Fourth of July EPIC Post

Our Fourth of July Adventure began on July 1st. We spent the morning getting ready and left at nap time (I highly recommend this tactic for parents traveling with children). For those of you who may not be able to picture what a drive from Palm Springs to Las Vegas looks like, let me enlighten you:

It took us roughly 4.5 hours - we made excellent time. By the time we arrived at our destination - Courtney and Bret's - we were totally ready to get our fun on! We attended the 4th of July festivities at Court's last year, but we decided to stay at a hotel. This year we had the pleasure of staying at our dear friend's home and it was amazing. Not only is their home gorgeous, but Julianne had unlimited access to Chunko and Buddy (or Bud-o and Chunky as she sometimes called them).

Julianne "walking" the dogs. My foxy friend Courtney is in the background!

Bret reading "Sylvester and the Magic Pebble" to Julianne. That book is a classic!

Saturday was an especially lovely day. Since Kasiah's arrival, I haven't had much time with my first precious baby angel, the princess Julianne. Courtney and Bret live near all sorts of neat places to eat, so I took Juji on date. First we had a turkey and cranberry sandwich at The Great Harvest Bread Company:

The "Cheese" face lives on.

Next, I took Juji for some frozen yogurt. We tested lots of flavors before she decided on a chocolate/vanilla swirl with these toppings of her choice:

Isn't our girl lovely?

It's common knowledge that gifts are a sure way to a girl's heart, so after filling my baby with delicious delicacies I told her should could pick out *anything* she wanted from Super Wal-Mart.

This child is definitely her father's daughter - she chose one of the most expensive things she could find! A Cinderella Dress!

This is Julianne reading with Sarah in her Cinderella dress (which only lasted one night without being torn...we exchanged it for Snow White the next morning!):

Here are some photos of the festivities preparation:

Zac and Ryan:

Kevin:

Mama and Gaga:

Courtney and Kasiah:

Me and the Wee One:

Ryan, Ty and Dan:

And a rare family shot:

The party was totally fabulous. We had fun swimming, dancing, eating and jumping in the jumper!

My buddy Ashlee and Julianne:

The thunderstorm that rolled in during the middle of the party was AMAZING! I totally went swimming while it was coming down and felt like I was 10 again. Bret and I both commented how it reminded us of Flagstaff in the summer when the monsoons began.

The amazing desserts, made by Erin. She is the one cutting the cake.

A quick story about the cupcakes...

For the past week since this party, Julianne has been asking us, "Do you remember when Chunko ate my cupcake and I cried? And I said "NO CHUNKO!" and Courtney got me a new one? But Buddy didn't eat my cupcake. Only Chunko."

Yes, Julianne. We remember. We all remember.

Speaking of J-Bones, she took this photo. Bret was just making sure her finger didn't cover the lens.

The LONG drive home. Seriously, almost 8 hours. We stopped A LOT. Like I said at the beginning, it's best to leave at nap time, not the middle of the morning!

We had the best time with all of our dear friends! My apologies for drowning you in pictures, but Kasiah just learned out to crawl...my time is limited!

Big Sister Takes Over

Out to Eat

We kicked off our amazing holiday weekend last Thursday with dinner out at Steer N Stein in Hemet.

Have you ever eaten at this place? It's one of my most favorite places to eat. It's got a lot of sentiment for us - this is where we came for celebratory meals growing up and it's where Bret and I go out to eat on our dates (when we don't have sushi).

Kasiah with her Sophie Giraffe. Okay, while we are on the subject of Sophie - that is a $20 teething toy. I had buyer's remorse right after I bought it, but I am so glad I didn't take it back. She plays with it all.the.time. I could have bought six teethers for the price of this one and she wouldn't have played with them half as much as she loves on Sophie. My advice? Stick it on your baby registry and let someone else buy it for you.

Moomaw, Poopaw, Auntie Katie, Gaga, Juji, Mama and Siah at dinner. Yes, Julianne has a Borg eye. I tried to edit it, but I seem to only make it worse. Bret promised to photoshop it for me but I suspect it will be days before that's done and I'm writing this now. So there you have it.

Poopaw let her have some soda. This was my reaction.

What a fun dinner! Thank you to Moomaw and Poopaw for the treat.

Little Miss Sunshine

Kasiah had her 6 month appointment this week! She is HUGE - we knew that going in - but were astounded at her stats. She is 18 pounds and 27 inches, which makes her larger than 90% of all females her age! I've got her in 12 months clothes already - I can't believe it. She claps and laughs whenever Julianne acts silly and recently has started trying to pull herself up. She is working on crawling and makes lots of progress every day. She is a little sweetheart and we feel so blessed to have Kasiah in our lives. Her happy disposition is a constant reminder of what a joy life is. We love you Boo Boo Chicken!

The week before the 4th of July, because that's when all the fun is REALLY going to happen

This past week was, once again, consumed by appointments that are too hard to schedule during the school year. Does this sound familiar to anyone else? When we were growing up we always had to do this stuff during summer and winter recesses - except now we have the joy of being on the parent end of it. Blarg.

The biggest bummer about taking care of health business is that we have to stay in town. In anticipation of this happening, Bret and I purchased a huge Intech pool a couple of months ago - BRILLIANT MOVE! It's 12 feet in diameter and we filled it up enough so that we can swim under water, but Kasiah's head is above when she stands. We also invested in a door alarm so that whenever the slider is opened this horrid loud beeping goes off - combined with the lock and a heavy slider we feel safe having the pool back there with Juji in the house.

Wiped out from swimming:

Here are some photos from a couple of days that we were able to sneak away and visit Moomaw's Farm for some swimming and croquet!

One final note - I've been super high strung lately. I think it's because of the stress (and cost!) of the dentist, but I'm an anxious person anyway. This past Tuesday I took my sister's advice and tried out a Yoga class - and it was totally amazing. I had no idea how hard of a work out it was until the next day when I was sore! Anyhow, if you can, try it.