Staycation

Every summer we do a family vacation. Last year was Maui. We had beautiful beaches there, a ton of family with us, great views, sunrises, sunsets, waterfalls, snorkeling, a WEDDING...... How do we plan a vacation better than that?? How?? well...... we don't.

Since we couldn't top that, we decided to try something new. Do something not many people do. Save a ton of money and keep our level of fun at the same high. We had a "staycation". A real one. We packed our bags and headed to my sister's house, who lives 20 miles away for an extended weekend. We were joined by my parents and other sister's family. All in all, we are a big pack of 11, all staying in one house.

DAY1

Friday started out at Babes restaurant. Where great food comes on big plates and you can dance the hokey pokey. No really, the food was great and Jess and V did the hokey pokey.

Making the place even better was a real train outside. Vince loved the train (but of course). While we were looking at a stationary train, a real one with tons of freight cars came rushing by. He was in awe. He kept talking about how the train went "honk" (pic below).

"Honk"

"Look over there, it's a bird, a plane... no, it's a train!"

"We're so handsomeeee" (Vince sings that all the time)

Family photo, and by family, I'm including the train.

"BIG Train"

After the train show, we went bowling. I don't have many pictures from here, but I do have this one, showing the winner (don't know how that happened) and one of Vince playing the jump rope game he loves... we were supposed to do laser tag but the night got away from us.

DAY 2

The next morning we woke up and headed to Lake Texoma where luckily, they had a boat that fit us all!

The Three Amigos

"Mommy makes him wear this silly lifejacket, UV ray shirt, hat, and lots of sunscreen "- Vince

Our little family

Parents of the Three Amigos..

It's no Maui, but this sand will do..

We took turns getting pulled in this raft. Warren and I had the most fun. But Vince really didn't like people in the raft. He was crying the whole time and just wanted everyone in the boat. Look at his scared little face :(.

Luckily he loosened up and joined us in the water later.

It was a great day and tired most of us out.

I said most, but not all!! The three amigos had enough energy to have round 2 of fun in the pool back at the house. Vince can jump in with no help if he has the life jacket on. He ended up pulling grandma into the pool and she had a blast with her three grandkids.

The rest of us dry folk made smores. "Smore what?" (Get it?? Sandlot reference).

DAY 3

The next day (Father's day) we hung out all day at Hawaiian Falls. We had a private cabana as our little headquarters so we could take turns relaxing. Here's a pic of daddy and Vincey on Father's Day 2010 and also one of my dad and V from Corpus (because it's grandpa's day too!).

We did say our farewells that night. But not before we celebrated Jess's birthday which was the next day. Vince helped her blow out the candles. Everyone's in this pic but the photographer (me!). I think I need to photoshop myself in. Can anyone teach me photoshop??? Anyone? Anyone?

Beach weekend

I've been bad about updating this blog. So instead of trying to catch up with what's been going on.... I'm just going to start in the here and now and try to back track later (this is how I never got around to posting my July 2009 Maui pictures.. maybe I'll do that too).

This past weekend Vince and I headed to Corpus with my parents and newphew and met a whole lot of family down there. It's the first time we have seen many of them since my grandmother, Memi, passed last month. It's important for us all to keep in touch as we feel like Memi was the glue that held us all together. All in all I think we had 17 family members there. Not bad for a trip that was planned in less than one week.

The original reason my cousins and Aunts were coming in from Laredo was to celebrate the 7th birthday of my cousin's daugther. Vince loves playing with all his cousins. He does everything they do which could be good or bad :/. Here the kiddos are at the birthday party after a full day of beach and pool (we had to wait for the bday girl to wake up from her 3 hour nap!). Six of my grandmother's 13 great grandchildren are shown here.

Unfortunately the beach was full of seaweed shown in the pic below with my newphew. That didn't stop us from hanging out there all day long and building sand castles... I mean sand trains (which grandma unknowingly bulldozed with an ice chest).

In addition to the beach we spent a lot of time in the various pools at the condos we were all staying at. Vince is such a water baby. He loves showing off his swimming skills - he can currently stay under water for about 10 seconds and swim about 6 feet. Recently I have been making him wear a life jacket because he's a little too comfortable sometimes. Luckily, he's a good sport about it and is now enjoying floating on his own.

And here are some more random pictures from the weekend. Vince really loves his grandma, grandpa, and cousin!!!

A working mom's morning

Yesterday a co-worker sent me a forward about an older women that was so scatter brained that she tried to one chore, but kept remembering others as she was doing them, and kept jumping from task to task to task. It reminded me of myself. So this morning while getting ready to go to work and drop Vince off at school, I thought of that email so when I got to work I emailed my co-workers to tell them about my morning.. here it is...

"The morning started good… Vince finished his breathing treatment (allergies) and was eating pancakes while watching Barney. I made oatmeal for me and was eating it on the couch. Then I heard in the distance a big truck and thought I better get the recycling out now because they come early. So I put down my oatmeal, went to the garage and opened the doors to check, saw it had not been taken out, and went inside to get it.

On my way in, I saw an empty bag and thought I need to bring it to work because I had some pictures, etc I wanted. So I start loading that bag up with things. I then remembered I had to bring my co-workers bday present in (very late) so I went to the laundry room to get it and remembered I hadn’t folded the laundry the night before (made a mental note to get to that if I had time). I thought of the email my co-worker sent the day before, laughed to myself, and remembered the recycling… then took it out.

When I was out there I checked the mail from the previous day and started going through it inside. After I was finished I went to check on Vince. On my way there I put away the syrup and butter from Vince's pankcakes and saw a subway sandwich in the fridge. I patted myself on the back for asking my husband to get me the sandwich special last night so I could have for lunch… then remembered I hadn’t packed Vince’s lunch for school today. I haven’t been to the grocery store in 2 weeks due to a family emergency… I'm thankful for frozen nuggets and canned peaches.

I packed both our lunches and put things back in the fridge and saw old food that I wanted to throw out. (Luckily David took out the rest of the trash this morning.) I put the old food in a plastic bag then took it to the curb. I brought the recycling bin back in empty and remembered my co-worker's present again and went to get a gift bag. On my way to the living room I passed the fridge and remembered I hadn’t given Vince his antibiotics. I put it on the counter so I didn’t forget to give it to him.

I then packed the car with both lunches, Vince’s diaper bag, my purse, my bag and my co-worker's present. I came back inside to give Vince his medicine. He refused the medicine and I tried to explain to him I didn’t have time for this as we were already 10 minutes late. He didn’t understand so I made him a sippy cup of milk and put the medicine in there. I picked him up ready to leave only to realize he didn’t have shorts or shoes on. I grabbed some shorts from the dryer, put on his shoes, and went out the door.

He was asking for his trains as I strapped him in the car and I negotiated with him that he could watch a DVD in the car if I didn’t have to get the trains. I went back inside to grab the keys, saw some deodorant in my “cubby hole” by the door and remembered I hadn’t put any on so I did (that’s why it’s there for times like this - TMI?).

In the car I remembered I never finished my oatmeal and didn’t get to folding the laundry. But that’s okay if those are the only things I forgot :) "

First Dentist Visit

A couple months ago Vince went for his first dentist visit at Pace Pediatric Dentistry . The whole visit took only 30 minutes from entrance to exit. Dr. Pace specializes in 2 and 3 year olds and makes the actual visit very quick because she knows the attention spans of little ones is non-existent. She even took this picture of us (and just sent it to me today, so a little delayed, but glad I have it). She said she prefer's children to come in with their parents when they are around 7 months old, more for the parents to get information. I learned a lot about what causes cavities and how to take care of Vince's teeth and am overall pleased with the appointment. Can you tell which one of us is pleased and which one doesn't really know what's going on?? She didn't give him a chance to think!