up well when he leaned his head against the glass sliding door and said, “we got a big pwob-wem (problem)”.
So it hasn’t been easy, but things are working themselves out and I absolutely love three things:
1. To hear my boys say “Aunt Aria” or “Aunt Stina” and “Wooca (Luca)”. I love seeing my boys get to know who their family is.
2. The sun. I can count on it. Pretty much every day the sun is out. Every morning it shows up and it is blazing hot, but the sun is there.
3. I hang out with Christina and Aria all the time. Every day.
Oh yeah, and I love my pantry, 3 bathrooms and the master bathroom especially. Nothing like having an “en suite”. woo woo!

California girls

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There is so much that this picture harrows up in my soul. It means I’m home and going into the city for some fun. It means Lucca’s Deli. It means Chrissy fields, Daddy Daughter dates to Espetus, family trips to the bathroom at the Fairmont Hotel. It’s all jumbled in my mind, but it’s allllll good.

I’ve been home for almost a month since my last visit and ever since I got back, I have been trying to find a way to describe all the warm fuzzies I get being around my sisters and their kids and mom and dad. I just love it. It’s comfortable and fun. I think we are the best all together, as one unit. We all fall into the same familiar rhythm, but just add kids, but it doesn’t even matter which kids you’re talking about. I scoop them up and kiss their faces off and play on the floor with them and shake my head at them when they’re ruining mom’s fountains. They are all of ours. They are an extension of my sisters and so I love them just the same.

And mom and dad are just fun. I wonder if dad does this on purpose, or if it’s just natural, but somehow, each one of us girls finds ourselves on a grown up daddy daughter date (mini ones) all the time when we’re there at their house. He just asks for us to join him doing whatever it is that he’s doing. One morning I was up at “his” hour (6am) because I was on east coast time, not because I am an early riser, and he asked me if I wanted to take a bike ride with him. You bet! I hopped on one of Dad’s road bikes (he has 3??) and he did what he always does – sets me up with all the good stuff, all of his stuff. He gave me the awesome glasses, the gloves for my hands, the helmet. Then we headed out for a 6 mile ride. I loved it. Then we got home and a little later he asked Aria to go with him to the store to pick something out and off they flew in the Corvette. It’s just funness (not a word, but it works in this instance) and it makes you feel special. He wants to spend all of his time around us, his girls. He wants our company and we want his. It’s so nice and comfortable and it feels like home, with my dad.

But as for my sisters and my feelings for them …. I just didn’t know how to explain what they are to me. How they fill in all my gaps, to make me feel like a whole person around them all. And now I don’t have to because …. Mina did it for me. She got home and wrote a poem about us all. It’s perfect. Mina is a poet. It just comes to her. It’s one of her talents and I love how poetry makes everything you say sound more important, more poignant somehow, and beautiful all at the same time. Mina and I are the only ways “away”, aka out-of-state and I think that makes us more sad to leave. We know it will be a long while before we feel that love and closeness again, so here it is, it’s called, Glass Half Empty.

After spending time away,
Then congregating home to play,
Our time together is so dear
And leaving is my greatest fear.

I wish to bottle it all up,
Satiate my endless cup
I turned my thoughts into a rhyme,
To take a picture of our time

Five Girls can sound like such a crowd,
We smile each time it’s said out loud,
But life without just one of you
Unravels my world, and changes its hue

It’s not a pie without eight slices
And despite all of our vices
I learn so much from each of you
So listen up, because its true

Beth has been our fearless leader,
Even when we didn’t head her,
Now she has us all impressed,
A definition of hostess!

She invites your kids with a smile,
Welcomes your burdens to her pile,
And when you think she’s had enough
Within a blink, she adds more stuff

Besides hard work and her service
Reigning in a daily circus
No single word can juxtapose,
Our Bethany, our valiant rose.

Though we tease her unrestrained,
Francesca is our family’s flame
She spreads her cheer just like wild fire,
Bearing gifts and Fun Supplier

A voice sonorous and ornate
Her home is organized and straight
She’s plagued with love of dazzling shoes
She’d buy them all, if she could choose

She’ll be the first to make you smile
And dress you up with flashy style;
Her love is honest and, you see
As sisters go, she fits with me

Christina is our middle ground
A level head and gem I’ve found
When asked which sister is her fave,
“I love you ALL”, she smiles and waves

Her beauty incomparable
Like mythic creatures in Fable
It transcends through her soft skin tone
Angelic features, all home grown

She’ll hold you close and make it right
Assured love, without a fight
We’ll sit and talk for hours and hours
A loyal friend, it’s her great Power

Our Chickie doesn’t stand alone,
In fact, we put her on a throne.
The family beauty’s cross she bears,
And wears it hum’bly without flares

I wonder if she knows how great
In all our eyes we venerate
Her honesty and fortitude,
For compliments, she often “shoos”

But know it now, how we all feel
We could not do without your zeal
And how we all have grown to love
This baby sister we speak of

If only these few words could do
The job that I had asked it to,
To bridge the gaps when we’re apart
And fill this hole, inside my heart

But now it’s made me wish inside
For all the pieces of our pie.
And nothing else will remedy
The magic of our fam’ly tree

So

Take these words and fill ‘er up,
And sip upon my rambling cup.
Until its time to all come back,
Refill the canteens in our pack.

I love you.

The only thing left to say is Mina. I honestly gave poetry a valiant effort and it was pitiful. It not only had a funky rhythm, the strains to make it rhyme made everything I said sound like a first grader explaining his love for pancakes. It was weird. Anyway, I am left with my descriptive powers and that will have to be enough:

Mina is so much. I don’t know how I would dare try to explain her in 3 stanzas, although somehow she captured us, I don’t know how to capture Mina in words. You want to have Mina in your car, because it no longer is a car, but the party bus and somehow you find yourself and all of the kids inside chanting “par-ty bus!” while flying down highway 17 on your way to Santa Cruz. Then you can get to the beach and it’s a crappy day at the beach, cloudy, overcast and Mom is buying sweatshirts for $50 on the boardwalk. But Mina is the one that throws propriety to the wind and takes ridiculous jumping pictures with you in the sand. The pictures are embarrassing and silly and totally awesome too. Then she can turn right around and on the car ride home, notice your uneasy driving this crazy huge beast of a car back on winding highway 17 and know just what to say. She’ll tell you your doing great, ask the kids to be quiet for Aunt Fran and talk you through each turn. She’ll keep one hand on your shoulder and you feel loved. You didn’t even know that’s what you needed or that you were acting nervous, but your little sister is so in tune and right there. Then you can continue down that road, and as it stops twisting and turning, your conversation turns deep. You can talk about anything with Mina and she’s right there with you. She has insight and thoughts and understanding and then what the heck, you’re both crying and then laughing.

Mina is so much, you can’t keep her in a box, but if it were a box, it would be a party in a box. As I spend more time with Mina’s little babies (they are 5 and 3, so not really babies at all, but you know what I mean), the more I see Mina in them and it makes me love them intensely. Truan is a party, like his mommy. He is everything that is good and fun and open and impish, he’s your friend. But Jellybean, she is everything that is fragile and girlie and beautiful, just like her mommy. She feels so much and wants to be loved. I know my sisters all have a different relationship and view of Mina, but this is mine.

I stole most of these pictures from Mina because she had a “good camera”. I had my phone and used it every moment, but it doesn’t capture enough. There’s never enough pictures, never enough good food, never enough time …. yeah, it’s mostly the time thing. Never enough time. Good thing we’re around for eternity.

The kids …

me and Jellybean

Chiara

Rocco hiding telling Truan a secret. :)

Emily (Enlee) 

more Enlee

Ben

wait! what the? …. how did Jeff get in there ….

 The rest of us:

Dad, Jellybean and Mom on our walk in Concord

Me and Christina at Beth’s house

Aunt Net and Uncle Cliff at Chevys in Emeryville

Me and Mom at Chevy’s in Emeryville

Chiara, Beth and Dad at Chevys in Emeryville

Beth, Christina and Mom at Greens in SF

The Food at Greens …. which we promptly devoured (do you see the progression of the plates??). seriously. It was kind of embarrassing how quickly we cleared the shared dessert plates …. and then … we went to Ghirardelli Square for a little more dessert. what?! 

Mom, with her Stevia, at Greens, making her own tea. 

At Beth’s house, the last night we were all together.

OK, I posted this picture, solely for the shot of Aria in the background. She’s right next to Bethany and it looks like she’s mid sneeze or something. best. picture. ever. 

It was all for Daddy. Good times.

camping at Holland State Park

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We always try and plan a car camping trip with the boys every summer. This was it this year. We’d probably go more, but it’s a huge hassle with little kids (namely, Ray). We had to bring the pack-n-play because he only crawls, so we couldn’t let him just crawl around in the dirt. And then we had to bring the easy up for the beach, the walker for Ray, two tents so that Ray could have his own area in one tent to sleep in …. needy kid. Anyway, it was fun. We really had a good time. Even though all the campsites around southern Michigan are basically RV parks, it was nice and quiet and the best part was that the campsite was about 50 yards from a little beach on Lake Macatawa, which connects to Lake Michigan via a channel. And on that little beach, was a place to rent kayaks and paddle boards, so both Daniel and I (separately because Ray can’t go in a kayak) paddled out to Lake Michigan with the boys. It was cool.

The lake was pretty and the beach had soft sand and was clean, so it was awesome! I couldn’t help but be a little embarrassed while hauling down to the beach: the easy up, pack-n-play, cooler, food bin, large polka-dotted beach bag, diaper bag, toys and camera bag. But at least it was fun and we camped out there on the beach the whole day on Friday.

After camping Thursday night and spending all day on Friday on the beach and  kayaking, we headed out to a Marriott hotel about an hour away. Honestly, we weren’t sure Ray would be able to handle life after two days with probably interrupted or truncated naps, so we had the hotel reservation in case we wanted to cancel that day and just head home on Friday, but Ray was holding it together, so off we went with showers and eating out dancing in our heads.

I have to say, the hotel was one of the best ways to make a stop off before home while doing a camping trip and here’s why: we destroyed that hotel room. There was sand everywhere. Along with dirty foot prints, smelly clothes, food remnants …. it looked crazy that night. Truthfully, I was soooooo glad I didn’t have to clean that tub once we were done with it. Best Marriott points usage ever. We stopped off, cleaned up and showered up. It was wonderful. I had time to clean up the car a little and organize the mound of dirty laundry and we got to eat out, so that was awesome too. Usually when we get home from a camping trip it’s a smelly, dirty event. The front room is usually piled with dirty camping gear, a cooler full of old, half rotten food, dirty, stinky boys that decimate my bathroom, and black footprints everywhere. This hotel stop off fixed all that. I feel sorry for the poor cleaning ladies that followed us. I’m so sorry. But so glad it wasn’t mine at the same time :)

Ray, however, was NOT doing well after days of irregular and nonexistent napping, so by Friday night he was a sobbing mess. Daniel went out with the boys for food and I tried to get Ray to sleep. Major fail. He cried for half an hour, then I got him out of his pack-n-play and watched golf and food network with him to try and get him to fall asleep …. no go. So then I put him pack in his pack-n-play and hid behind a bed, so he thought he was alone and could fall asleep. I sat there on the floor next to the bed texting and checking email on my phone for about 25 minutes before I was starving and frustrated. Ray seemed happy, but not sleepy. I gave up, Daniel came back with Chipotle and donuts (I don’t know if I’ve loved a man more than when I saw him walk in with Chipotle and donuts in hand for me) and we all hung out, ate and then every one of us went to bed at 8:30 pm. It was awesome. I was so tired.

We got up Saturday morning (today) ate the free breakfast and swam in the hotel pool and hung out in the hot tub – which was Ray’s first pool experience, he did great! It was wonderful and refreshing and we were ready for the 3 hour long ride home.

Good times. Here are all the pictures:

THE CAMPSITE

 

 

 

 

THE BEACH:

We tried putting Ray down by the water, but he just screamed. We let him scream and ruin everyone’s beach experience for a few minutes, then gave up when he never calmed down. He was terrified. It was a terrified scream. So sad. So we set him up right here on the towel with puffs to cram in his face. And that’s how Ray enjoyed the beach … the whole trip. He didn’t seem wild about the sand, or the water … yeah, so that’s really what the beach is, so I guess he doesn’t like the beach. He must not be my kid. I don’t get it.

Oh man, how would you like THAT hunk of a man walking towards you out of the water??!!! Huh?!! ….. sooooo hot.

My boys. Ray above and Noah and Liam below. Just beautiful little souls.

 

Oh man, Ray’s face in the one above is hilarious, right?

OK, so this always happens to me. I take a LOT of pictures of Daniel and the boys. And I work hard, taking several, to make sure I get good shots of each of them, because I want to remember them at this age and have sweet picture memories. But I am very rarely photographed. Not because I’m afraid of the camera or something, but because nobody thinks to take the camera from me and take a shot of me. So I have gotten in the habit lately, of telling Daniel that nobody has taken my picture and I hand hi the camera. So this happened. But evidently, Daniel does not want to remember me at this age or have sweet picture memories or get a good shot of me, because he took pictures like this one:

ummmmm, I don’t even know where to begin. This is possibly the worst picture of me ever. I never want to remember this. And also, I’m not even looking at the camera. He didn’t tell me to look or say cheese, or suck in that nasty mommy middle of yours as best as you can, cuz you’re not gonna want to remember that!

I’m sneering, looking at what must be a bug or something on my hand and I’m slouched over, sticking my tummy out …. oh my gosh. It’s a good thing I have no shame and can show this picture, just to prove a point. And who in the blazes is that weird dude in the background?? Sheesh. So here’s one of the 50 pictures I took of Daniel:

Beautiful, right? Nice background, sweet smile, good lighting …. this is what I was hoping for. Instead I get about 5 random, unflattering shots of me.

This one isn’t terrible, but I’m not looking and he didn’t even give me a chance to suck I that hideous middle of mine that I haven’t been able to shake since Ray was born. Whatever. There’s me. In all of my unaware glory.

Liam lives too much of his life upset and dissatisfied, like he is in this picture. So funny that Daniel caught it on camera.

It wouldn’t be camping without s’mores :)

Liam has a bit of an obsession with law enforcement dudes lately. He thinks they’re pretty cool. So when a Ranger walked by our campsite, Liam lit up and said, “Mommy, look! A officer!” I told him he was a ranger and he was all excited. I’m sure the guy heard him. He wanted to go say hi to the ranger after he passed, but was too scared to go by himself. This was a picture of Noah going with him for moral support, to say hi.

Then there was kayaking:

And that’s camping!