Thursday, July 29, 2010

Bouncing away the hot summer day

I recently discovered there is an indoor play area in Fresno. Yay!!! Considering it has been 100 degrees+ around here for the last month, this was exciting news in my world. I am constantly trying to find new, fun things for me to do with Michael. During the summer when it is SO hot outside, this can be especially difficult.

I subscribe to the daily e-mails of Groupon. Most of these deals are great ones, but we don't live close enough to Fresno to really take advantage of too many of them. A couple of days ago, I received an e-mail from Groupon for the BounceU facility in Fresno. I immediately e-mailed it out to my friends and said, "Who is in? Let's go this week!"

So we all carpooled up to Fresno today (approximately a 45 minute-1 hour drive) and had a blast a BounceU. As usual of Michael, it took him about 10 minutes to get the bearings of his new environment and then he was running around like he owned the place. But overall, he had a blast. We will be going back again soon, for sure.

I tried attaching the video I took of Michael and his friend playing at BounceU, but the blogger software won't allow upload of the video's taken on my iPhone. So I will have to get better about using my Flip Video recorder.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

A gassy story

For those of you who know my husband well enough you know he is obsessed with this topic. Bathroom humor is his forte. Maybe it is a guy thing.

I was scrolling through my Twitter feed and this story popped up: Subtle Butt: The fart neutralizing underwear insert.

Just as I finished reading about this new product online (and considered buying it for Chris), my cell phone rings. It is Chris.

Me: Hey Babe. Just saw this new product online that is perfect for you.
Chris: Oh yeah, what is it?
Me: It is an insert you put in your underwear that will neutralize the odor when you poot.
Chris: (In a very sarcastic tone). Ha, ha, you are so funny. Do they come in thong sizes? No, but I can check on that for you.
Me: :) LOL!
Chris: Well, speaking of gas...I almost had to push my car to the gas station today because I was so low!
Me: How do you figure? You still made it, right?
Chris: Yes, but my gas tank takes 16 gallons and I put in 16.001 gallons. Whew.
Me: Would have been pretty funny to see you pushing your car down the street in 103 degree weather wearing your flight suit and boots.
Chris: Yeah, real funny.

I'm still considering buying him the Subtle Butt. What do you think?

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Dancing machine

Michael has become a dancing machine. If I hum, he dances, if the TV is on and song comes on, he dances. He walks around the house with the iPod/iPhone in his hand flipping through songs to dance to. And the best yet: Chris taught him to raise the roof. We have tried to get video of it, but he is a smart cookie. When we turn on the video recorder, he stops dancing. I think he knows this is too good and it could be used in a future graduation/wedding video down the road. In the meantime, we will just work on perfecting his moves until he will let us video him performing! Stay tuned!!

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Hairy issues

Before I start my blog, let me say that this is (in the grand scheme of life) a silly topic. However, some comments from Chris made it kinda interesting so I though I would put it out there...(and frankly, most of my blog posts are silly, inconsequential life events).

At the end of last week, I went to get my hair cut and colored (highlights). Usual stuff, no biggie. Well, for those of us who are military spouses and we move every 2-4 years, trying to find a new stylist that we can trust can be a challenge. However, for our last 2 locations that we have lived, I have gotten lucky in finding good people so I figured my luck would continue. Not so much.

I walked out of there last week with bleach-blond streaks. My natural hair color is a dirty blond (with natural sun lit highlights) on top/ more brown beneath. I couldn't sleep all night. I was in tears the next morning. I have never had to confront a hair stylist about my hair and NOT liking it before - I did not know what to do! But I did know that I paid way too much money to just let it go and not say anything. Do I trust that she will fix it? Or will it just be made worse with a fix by someone who messed it up in the first place?

The dilemma. So without thinking more about it, I just called her and she was happy to get me in for a fix. I just got home from the redo and here is my conversation with Chris:

Me: So what do you think?
Chris: It is dark as S*@#

Great, so now my hair looks like the color poop. Good times. I'm not going back. I am gonna have to stick this one out. It is darker than I like and not what I am used to, but I would prefer this over blonde-streaky highlights.

We are off to lunch with friends at Panera! Hope you are having a great day!

Saturday, July 10, 2010

The Sweetest Kisses

I have been trying to teach Michael how to give kisses. Big, wet, loud ones. Like most toddlers, he will do it but only when he wants to! I have been teaching him by puckering up, making the "uuuummmmmm" noise and then kissing him on the lips. He has been doing it, on occasion with me for the last few weeks.

Tonight, we were playing in the family room with his toys and Chris and I were sitting on the ground with him. He went right up to Chris and gave him these big mouth "uuuuummmmm" kisses about 10 times in a row. It just melted our hearts, it was the cutest thing. I know Chris was just eating it up too! It was one of those moments I'll never forget and wish I had on video tape!

Just don't wanna let go



We had a really busy day today. After breakfast, we drove over to Sequoia National Park. It is about a 1 hour drive to the park entrance off CA-198. Michael fell asleep in the car on the way there and woke up as we were winding through some of the small towns that we drove through to get to the park entrance. Little did we know we still had an hour of windy, twisty roads left to travel. I am not one to get car sick but I think the combo of sitting in the backseat and being 19 weeks pregnant made me pretty queasy. Luckily, we made it without incident.

After ascending thousands of feet in the car and traveling from brown, dry landscape to beautiful, green lush trees, we made it. The park was absolutely beautiful. The nauseating car ride was well worth the beauty of the park. Our first stop was at the Museum. We all needed to get out and walk around after being cooped up for 2 hours. While we were there, a little rain storm blew through and cooled off the air so we had to pull out our sweatshirts. The second stop was at a picnic area. We had packed a cooler of sandwiches, chips, and pasta salad. Michael downed two hard boiled eggs and then decided that searching for sticks and rocks was more fun than eating. Well, more fun that eating table food at least. Towards the end of our lunch he decided to plop down on the ground and chow down a handful of dirt. Taking after that cousin of his again! (The picture of him sitting was after he took a bite - a fuzzy pic because he was sitting about 10 feet away from me and I had to zoom.)

After the picnic, we headed to The General Sherman Sequoia Tree. This tree is the oldest living tree in the entire world. It was quite beautiful. We overheard a tour guide saying that the scope of the size of the tree is like a mouse looking up to a 6 foot human being. So we all stood around gazing up like little mice at the enormous tree. Many of you are probably familiar with the California Redwoods. The difference is this: The Sequoia's are heavier and much thicker (at their base) while the Redwoods are taller than the Sequoia's. The National Park Service has done an excellent job in maintaining the beauty of this park. Michael absolutely LOVED running around picking up little branches, watching the other kids around him and just being outdoors in the the clean, fresh air. He found some big boulders that looked intriguing to him so we played around them for a while. I find it so funny how we spend so much money on toys yet he seems just as happy playing with the rocks, sticks, sand and wood chips of the outdoors. We hated to have to put him back in the car to go home. But alas, it was nap time and the car's gas tank was on E with the light blinking!

So down the mountain we headed. The nausea was not as bad, thank goodness. And we did not have to go for an emergency gallon of gas, we made it to the Chevron outside of the park just in time.

Another highlight of the day was seeing the wildlife. We got to see a deer up close as it was searching for food. Then on the drive down the mountain, we spotted (from our car) a Momma bear and her two cubs. That was pretty neat considering the only time I have ever seen bears before was in a zoo. The Momma bear was actually a lot smaller than I expected her to be. Maybe my frame of reference of the size of bears comes from the movie: The Great Outdoors. Classic John Candy movie.

It was a wonderful and much needed adventure. But of course we pay the price by Michael not napping as well during the day and as Chris says, "He turns into a pumpkin around 7 pm." Tonight the Pumpkin turning was occurring earlier in the evening because he did not get enough of a nap. Thirty minutes after putting him down he was still not settling like he normally does so I snuck into his nursery and picked him up to rock him to sleep. Like a comfy cotton t-shirt, he snuggled right into my arms and fell asleep on my shoulder. It was so hard to transfer him because I was enjoying him sleeping on my chest and feeling his breath on my shoulder. I know one day he is going to be too big to do this with so I try to enjoy and take in every moment. It was a great way to complete a great day.




Friday, July 9, 2010

Quote of the day:

"Molly, be careful in there."

Chris says this as I am getting out of the car to run into Wal-Mart to pick up sewing supplies for a project for Chris. (Background: We are making black-out drapes for his bunk on the ship. Funky sized drapes, I had to break out the sewing machine.)

He could have been dropping me off at ANY Wal-Mart in ANY town in America and these words would have been uttered. Wal-Mart is an interesting cornucopia of people, isn't it? He said this because of the scary looking people walking in at the same time I was getting out of the car. And maybe because I am carrying his second child he is a little more protective. To the delight of both Chris and Michael: I made it out alive. But the interesting thing is as I am walking out of the store, I spot a well dressed woman in a black shiny Jaguar sports car pulling into the parking lot.

Cornucopia, for sure.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Happy 4th of July!

We had a really fun 4th of July! With Michael running all over the place, it is just a matter of keeping up with him these days! We had a bunch of errands to run in the morning. Then we had some friends over for BBQ and hanging out in the backyard.

This picture was taken prior to everyone coming over. Once in a while, Michael will slow down for a moment and sit on Chris's lap. In this case, there was a pro-baseball game on the TV so they sat for a few minutes watching the game. It was sweet.