It’s been a while, so here’s some fun pictures of Lake Arrowhead and the Pumpkin Patch at Irvine Park (complete with a train ride that will not be soon forgotten)…trying to get in as much fun and good memories as a family of 3 before little boy makes his debut!
…riding a horsey with Nana
…giving the punkin’ some lovin’.
…snack break. It’s hard work climbing all over pumpkins.
…she’s really miserable.
….Papa gets his little sidekick to share.
…loving her Daddy
…hard at work.
The weather has been so nice that we decided to pack up and head out to the beach for some fresh air.
Sadie loves looking at the water and shows off her muscles to the birds so they stay away from her snack (cutest thing ever), but she’s a little unsure about the sand. She came home and hasn’t stopped talking about it, so it’s a love-hate thing I guess.
I’m confident she’ll come around the more she’s in it though. She is a California girl, after all.
Sadie’s Nana & Poppi came out for a visit from Texas and we had so much fun! Even though Sadie was on the tail end of an ear infection and I was dealing with a massive sinus infection while trying to hide my nausea from being newly pregnant half the weekend, we had a whirlwind of a vacation time.
Highlights:
We announced the pregnancy at Bucca di Beppo’s with both sides of Grandparents. It took them FOREVER to figure out Sadie’s “Big Sister” shirt and why she was wearing it….
We checked out the Long Beach Aquarium. Sadie loved touching starfish and sea anemones and sitting at the base of the giant tanks to look at the “fidies” (fish).
I don’t know if anyone really appreciated the sharks you can touch quite as much as I did. I’m admittedly a little obsessed.
We enjoyed a nice stroll along Laguna’s Montage Resort until I fell walking downhill and injured myself. I said my cuts on my knee and foot hurt more than child labor and got laughed at.
Thanks for such a great, memorable weekend Nana & Poppi! We miss you!
We decided to take Nana & Papa along and head up to the mountains to let Sadie play in the snow for the first time as a fun way to spend the last day of 2010.
We loaded up the car and left our 60 degree weather down the hill for 24 degree weather up the hill in Lake Arrowhead. It was such a gorgeous day!
Memorable Highlights:
It was such a relaxing, fun, and memorable day trip for our girl! We’re looking forward to making more memories in 2011!
After a very stressful, emotional, and downright painful week, the Brown family was in some serious need of some down time. Luckily Groupon (a local discount website that sends offers to your inbox daily) had a coupon for an awesome petting zoo in San Juan Capistrano called Zoomars! We snagged the coupon (6 tickets for $18…what a steal!) since this was on our list of fun things to do with our animal-loving Sadie anyways and took off to show our girl some of her favorite animals this afternoon as a way to unwind after the trauma of the week.
By the pictures, I think you can gather we all had a good time:
Sadie, say "Mooooo!"
This guy can jump!
Daddy, that goat just ate my apple!
Check out that cow...hope it's grassfed!
MMMoooo!!!
We also have a thing for playing music and dancing with Daddy:
I can help you play this song Dada!
She also plays drums...on Daddy's head!
I love my little girl! She makes me so incredibly happy!
Play date at the train station! Chugga chugga choo choo!
TJ’s parents came out for the Memorial Day weekend from Texas and blessed us by making a little vacation out of it for TJ and I by all of us (Me, TJ, Sadie, the ‘rents & Aunt Boo) staying in a beautiful B&B on the beach in Coronado Island. Sadie had so much fun reuniting with far away family-showing them all the stuff she’s learned in the past 6 months.
Here’s some highlights:
Enjoying the sunset with Poppi
As much as TJ’s family loved being by the ocean (after living in Hawaii, who wouldn’t?!), I think we all decided that it’s safe to say no one loves the beach as much as our Sadie. She lights up as soon as she hits the sand and gets a glimpse of the water. If her feet touch the sand, life is at its peak in Sadie’s little heart….
Ooooh! I love the beach!
Lemme outta this thing! I gotta see the water!
Nana & Poppi soaking up the last rays of the day
Nana & Aunt Boo
Relaxin'
Smoochie Smoochie
The men.
A couple weeks ago Sadie and I got to tag along Daddy’s business trip to Liberty Mutual’s home office in downtown San Diego. We got to stay in a spiffy hotel looking over the Coronado Bridge, eat room service, and enjoy some time together in a paid for 2 bedroom suite!
Livin' it up on a king size bed
Sadie and I had lots of fun walking the streets downtown, people watching, and hanging out with TJ when he was done at the office.
Some highlights from Sadie’s first trip:
-Daddy freaking out about the amount of baby stuff one has to lug in a car that obviously doesn’t fit it all.
-Because Daddy freaked out about all the baby stuff not fitting in the car, he also managed to forget all of his work clothes hanging up in the closet. This was realized, by me, at about 5:00 pm the day before he was to show up at home office. So, we put Sadie in the stroller and ran across downtown to Nordstrom’s so we could buy work clothes and…ah, dare I say, return them all when we got home! Unfortunately, the salesman kept bringing TJ $300 pants to try on in the fitting room, which TJ found appalling (even though we would be returning them). So we dashed to GAP where I could feed Sadie in a fitting room and he finally felt in his economic comfort zone! The GAP clothes went back too. Yep.
-Sadie and I got some fun girl time!
-Walked around Old Town and had dinner.
-TJ took Friday off and we headed for a nice, sunny day in La Jolla so we could show Sadie all the seals on the beach. She didn’t really care…just wanted her Pabby and a nap.
Look Sadie...seals!!!
After La Jolla, the mini vacation was officially over. She screamed all the way home!
A couple weekends ago we spent the weekend in Austin with our friends here at DTS. We had a jammed day that began with eating a picnic lunch on the State Capital lawn, then to the UT strip for some window shopping and interesting people. After that, we ventured over to the original and biggest Whole Foods in the country, which was the personal highlight for me. After, we took a hike in the park downtown and ate some BBQ at the famous Stubb’s just past world famous 6th street (personal highlight for TJ since it’s Stevie Ray Vaughn’s stomping ground). Once done with dinner, we drove out to Sarah’s parent’s house in the country to spend the night. We woke up in the morning ( I discovered I was really in the middle of nowhere for the first time in my life), had an awesome breakfast and devotional time and then drove home! Whew!
It was an awesome time together with our great friends here laughing all day, car dancing with the girls, and having Ricky and TJ defend our cars from the crazy people trying to break into them on the streets! It was a packed, fast, and fun mini vacation!
We did a very last minute trip 10 hours South through Austin and San Antonio to South Padre Island for 3 nights with our amazingly awesome friends Anthony and Ashley this past weekend. Let me just say that splitting a vacation with another couple you like is THEE way to go when it comes to being able to actually afford to go somewhere without breaking the bank. We shared a hotel room, which made laughing all night absolutely necessary and getting to know each other outside the throws of Seminary a lot of fun.
We spent both full days on the beach at the end of the Island and made a lot of great memories with who TJ & I now consider very close friends.
More to come….
Here are the top 10 highlights from our trip home in no particular order:
1. Our nephews jumping on our bed to wake us up in the morning for coffee and cinnamon buns.
2. Running to the ocean at Laguna followed by time on the swings with our niece, followed by an amazing meal at Ciao’s on Balboa Island by pure luck, followed by real cannollis from Ferrera’s in Little Italy in New York (my favs), followed by the boat parade.
3. Celebrating Hanukkah with the family.
4. Watching Jed learn how to express “Oye Ve” in his high chair….seriously the funniest thing I have ever seen.
5. Dad buying In ‘N’ Out as our first meal back home.
6. Waking up insanely early to go shopping with Dad & Kay and then spending a perfect day in La Jolla with the beautiful water, sleeping seals and more shopping thanks to Dad stealing a parking space from a BMW.
7. Apple butt! Only you know what I mean!
8. Walking the old neighborhood TJ & I miss so badly.
9. Shopping at my beloved Trader Joe’s.
10. Going back to Calvary and LOVING it.
