January 2016

With the new year comes Father/Daughter dance practice for the next five months.  Can't wait to see these four on stage for the recital.

Madden is continuing gymnastics.  Lauren says he just lights up right when he gets there.

Skylar had her best friend from her class Lucy over for a play date.

We did one last Disneyland trip before my pass expires.  Madden is now 40 inches so we were able to try a couple new rides for him.  He loved Star Tours.

Father / Daughter Dance 2016

Last week Skylar and Jake got dressed to the nines and had a very special date night.  Skylar's school hosted their annual Father/Daughter Dance.  We had been talking to Skylar about it for weeks and she was extremely excited for it.  Plus anytime she gets to put on a fancy dress she is in heaven.  She and Jake looked great!     

Big thumbs up the whole night. 

Dad and Skylar #selfie.

Us moms had been chatting about getting the dads and girls together before the dance so we made a dinner reservation for all of them.  Jake said dinner was a blast for all the girls.  They just laughed, chatted and even pulled the ultimate girl move by all going to the bathroom together.  

Audrey, Lucy, Skylar, Olivia, and Madeline

Proud Dads and their girls.

Skylar and her classmate Olivia.

Once they left dinner and all went to the dance is sounded like the girls kind of lost each other and Skylar and Jake were doing their own thing.  There was a dessert bar, hula hoops, and even a photo booth.  Jake and Skylar danced to Bruno Mars, Katy Perry and even got a slow dance in to Lonestar.  They both came home raving about the night.  I love that the two of them get to do such special things together.

Weekend Fun with Uncle Jessee and Nico

I think it was only a couple weeks ago when Jessee called and said he was buying tickets for a trip down.  We were definitely ready for them to visit because they hadn’t been down for almost a year and a half and after seeing how much fun the kids had with their cousins over the summer, we knew it would be a great time.

Right when Nico came into the house the kids were full of excitement and couldn’t slow down all evening.  Sadly the evening went downhill pretty quickly when poor Madden hit his mouth and was bleeding everywhere.  We got that fixed up when only a couple hours later in the night he woke up with the stomach flu and was throwing up all night.  Madden had such a rough evening that he had to sit out the first day of fun.  We had Skylar miss school so she could hang with her cousin.  Jake and Skylar took Nico and Jessee to the trampoline park.  It was their first time at one and they had a blast.  After an hour of straight jumping the four of them headed to the beach.  It ended up being the best weather day while they were here so they spend a couple hours there.  Once they got home from the beach it was straight to the pool for some more water fun. 

Thankfully the next day Madden was back to about 75%.  He wasn’t eating but was at least able to join in on the fun.  All the kids were up early so I took them to the donut shop.  Jake and Skylar had dance practice so Madden and I took Uncle Jessee and Nico to the Museum of Making Music.  It wasn’t Nico’s first choice but once he got there and starting working on the scavenger hunt the Museum had he was fine.  We took the boys to the park for a bit and then met up with Skylar and Jake is downtown Carlsbad for pizza and arcade games.  That evening we decided to take the train down to Solana Beach and grab dinner, but once we got to the train station we realized the train was closed for the weekend and had to come up with Plan B.  Nico really wanted to do the Legoland Hotel (us parents weren’t too keen on the idea), but once the train was shut down we figured we needed something that would make the kids happy.  We had dinner at the buffet and let the kids run around the hotel lobby.  You could tell that Legoland was the cherry on top of Nico’s trip, he was so thrilled to be at the hotel again.

The next day we only had until lunch before it was time to head to the airport.  We took the kids to the park and then did some plane flying in our neighborhood, played a couple rounds of Uno, had a quick bite to eat, and then it was time for Uncle Jessee and Nico to head out.

The Desert in January

El Nino…what?!?!  We had one week of heavy rain and since then it’s been nothing but clear skies.  Lucky for us the MLK weekend forecast was ideal for a desert trip.  My Dad got us rooms at the Rancho Las Palmas, a resort I have been wanting to go to for a while now.  He is working a job out in the desert and had to work out there over the weekend and asked us to join him there to do a little pre birthday celebration for him.  The kids and I drove out Saturday afternoon.  Sadly Jake was in Wisconsin where it was a high of 9 degrees for work and wasn’t able to join in.  Lucky for him we were able to send him pictures of us swimming in the pool where it was a high of 78 degrees.  We arrived and immediately hit the pool.  They pool had two slides, lazy river, and splash pad.  A kids heaven right!!  Madden, Skylar and Papa cruised around the lazy river until dinner time.  By then Matthew, Erin and Lennon showed up.  Another plus was the kids got to hang out together all weekend.  It’s like Skylar and Madden’s dream to have Lennon around.  They just adore being the older cousins, especially Madden.

The next morning it was breakfast in the warm sun and right back to the pool.  Madden loved hanging in the shallow pool with Lennon, while Skylar went around the lazy river all morning.  We think she probably went around 20+ times.  After promising her 3 toys from Target, I was able to convince her to go down the waterslide, which she ended up loving! She and I went down it over and over again.  Now I’m just hoping she forgets about the 3 toys from target.  We were so shocked by how empty the hotel was.  There was empty lounge chairs all over the pool and we never once had to wait in line to go down the slide.  Don’t think we could of asked for a more enjoyable day by the pool.

Little do we know the Rossitto’s had desert plans too, so we were able to meet up with them for dinner one of the nights. 

The next day the weather wasn’t quite as warm as it was the day before so we decided to hit up the Living Desert instead of the pool, which both kids were stoked about.  Madden saw the camel and immediately asked to ride it.  We cruised around the zoo for a couple hours and explored areas of it that we hadn’t seen the first time we went a year ago.  

We had lunch on El Paseo and then headed home.  It really was a great way to spend the MLK weekend and I’m looking forward to our next trip out to the desert.