Monterey Aquarium

Since J gets a little time off after arriving home from his "vacation", we decided to go and do something special with the boys. Our original plan was to do a couple nights at Yosemite, but plans changed quickly when J suffered a little back strain while packing.

Instead we decided to push the vacation back a couple of days and head to Monterey instead. We always heard the Aquarium there was really nice, so we started there first.

N playing around in the area that explains the history of fishing and canning in Monterey.

J with a GIANT starfish...seriously this thing was HUGE!

The boys checking out a display.

N looking at some sand dollars. He kept calling them money.

This was a neat display were you could use a magnifying glass and look closer at the some anemones.

N at the touch area looking at starfish, seaweed, and kelp.

Up close with a Sea Otter.

My favorite display were the Sea Horse displays. These are just two of the different kinds we saw.

The boys also liked the turtles...

and the penguins.

They also have a fun place for the kids to play called the Splash Zone.

We were there for four hours walking around and looking at everything.

But then it was time to say good-bye to all of our new fishy pals.

'cause we were hungry, and this place was just down the street.

Six Flags...More Fun!

The Sunday J got back from his "vacation" was Mother's Day...and nothing screams Happy Mother's Day like a trip to Six Flags. Seriously we love going and I love to see the boys with smiles on their faces.

N is now tall enough to go on some of the little kid rides, and not limited to "baby" rides as the older two put it. He enjoyed flying high like daddy in the back seat.

Was a little more unsure of the tea cups, but lil' J LOVES them!

M is also now big enough to go on more rides by himself and even on some of the big coasters with daddy!

The older two were very good about going on some of those "baby" rides, but I think secretly they enjoyed them and were glad to have an excuse to still go on them!

N got to enjoy some cottton candy while waiting for a show....and also LOVES it!

We caught the dolphin show.

Boys were beyond thrilled with it, and thought it would be fun to be thrown around by some dolphins too!

Lil' J and N went on a bunch of rides together while J and M went on those big coasters. They are a really good match and I think we had more conflict during the day with this system. 

N loving the swings.

Some pretty flowers that reminded me of Hawaii...oh glorious Hawaii!

Taking a close look at some Tigers.

J recapping how awesome something was...ya I think we will be going back a lot this summer...thank you to Grandma and Grandpa for the season passes!

I even caught this...the older two holding hands and talking about the rides as we were walking out of the park to the van.

Welcome Home!

His jet taxiing in.

Up close and personal with his baby.

Coming off the jet.

Receiving line with the commanders

M rushes in. 

Followed by J.

A hug and smooch for me.

N finally got his chance too.

Reunited again.

Awaiting a Homecoming

So back in March I took this picture.

Tomorrow I hope to have even better pictures, those welcoming daddy back home...you may need to wait a couple of days before I post them, since we may be busy enjoying having daddy home. Hopefully he doesn't have too much jet lag, because life keeps going around here...ball, parties, day trips all planned for this weekend. The boys and I want to spend as much time as possible having daddy back before he starts going back into the office, so there really isn't time to slow down for a nap. Sleep is highly overrated anyway :)

Pure Boy

This is N. He likes to play in the dirt while he waits for those pesky brothers to finish with their ball games. He has to be loaded up and hauled over to the fields 4 days a week, M-TH, for practices and an additional day on Saturdays for games.

But don't feel too bad for him. He thinks it's great to be dirty...and wouldn't have it any other way.

A Day in the Sun

This is how we spent our 1st day of May.

Yup, they had fun!

A Mommy Break

This past week has been the boys spring break, the great thing about spring break is that their sitter is also on spring break--there's other good things too, I just have been doing single parent for several weeks now and needed a break. So I invited the sitter over along with one cute 4 year old girl and ran away with a couple of other mommies. It was good to get out and look at pretty girly things; to eat without ordering off of a kids menu, cutting up someone else's food, or having to clean up a huge mess that the boys normally make. We hit up some stores-- H&M, Pottery Barn, Apple, William Sonoma, and Loft before heading over to California Pizza Kitchen for some lunch. You know big city stuff.

YUM! I had the Thai Chicken Spring rolls, Marlene had the Baja Spring Rolls, and Shannon had the BLT Pizza...yum, yum and yum!

But the funniest thing was while we were there we were also ordering some to-go from this place:

PF Changs! Ya, that's right, two meals in a row that I didn't have to cook! And yes I had spring rolls for lunch and more Asian food for supper...and lunch the next day. Do you know how much I love good Chinese food? The boys were also super excited to have some yummy food from one of their favorite restaurants too...maybe they will let me escape more often if I come back with food for them too.