Monday, June 30, 2008

Dressing up

I buy Halloween costumes after Halloween to get some fun cheap dress-ups for the kiddies...and they love it, but they can have just as much fun with our cloths, blankets and hats. Here are just some of the things they like to dress up as...what do your kids (or you) dress up as?

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Silly kids

This is Aidan and Ava's first you tube clip...Silly kids.


Saturday, June 7, 2008

Cross country road trip!

On the 14th of May we turned over the keys to our house in Stafford, VA and started on our cross country drive (unfortunately with two cars!) to Hanford, CA. We got to hang with Heather (my friend that I meet on the Avon walk) and her family that night. I just wish I had pulled out my camera and taken more pictures of her and the beautifully farm they live on. I guess I'll just have to go back a visit! :)
We also got to see Cat and meet her husband Nick in Memphis, TN when Memphis in May was going on (a BBQ contest) so we had some great ribs while catching up to my gatita. :)
We really pushed hard to get to Tucson, AZ where Aidan and Ava were staying with mom and Dad and then we pushed even harder to get to CA before our stuff came...Ish really wanted to be here when our stuff came into town. And we were, we had to drop off the BMW at his brothers house in San Diego to take turns driving (he did most of it) all night long until we checked into a hotel at 4am in catch some Zzz's. Lucky that's all we needed because this place was nasty!! It even had a broken toilet seat!! But at 4 in the morning after driving all day and all night we didn't have the energy to switch rooms...so we just held one cheek up...Hahaha, get the picture? :)
But we made it here (after only $980 in gas) and we settled in super fast so it was worth it...just don't ask us to drive for awhile! Hanford in a really cute and friendly town, I love the house (I'll post pics of it later), and our neighbors seem really cool...so I'm good.

Wednesday, May 7, 2008

My Avon Walk for Breast Cancer

About two mouths ago, I told you all I wanted to do the Avon Walk and I asked you to help me raise $1,800 to go to the Breast Cancer foundation...we did it!! You guys are awesome! Thanks you so much for your support and donations.
The walk was such a cool experience, there was great energy there with 3,500 walkers all walking for the same purpose. I didn't know any other walkers to start with, witch was really cool because I was able to talk to lots of different people and get some amazing stories.
By about mile 4 one of those people that I meet turned out to be Heather, and we totally hit it off! We talked pretty much talked the entire time about everything, and by about mile 13Th I realized that I had made a great friend. She turned out to be an unexpected bonus to the experience.
We didn't really feel the miles until after mile 20, and we started to really feel it about mile 24! But we had awesome support the entire way, people were cheering us on, and dressed up in crazy pink outfits for our viewing pleasure. When we were going through neighborhoods people sat outside there house and passed out water, juice, and food, but the ones that really made us misty were the little girls who set up lemonade stands for us, and the dad who sat outside with his two daughters while they picked wild flowers and gave them out to us telling us thank you.
By the time we made it into the wellness village (the camp grounds at the end of day 1) we were done! Heather's shins were killing her, I didn't really feel it until I sat down and then I started to hurt everywhere! We were some limping fools! Heather had to get her shins checked out by the medic and go back to her hotel, and I showered eat, and sat in the message chair with the foot vibrator for a bit. I hung out for a bit, but I needed a good stretch and bed, but before I did I had to stop and write something for Cindy Clark (my friend Alia's sister) on the support poll, she has recently been diagnosed with stage two breast cancer so her and her family can use all the thoughts and prayers you guys can spare.
The next day I was feeling great again, I thought I was going to be in bad shape, but I felt great...Crazy! I packed up, took down my tent, grabbed some breakfast and started walking again. The miles went by really fast, before I knew it we were almost there! We crossed the finish line at 11:45 cheering and yelling almost as much and they were cheering and yelling for us! Ish, Aidan and Ava where waiting for me which was really cool! On the downside, we made such great time that day that we had over 3 hours until the closing ceremony was starting, and you all know how that is with two young kids! So we took off early, oh well!
The support from you all touched me, then getting to the walk and seeing 3,500 other people who also had amazing friends and family that supported them as well, and all of the hundreds of supporters all along the way that sat out there all day to offer cheer and nutrition made this a really great birthday! Thank you all for your support!!

Thursday, May 1, 2008

My new hair style

So my hair has been looking like 'tierd mommy' all the time and I needed a change. At first I was going to go blond and totally freack out my family, but Paul Michael (who ROCKS as a hair stylist, he was even voted #1 in the Washington Area) advised aginst it since I hade colored it a year and a half ago...I never knew you couldn't lighten hair that has been colored with out striping it. Not wanting to ruin my hair he sugjested doing enough highlights to give it a lighter look and taking 7" off!!! So here's my new do, I love it, Ish loves it, it threw Aidan and Ava for a loop, but I want to know what you think!


If you are in the DC area and want a great hair stylist Paul Micheal is really great, here's a link to his web site: http://www.paulmichaelshairsalon.com/

Monday, April 21, 2008

Photo Day

We needed to get our family pictures redone since Ava was not in our last set. The day was full of chaos but the photographer caught us all smiling several times. The kids look great, Ish looks good, and I look bad. But it's not a picture of me, it's of the family, so I don't care...really, I don't care...I might care a little bit! :) Oh well! Aidan was Mr. photogenic and he totally loved the photographer. Whenever she would pose him for a shot he had this goo-goo ga-ga look on his face, Ava dug her too, maybe it was all the toys and tricks she has to get them to smile, cause they were ready to stay with her!

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Cherry Blossom Festival in DC

Last time we lived here in Virgina we went to the Cheery Blossom Festival in Washington DC, which in also a Japanese festival since in is a spin off of the Japanese Cherry Blossom Festival. We knew we were on our way to Japan so it was really cool to go a check out what we were in store for. This year when we went back to the festival here we once again had a ball, but it was from a completely different perspective having just come back from Japan, instead of looking at all the cool stuff with wonder and excitement of something we didn't know much about, we felt cozy and at home. It made us really miss Japan!
The blossoms where awesome, it was really crowded since it is such a well know festival, but it was kinda' cool to see all the different people and their reactions to the things they might not know much about...kinda' like us the first time!
Here's some pics of the day, we started at a coffee house by our house...Aidan loves it when we do that, it means hot chocolate and muffins!