Field Trip

I hate a love hate relationship with Field Trips. I hate them because I am pretty much responsible for thirty kids for an entire day, off campus, at a remote location...and oh yeah, I can't lose them or let them get injured in the process. I always assume their parents want them back in the exact shape they left them when they got dropped off that morning, rightfully so.

OK...but I love field trips. Because the kids need to get out once and a while and go places where they might not ever have the chance to go. I love watching their faces, love seeing the toys they buy at the ridiculously over priced gift shop, and I love them telling me how much fun they had at the end of the trip. Makes it all worth the stress and no sleep for me the night before.

So, today I took my kids to Alcatraz. I have been there before, but not with a class and I was almost as excited to go as they were. The plan was to take the boat out to the island, walk around for a few hours, then finish off the day at Pier 39. And that is pretty much how the day went, after this....

We were ten minutes from the Bay Bridge. The kids could see the city in the distance and were getting excited by the minute. All of a sudden I look up and a car that was in the lane next to us, ran into another car causing it to fly in the air, land on it's side and skid down the freeway. As it is skidding, it is heading into our lane and our fabulous bus driver hit the breaks. We came to a stop at the exact time this car then corrected itself back down on all four tires and stopped within three feet of the front of our bus. HELLO!!!!!!! Needless to say, I could not breath. I immediately turned around to check on my class and the kids in the front of the bus are now standing up to see this car that almost cut our day incredibly short! I calmly...in a loud voice...simply yell "SIT DOWN!"

Here we are in the far lane of the freeway, right next to the cement wall, and the guy starts freaking out. Let me tell you that his car is completely sideways facing IKEA as we are facing the Bay Bridge. The bus driver and I clearly recognize that he is in shock and most likely stoned out of his mind because he backs up...in on-coming traffic...then puts it back into drive and drives head on into the cement wall. WHAT??! After he bounces of the wall, he backs up again...yes in on-coming traffic, puts it in drive, turns the wheel just slightly and rams into the wall AGAIN!! In the mean time, a car has pulled over about thirty feet in front of us to see if everything is okay...that turned out to be bad, because this guy finally turns the wheels enough that he doesn't hit the cement wall and hits the gas and plows right into the back of this poor girls car who just pulled over to see how everyone was.

We called the police and got the answering machine four times in a row. NICE! So, with a boat to catch, other on-lookers still there, sirens on the way...we took off!

It turned out to be a fabulous day. The weather was gorgeous. The kids had a fantastic time. The city simply looked romantic. I think somewhere in my heart I was meant to live in a big city. They are certainly not ideal for families with young kids, but the allure is always there. I felt the same thing when we went to DC. I remember thinking what an amazing place for people to live with all of the history and museums and the White House. Maybe in another life...

The Language of Ryan

Ryan has his own language. It is darling. I love it. I wish he would sit for hours and talk...well, maybe we'll take a breather here and there, but seriously...it is too cute. The biggest problem I am facing is turning my teacher brain off. Because I am constantly wanting to correct him, teach him how to form his mouth and tongue to help himself. But, the fact that he is only two won the battle in my head and I am taking my teacher hat off now...for the time being.

Here are some of my favorites:
"Mama, you yook at how big my are."
"Mashew, you tome eat dinner right now! MASHEW!!!"
"What my doing?"
"I pease have tome Cocco Peddles?" (Cocco Pebbles)
"See my ecercising" (excercise)
"You no hurt me?" (when taking off his shirts)
"I need my buddy and nani"
"My do it. My DO IT! I a big boy!!"

Bed Wetting 101

So, here is the deal. I hate it when Matt pees the bed. HATE IT!! Because it is something that could have been easily prevented by him following through with his bedtime chores of 1. Brushing his teeth 2. Go to the bathroom. I think I have muttered these words from a sound sleep at some point. The same chores have been in effect since boyfriend could skip the pull-ups.

This morning, as I was diligently hitting the snooze button on my alarm, Matt walks up to the bed wearing different pajamas. CLUE 1! Here is our dialogue:

Mom: Matt, did you wet the bed?
Matt: Well, I don't remember.
Mom: MATT! Did you wet the bed?
Matt: Sort of. I only did a little bit though.
Mom: How little is little bit?
Matt: Well, maybe it is like a medium size.
Mom: UHHH. JUST SHOW ME!

So we went to his room, and there is a wet spot the size of Lake Tahoe. It pretty much was the biggest spot that could be from a small child emptying out his entire bladder from the last 12-15 hours.

What did I do next? The most logical thing I could do. I made him strip the bed. I made him make piles of pillows and a pile for his comforter. I made him carry his sheets and dirty pajamas and under ware down to the laundry room. I made him put everything into the washer. I made him measure out the laundry soap. I made him turn the knob and choose the right cycle. Because if you remember from before when I said there is a blessing and a curse to showing Matthew how to do something once. The blessing is he remembers everything, the curse is he remembers everything. So, now the kid knows how to strip his own bed, carry it to the laundry room, choose the cycle, and add soap. This was the last time I will be changing his bed.

Today when we get home.....Bed Making 101. Should I start with the importance of a tight fitted sheet or simply move on to "hospital corners" with the top sheet?

Easter/Vegas/Pool

OK, so I hate playing catch up....but I am totally behind and there are a couple of things I need to post about.

1. Easter---Easter was great. The boys spent the night at my mom's because Rich and I had friends over the night before and we were in no condition to care for small children as the night went on. Anyways, the next morning Rich and I went over to my mom's and the kids went hunting away for eggs in her backyard. As the boys ran around looking for eggs, I am almost positive they successfully woke anyone within a two block radius who was still asleep. Ryan was so cute this year. He was so excited to look for eggs and then crack them open to eat the white part only. I swear, it will be hysterical one day when we are having breakfast at a restaurant and my boys both order egg white only omelets. After our fun in the morning, my dad stopped by with some baskets and the kids had fun playing with their new cars. And for an early dinner, Rich and Sharon came by and we had another little egg hunt to cap off the day. Very fun!!!





2. Vegas---Trip one of ??? for the year. So, a couple of months ago Rich got a rewards offer in the mail from the Palazzo in Vegas. This is where we have stayed the last couple of times we have gone to Vegas and it is one of our favorites. So, the rewards offer was a few free nights and free slot play. The kicker to the free slot play was that we had to bring our tax return their to the casino and cash it, then depending on how much our return was worth, we got "x-amount" in free slot play.
Okay, those of you who know Rich....this is like the ultimate gift you can give him....FREE MONEY TO GAMBLE!!! I have another take on it. To me it is like taking a friend to an AA meeting, helping him through that "Hi my name is &%$# and I am an Alcoholic" and then taking him to a bar to celebrate after. The last thing Vegas should be doing is giving this man free money to gamble. Bless his heart, he couldn't help himself. I really think it consumed his every thought while we were there. However, he is very smart when it comes to making money, so understand this guy knew our running total of our winnings down to the penny. And yes....we were successful in bringing money back from Vegas for the first time in a long time.

3. On Easter, Richard and Sharon brought over a pool as part of Matthew and Ryan's Easter present. Today, the temperature hit something above 70 and that meant it was time to put on our suits and head out to play. Ryan loves the pool filling up with water, no so much getting in and playing. Matthew thinks it is an actual pool, so he was surprised time to time when he jumped in and it bottom six inches into his landing. This did not go over too well in the injury department.

R & R at Disneyland

So, I thought it was unfair to post Matthew and I's trip back east, without posting Rich and Ryan's spring break fun.

While Matt and I were gone, Rich took Ryan to Disnelyand. They had a blast going on the same old rides, and some news ones since Ryan has met new height requirements. I am sure it was a great trip for Ryan because he did not have to negotiate what rides to go on next with Matt and who was going to sit with whom. It was very low key and the boys had a great time.

I will say this, though. When Matt was this same age, I went away for a weekend with some friends to San Francisco and while I was gone, Rich took Matt to Disneyland...by himself. I really can't count the number of people who stopped me after I spoke the words, "by himself", and said...."What? Rich took him ALL by himself? With no one else?" Yes. Yes he did. Because it's like this. He's the dad. That does not make him any less of a parent than I am. Rich does everything I do and other than breast-feeding, it has pretty much been like that since day one. Does he do things the way I do them? Of course not, but it gets done. Because listen, if something were to happen to me (God forbid), no crash course in parenting needed. The boy has it covered.

East Coast

Well we are in West Virginia visiting with my sister, my niece, and brother-in-law. We are having a great time not only visiting with family, but we are also taking the opportunity to see some other states while back here. Matthew is in heaven playing with his uncle Greg who took him to his job yesterday and bought him gifts....need I say more? He is also enjoying Noelle's cats and plays with them constantly. They have become his obsession and he frequently says, "I wish I had a pet."

On Wednesday, we headed out for Washington DC. I have been so excited about this for a number of reasons. The first, of course, is going to the White House. I was all geeked out by going and seeing it and knowing that this was going to be the closest I will have ever been to a sitting president....even though he is a couple of thousand feet from me, I would still be that close to him. Well, that is until Rich burst my bubble and told me that the president was making his first trip to California (that's right, that state in which I live and I had just left to fly across country to be the closest I will ever be to the president!) and would actually not be back to the Whitehouse during the time we were in DC. Lovely! The second reason I have been so excited is that fifth grade core curriculum is US history and government, and I simply can't wait to share all my pictures with my class.

The second day we were in DC, we took the Metro all the way to Arlington to see the cemetery. This was one of the highlights of the trip fro me. When we got to Arlington we looked up my great-grandparents grave sites and set off to find them. It was cold, raining, and a bit miserable, but we figured that we had to do this while we were here. So, a fifteen minute walk in the rain and wind brought us to their grave sites. As we were taking pictures and carefully describing this place to Matthew and it's significance, we heard a marching band start to play. We looked up and saw funeral procession coming right toward us. All of us later commented on how is was amazing that we could get so emotional and cry within a 45-second time period for someone we had never met, nor knew what their history was that brought them to this point. It was not only breathtakingly beautiful, but incredibly sad and emotional as well. I turned to Noelle and said videotape as much as you can without them seeing it so we are not disrespectful, but I wanted to share with others what we had seen. I hand my camera around my neck and I had no idea whether it was focused or even if the picture would be lined up, but I just kept snapping away in case I could get a few shots of what was going on.







With the rest of the day pretty much subject to rain, we decided to head back to get our car and just drive around to see all of the sites we could possibly get in. Forgive me, but most of these were taken with Noelle driving and me snapping away as fast as I could. At one point I hopped out of the car, on a very busy street, to run up and see the Lincoln Memorial and snap as many pics as I could. We drove all over the rest of the city and hit all the major places that we thought we couldn't leave without saying we had been there to see it. I really could come back and spend an entire week here and hit two to three major sites a day. We certainly made the most of our trip, the short time we were there.

Kings for a night

This year Matt and Ryan were pictured on a Kings Season Ticket, after a few years of trying. So on Sunday night we went to the game, the four of us and Rich and Sharon, and enjoyed a Kings win...which is good, but depressing. It was good because they played really well and it was a lot of fun to watch. The depressing part was remembering how exciting it can be to be at Arco when the game is tight and the Kings end of winning, and knowing that it hasn't happened a lot lately.

The kids had a great time. Ryan did surprisingly well. He stayed with Rich and I for the first part of the game and then joined Rich and Sharon for the second part of the game down in their seats. He had a better time with them because they had a tub of popcorn and every time Rich and I looked at him he was eating. Matt had a great time too. Cheering for both teams, you know....covering his bases so either of "him teams" would win. Lovely!

Here are some fun pics from the game.

Six Flags

Last weekend the four of us and Rich and Sharon headed to Six Flags to spend the day with the Sacramento Kings. As a treat to all the FAITHFUL KINGS SEASON TICKET HOLDERS, the Maloof's coughed up some major coin and pretty much bought out Six Flags for the day to treat all the ticket holders who are braving these not-so-happy times at Arco. So, braving the wet forecast, we headed for Marine World in hopes to see some animals and maybe some Kings players who were going to be there.

When we got there, the weather was misty with on and off sprinkles. It actually wasn't bad at all. We headed for the animals first off because Ryan was pretty excited to see them. The great part about the closed park to the public, is that it was VERY QUIET and there was hardly anyone there....however, we were the crazy people wearing ponchos and carting golf sized umbrellas prepared for a monsoon. As we made our way through the park, a lot of the animals were not out due to the weather. It was the day after the opening day at the park for the season and you could tell all of the employees were ready for questions, just begging us to quiz them on the animals. So we asked, "Where are the tigers?" and the sweet young lady who could tell us probably more than we ever wanted or needed to know about tigers replied, "Well, they are cats and cats don't like the rain." Alrighty then.

As we made our way through the park, the weather unfortunately got worse. The rain started to come down harder and the wind was getting worse. As we were trying to make the best of our free day of fun, it was clear to us that our time was going to be cut short. The good news is the park officials felt the same and we heard them come over the loud speaker and say that they were going to close earlier than expected and that the Kings would "make it up to us" at a later date. So, stay tuned.

We mostly took video of the day, but here are a few pictures from our day.

Magination Friend

So, Matthew has a "Magination Friend". Don't try to correct him, by calling it an "Imaginary Friend", he'll say you're wrong. We don't have a lot of experience with "magination friends" and that can be dangerous. For instance, I don't know where he sits when he wants to sit down or frankly, when he is even "with us". His name is Meteor. And yes, according to Matt, that is how he spells his name. He joined us the other nights at dinner and thank goodness there was an extra seat at the table because he apparently can't fit on the chair with Matthew.

Anyways, I am not sure how long he will be with us. He pops up at the oddest of times and we REALLY TRYING TO BE COOPERATIVE ABOUT THIS!!!

Stay tuned and, of course, sorry there is no picture....

Cuteness!

This was taken this past weekend in the hotel room. My boys love a good hotel room, well...any hotel room.

Real quick story. In the picture, Ryan is playing Matthew's DS. As we were getting ready to leave, and we were trying to pack up to leave, we noticed that Matt was missing some of his DS games. So, I went out to have a conversation with Matthew about his games and this is what took place...

(Scene--In the hallway of hotel....voices occasionally raised)

Mom: Matthew. Where are all of your DS games? I can only find four, so we are missing two.
Matt: I don't know.
Mom: Well, we need to find them now. Did you know Ryan was playing with your game?
Matt: Yes.
Mom: What have we told you about your DS? If you are not playing it, you have to put it some place high so Ryan can't get to it. If he lost your games, it is because you were not careful and you did not remember to put it up high. Those are expensive and we cannot replace them that easily.
Matt: Well, if Ryan was playing it and he accidentally lost them, then I would not get mad because it was an accident. But, it he lost them on purpose, I would get mad because it was on purpose. I think he did it on accident.

(Exit Mom...I have no argument for that)