Ella's Big Race

Because she was especially energetic one day this week and because she begged me to do it, I took Delia out for a run.  To keep her out of the street, we went to a nearby school to run around their track.  Though I could barely keep her from yanking my arm off as we approached the track, once we started our "run" Delia decided she was sooo tired after about 30 steps and plunked right down, not to budge until I bribed her with a trip to the playground.  This pretty much sums up my own attitude about running-- it sounds good, but once you start you quickly realize that it kinda sucks and falling down to the ground honestly feels like a better option than pressing on through the pain.  Anyone else with me?  Apparently, Delia and I are the only ones in this family who feel this way.  Some how Ella has decided she's a runner, like her dad.  She actually enjoys going out for runs with him and was beyond excited to participate in the one mile race at this morning's Almond Blossom Festival.

Since she's been running regularly with Dave, they have their stretching routine down.  I hate running, but I do love watching them together map their runs and warm up before taking off down the block!

At today's race, Ella and Dave had two goals: run the entire time and come in under 11 minutes.  They started strong and had a good run.

 In this race, there's a corner you round and then the home stretch with that finish line in view.  Ella was so focused on it, she didn't even see Delia and I screaming and waving the signs she forced us to make for her! :)

The goal of coming in under 11 was met!  Ella ran her fastest mile ever at 10:44!

She was so proud of running her first big race so well.  She met a goal and finished tough and strong, even though Dave said she was tired.  When they posted the list of times and places, we took a peek just for fun.  When Ella saw that she had won 3rd place in her age group, she was so happy she actually shed some tears!

The love and pride Ella feels for this little bronze medal may rival that of an Olympian!  It's probably not coming off her neck for a while!  She's already talking about next year's race and how she's going to go even faster and maybe even run the 8K some day.  Dave said, "This is how a runner is born."

The Membership Put to Good Use, Once Again

To finish off our long weekend, we shared our guest passes with Jeff, Amy, Jonathan, Grace and Benjamin for another great day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  (Seriously, this membership may have been one of the most awesome things we've ever purchased!)  Enjoying the aquarium with some good friends was its own highlight, but some super active undersea critters also had a big hand in making the day memorable.

One of our first aquarium stops is always at the giant octopus.  Though we run there right away hoping to catch a glimpse of this favorite, yet mysterious and shy, animal doing something interesting, he's always just bunched up in a tentacle-y ball, hiding in his cave.  Not yesterday!  We actually screamed (Delia the loudest!) when we walked up and saw him all stretched out!  We watched for a looong time as the octopus changed colors and zoomed all around the tank, climbing the rock walls and suctioning to the glass with all those twisty arms.  Coolest thing ever.

We started a bit of a routine in watching the movie Finding Nemo during the long drive to Monterey.  It's always fun to then find friends from the movie in the tank that's especially designed to display the Finding Nemo collection of coral reef fish.

 The seahorse exhibit never fails to impress!  Yesterday, little Grace shared my enthusiasm for the artfully created Leafy Sea Dragons.

 The girls' favorite part of the seahorse exhibit has become the mating movie romantically entitled "The Dance".  Don't worry, it's very G-rated, though one of our aquarium guests did once label it "Seahorse Porn"!

 Of course, Ella and Delia had to choreograph their own "Seahorses Falling in Love Dance" after watching yesterday!

I think this shows Grace getting a piece of the love that the dance ends with! :)

I include this picture of our friends because I think it's a really nice picture of their sweet family, but also because shortly after we took it, we noticed the dolphins jumping boat waves in the bay!  Seeing wild dolphins in the ocean is something we've been lucky enough to do a number of times now, but it never stops being exciting!

There were a number of great animal encounters yesterday-- an unusually frisky octopus, lots of laughter over seahorses getting together, a rare dolphin sighting and these extra friendly penguins.  The girls were befriended by two penguins who seemed to be trying hard to get as close to them as possible.  The guy above even acted like he wanted to pose for my picture!

Our aquarium day was great, but every good thing must come to an end.  And with 5 little kids that end comes abruptly and with sudden fatigue and crabbiness.  This group picture we grabbed upon leaving may not capture everyone at their best, but it will help us remember the good times we had!

Our family ended the day off in Monterey with one more hour at the beach.  It became very important to the girls to round up every hermit crab they could catch in the shallow tide pools and move them into a pool of water they had dug and decorated special for the crabs.  That is what is happening in the following pictures...it actually was a lot of fun!

Long Weekend

Like you probably did, we all had/took a day off yesterday for President's Day.  But, a school in service also gave us Friday off, so I'm going to take a few posts to write about our great long weekend.  To make Friday's day off a fun day off, we took the kids to Bouncy House Heaven (aka Go Bananas) where they spent all morning expending unbelievable amounts of energy climbing, sliding, obstacle-coursing and, of course, bouncing. A special lunch out followed.

And at night, I allowed Ella and Delia to have the top bunk sleepover they've been begging for.  This little thing was such a HUGE TREAT!  They got to stay up an hour late with their special star and moon lights on.  With a smile, I eavesdropped on them reading and giggling together.  When the lights had to go out, Delia stayed in Ella's bed, cuddling for the night.  I think some sweet, sweet sister memories were made.

Meanwhile, Dave didn't sleep at all as he hosted the annual lock-in at church for his Middle School Youth Group.  Here's what you need to know about that: not a single one of the almost 30 energetic pre-teens in this youth group slept or even settled down...all night.  Good thing Friday was such a fun day, because Saturday was spent tiptoeing around the house whispering, "Don't wake up Daddy!" :) 

Delia "Twinkle Toes"

When we went around our Valentine's Dinner Table sharing what we loved most about one another the other day, Dave told Delia about the pure fun and joy she brings to each day.  Our memories of Delia in her childhood will include a visual of her in some dress-up outfit, performing some sort of dance or song.   She does this daily.  Some days, hourly.

As I listened to Dave describe the Delia we love, I realized I hadn't taken any video of her in a while.  With good timing, she just happened to bust out these sweet tap moves, wearing, what else, but an Ariel gown and hand-me-down tap shoes.  (PS The video is less than 20 seconds long, but the actual tap show was over 20 minutes!)

Check, Check, Check

When you think about Valentine's Day, a lot of typical images of what you should do, give and get come to mind.  In thinking about our Valentine's Day yesterday, I realized we checked nearly every one of those "standards" off the list!

Stuffed animals and chocolate, check.  Thanks to Grandpa's annual box of Valentine goodies, we girls were spoiled once again with these traditional treats.

Love letters, check.  Dave took the time to select special cards for each of his girls and write a long message inside describing all the things he loves about us.

Flowers, check.  Dave also spoiled us with the first tulips of the season!  And he had my favorite lunch waiting for me when I returned home from Bible Study and preschool pick-up! 

Heart-shaped, Mylar balloon, check.  Both the girls had Valentine's Day parties at school.  Delia came home with some LOOT yesterday!  One classmate, in particular, went overboard creating fancy, stuffed gift bags for each kid.  The balloon was tied to the bag and it has provided endless fun!

Heart-shaped lunch, check.  Pinterest gave me a lot of Valentine's Day inspiration this year.  Making my peanut butter, Hershey Kiss cookies with chocolate heart candies and cutting the strawberries into heart shapes were just a few of the ideas I snagged from my new favorite site.

Homemade Valentines, check.  I made Dave this "Checking You Out" card from an old-school library card.  Loved the idea when I saw it on, you guessed it, Pinterest and was excited to make it my own.  Fitting the "You're lookin' good!" theme, I got him a set of kettlebell weights too.  That's romance for ya! :)

Valentine's Day Scavenger Hunt, check!  This one has become a beloved tradition in our house.  Here the girls figure out the clue Happy Valentine's Day! So special you are, find the place that is cold...it's not very far.

You like to watch your favorite movies on this, before you go find it, give Mommy a kiss!

Ring, ring, ring, friends call to say, "Hi."  A message of love for a sweet Valentine!

Little gifts, check!  This is what the Scavenger Hunt allows us to do so well-- give the girls fun little gifts that they need to decode clues around the house to find. 

Though my checklist is full of things, we recognize that the purpose for each thing we gave and received was an "I love you!"  This is why we revel in Valentine's Day:  it's a day to spoil our dear ones and be extravagant in our displays of love.  Hope your Valentine's Day lists are full of checks, but, more importantly, your hearts are full of love after celebrating yesterday! <3

Half & Half

Today I hit a very fun milestone with Dave.  It's February 11, which means 17 years ago today we went on our first date to a high school dance.  Since I was 17 years old at the time, this means Dave has now been in my life for exactly half of it!  (Dave will celebrate this "Half His Life with Jen" milestone next year, at 18 years.)  How blessed am I to be able to celebrate such a long, half-a-life history with the person I love most?

(Hitting this fun milestone gives us an excuse to look back at these old pictures of us as youngins! :)

How I Found Them

I guess last night Ella had a bad dream and got scared.  Instead of joining Dave and me in the big bed, though, she found comfort with her sister.  They slept together cuddling all night.  Every morning, I get to be the girls' alarm clock, rousing them from their darkened room and cozy beds.  Today I found their room already lit and the girls awake, cheerful and reading stories to each other.

 

This small display of sisterly love is just one of the many moments that make my Mommy cup runneth over!

Yard Work Alternative

Because if you can't parade around the front yard, singing at the top of your lungs and dancing with a broom while wearing footie jammies and rubber boots at the age of FOUR, when else can you really do it?

Romance in Wine Country

My husband is many things (and many of those things I rediscovered and fell in love with all over again this weekend), but "easy to buy a gift for" is not one of them!  So, for his birthday, I decided to forgo the actual present and instead arranged childcare, cleared Dave's weekend schedule and booked a romantic getaway to a spot in CA we've never been-- Sonoma.  Sonoma runs in a valley parallel to Napa and is the less visited part of Wine Country.  The 2 full days we spent here were glorious and everything I had hoped they would be as I put the details of this little trip together!

We took a tour of a great old winery called Gundlach Bundschu.  This winery has been family-owned for 7 generations (about 150 years) and is the oldest family-owned winery in all of California.  Hearing about the winery's history and how it survived the earthquake of 1906 and prohibition was really interesting.
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The tour we took focused on the caves and how barrels are used to age and flavor the wine.  There was a lot of tasting, and it was done in a unique way-- right from the barrel!  We had the opportunity to compare and contrast wines of different ages and wines of different oaks (French vs. American, for example).  This may sound impressive, but for wine novices like Dave and I, it all tasted pretty much the same.

Though our pallets are not sophisticated enough to detect or appreciate all the subtleties among the wine varieties, nor are we really able to down 8 glasses of wine in a one hour tour, it's always still fun to take these wine tours and continue to learn more about this industry.

Some wine tasting and touring are a must when you're headed in this direction, but the real star of this getaway was the super luxurious hotel room I booked at the Fairmont Mission Inn and Spa.  Our room was probably the nicest one I've ever stayed in, with plush robes, a veranda, fireplace and huge jacuzzi tub (you might even call it a "Fantasy Suite"! :).  All the pools at the Fairmont are heated by geo-thermal hot springs, so we just had to jump in one for no other reason than to say we've now been outdoor swimming in January!  The water was 80 degrees, warm, but still not comfortable enough to stay in for very long!
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We had some good meals on this short trip, but a picnic dinner I packed with grapes, olive oil, apples, Gouda cheese and a loaf of bread we picked up at a bakery in Napa may have been the best eats. (I promise, we're really NOT this kind of couple who stays in opulent hotel suites and enjoys fancy wine and cheese for dinner.  But it's fun to pretend every once in a while!)

On our second day we strolled around the grounds of our fancy hotel and took a tour of the spa.  If you watch The Bachelor, you may be interested to know that when Bachelor Ben took his bevy of beauties to Sonoma, this was where they stayed and filmed one of the dates.  We also walked around the downtown plaza where he did several of the other dates.  I booked it long before the episode aired, though, and won't make another Bachelor mention because I don't want my wonderful memories of this weekend to be connected with a ridiculous reality dating show. (Okay, it was kinda cool, but please don't tell anyone I watch it! :)

I found great reviews for this fabulous little breakfast place called Community Cafe.  Thank you 500 reviewers on Yelp, it will indeed go on the list of best breakfasts I've ever had! (Walnut cinnamon French toast with homemade butter maple syrup-- yum!)

Our second day was all about enjoying Sonoma's beautiful scenery, which we did through more driving, ground walking and tasting.  We stopped at two more wineries to sample a few more varieties and take in some gorgeous views.
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One winery had a neat museum of models about California's 21 famous missions.  The other winery had kiwi vines!  We've never actually seen kiwis growing before!  Did you know they grow more like grapes on a vine rather than peaches on a tree?

Dave and I will tell you readily that we don't place a high priority on romantic weekends or even dating.  We love hanging out as a whole family and always feel gratified spending time together the four of us.  However, these few days with just Dave were so lovely, such a great way to celebrate our happy marriage and how much love and fun we still find with one another. We may have to rethink our priorities and plan more romantic getaways.  Like maybe next weekend!