The "New" Me

So I had planned to just go get my hair trimmed and thinned a little, but it turned out to be a little more than that. I got it "trimmed" a little more than I had intended, thinned (which feels great for someone with hair as thick as mine), cut some bangs (ahhhhh!), and put some layers in it. But I wasn't finished. I then went and got some hair dye with highlights. It was really red and really dark, but I thought, what the heck? So here is my "new" hair.

Surprisingly, I really love everything that was done! I was so worried about getting bangs, but they are long enough that I can tuck them behind my ear. And the color has been a little difficult to get used to, but it's a really deep, beautiful color.

Wii Fit

We just got Wii Fit yesterday. We had to switch our furniture around so we would have enough room to play. We had so much fun playing. It gets your weight, height, BMI, etc. and has you set goals for yourself to lose weight. On some of the ads, some of the games didn't look all that fun. But we could have played forever last night. It counts how many minutes of exercise you got for the day. I was just really impressed with everything it can do. I didn't get any pictures of us last night, but I'm sure we will soon.

Come on over if you want to try it out!

Hungry Bear

This is one of my favorite places to eat at Disneyland, for a couple of reasons. First, they have the most killer Funnel Cake! I can't ever eat the whole thing, but it is so good!

The other thing I love about this restaurant is that it sits on the edge of the Rivers of America (a large river in Disneyland). It's a place you can sit and eat and not see the crazy crowds everywhere. And to me, it just feels peaceful. This time we got a little surprise while we sat and ate. A mommy duck came by with about 6 or 7 little babies. The babies were brand new and so cute. I wish I had gotten a few more pictures, but a few little girls scared them off.

This is a place you should try to eat at if you ever get to Disneyland!

We're back!

Well, our vacation is over. Part of me is sooo happy to be home, but as usual, it went by very fast. I have some great stories and awesome pictures and video that I will post shortly. For now, we are just trying to catch up on laundry and get back into our everyday life! One thing I will say.... Disneyland is not nearly as much fun in the scorching heat!

One Day!

This morning I got up after having a terrible nights sleep (thanks to my son). But I soon realized that we have one day left until we leave, which made me considerably happier. So as soon as Alex got up I said, "One day left!" He smiled at me and said, "Yay." I was expecting a little more enthusiasm from him, so I said, "Aren't you excited? We're leaving tomorrow!" He got a look of confusion on his face and asked, "What?" Again I repeated that we were leaving tomorrow. "WHAT???" And with the biggest grin on his face he said, "Mom, I think I just need to scream right now!"

Even though we've been counting down for a couple months now, I don't think he realized that one day left meant that we're leaving tomorrow. It was a funny moment that totally cracked me up!

Surprise Holly!

My sweet friend Holly has been giving me a terrible guilt trip because I will be gone on vacation for her birthday. So I tried thinking of a way to "make it better". So I got together with our other friends, Tammy and Kaylene, and planned a surprise party for her. We didn't want to make it too big, so we decided it would just be the four of us. Her birthday isn't until the 19th, and we did this on the 9th, so she truly had no idea what was up. We got her hubby, Andy, in on it so we could set everything up at her house and really surprise her.

When they got home, she was coming to the back room where we had her cake, presents, balloons, etc. set up. We heard her stop and say, "What the....", so we jumped out and said surprise. We took her to eat at our favorite place, Joy Luck. After a wonderful dinner we went back and opened presents. We asked her what she wanted to do after that. She said she wanted to go to a store and walk around. A little odd, but okay. We went to Fred Meyer, but they were about to close. So we went to Wal Mart. We wanted to get something to remind us of the night. After looking at jewelry, trying on 5 or 6 shirts, we finally settled on matching pj's. We were probably at Wal Mart for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. But we all enjoyed every minute of it. We came back to Holly's house and played a little Mario Kart. Then we turned on August Rush. Sadly, we were so tired by then that Kaylene and Holly started falling asleep. I was really intrigued by the movie, so we agreed to finish it on our next girls night. So finally, at about 4:30 in the morning, we went back to our homes to get a little sleep.

Here are a few pictures I got of our wonderful evening...

Happy birthday Holly! I hope you had as much fun as I did.

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all Mother's out there. I hope it was a wonderful day! Usually we don't do too much for Mother's or Father's Day. And honestly, that's okay with me. This year was nice... we went to church in the morning, but came home a little early as Alex is still getting over his cold and Ryan isn't feeling great either. We ate lunch with my parents and then went to visit Ryan's parents. It was very relaxing and nothing too out of the ordinary. For me, Mother's Day is a day for me to reflect on my role as a Mother and how lucky I am to be a Mom. I don't like the idea of getting big gifts for Mother's Day. I love that Alex is at the age now where he can bring home the drawings and hand prints for me. To me, those are the greatest gifts. At preschool, they had Alex fill in some blanks about me. When I read it, I wanted to laugh and cry. It was so sweet to see what he wrote about me. Here is what he wrote....

1. My mom is 30 years old.

2. She is 5 or something ft. tall.

3. She weighs 49 pounds.

4. Her favorite food is macaroni, doughnuts, cookies.

5. She likes to play video games.

6. She doesn't like spiders, snakes, lions and pickles.

7. She goes to work at health center while I'm at school.

8. I like when my Mom builds me a train set, do stuff she likes to do and I do, stuff I want to do.

Love, Alex

It just makes me laugh. What a sweet boy. Some of the stuff he got right... others (like me being 30 and weighing 49 lbs.) not so right. It's just funny how kids view things. Here are the pictures I got from him for Mother's Day

The first picture is of me holding a flower. And his preschool teacher took this picture of him at school. Funny kid!

This picture in red is of the whole family. I love how he depicted my weight so well in the picture. All of my 49 lbs. Alex has only recently started to like drawing and coloring, so it's nice to get pictures from him. So, that was my Mother's Day! I love my family!

Sick Little Boy

Poor little Alex has come down with a nasty cold. Luckily he should have enough time before we leave to get over it. My fear is that Ryan or I will catch it right before we leave. We are taking our vitamin C and I think I'll go get some Airborne just as a precaution. I took a few pics of Alex this morning. He doesn't go anywhere right now without a box of tissues. What a trooper he is.

He is still such a sweet little guy, even being so sick. Love you Alex!

Getting Ready

I can't believe we're so close to our vacation. We are so excited to go. Time has been moving so quickly until yesterday. I have a feeling these next 6 days are going to drag. But we still have a lot to do. Usually I have a packing list all made up and half of my stuff packed. Well I just haven't gotten around to any of it. So we'll be pretty busy this weekend. One thing we do for every trip is to make a paper chain. Our paper chain started out at about 75 days. Here it is now.

It's amazing how fast time goes by. Yesterday I bought our tickets for the parks. They do it a little differently now. You print full size tickets from home and bring it directly to the entrance at Disneyland. They scan it and give you the actual tickets there. It's something new to us, but if it's one less line to stand in, I'm all for it.

I love Disneyland! It truly is like a second home. And I'm so excited that we get to spend this trip alone. I think it will make for a very wonderful and memorable experience.

Stimulus checks - A Myth???

So anytime we are waiting for money, I get very anxious. When they announced they were sending out these Stimulus checks, we decided some of that money would be going towards our vacation. We're cutting it very close (we should be getting ours by this Friday and we're leaving next Thursday). I continue to check our account on a daily basis with a hope that it will come early. I ask anyone close to me if they've gotten their checks yet and a few have, so I know it will come. I guess I'm just paranoid/worried that somehow ours will get messed up and then we won't have money for our vacation. Anyway, I'm going to try and calm down at least until Friday. If we don't get it then, I will be a complete mess!

Update: I didn't have to be patient for very long. It came today, a day early! Yay!