Long Time Gone

This post may not be a whole lot of fun, but it has been a long time coming.  Every time I sit down to write someone (P man) wakes up, or the internet is working, or the internet is working but I can't access my computer with my pictures on it.  Forgive me.  It's true, living at 1127 definitely has its perks, but it also has its fair share of trouble too.  I mean, what do you expect when there are 5 adults, 2 kids, & 2 dogs all living under the same roof?  Not to mention the bazillion people in and out and around of the house all day every day.  Throw in a toddler who won't sleep, dogs who are sick sick sick with the rest of the crazy that surrounds us and you can imagine that life is a little hectic here.  In a good kind of way.  Most of the time.

Milestones of our family that I may or may not have already told you all about:

P man: no longer uses a pacifier, and demands to sleep in a big boy bed.  I have two major goals to accomplish with him before this summer, potty training and riding his balance bike.  I haven't concluded yet which adventure will be easier to accomplish - depends on the day.

MLL:  almost 6 months old.  I probably won't be writing again until she actually is 6 months old, so I'm updating you now :)  She's a happy, easy going baby who rarely cries and is always smiling.  She especially smiles at her brother and when no one is looking he can be caught making funny faces in her direction.  Though he really hates it when she grabs a hold of his hair (who can resist!?) Speaking of P's hair - I have yet to go ANYWHERE since that kid was 9 months old without someone commenting on his hair.  And as far as I can tell, everyone had white blonde hair like his when they were young.  Thats the word on the street anyway.

We spend most of our days in the back yard or taking a very slow stroll around the lake close to my parents house.  Sometimes we only make it around the creek but it takes P an hour to do that and its mostly nice to get out in the sunshine.  We are also still swimming at least 3 times a week so I am thinking of putting the kids in swimming lessons (amend my goals to potty training, bike riding, and swimming).

Everyone is still busy adjusting and making friends.  We'll be church hopping soon to find a church home (suggestions??), I'm going to a Bible study, an occasional girls group, date nights, exploring parks with different friends and trying to be somewhat helpful in maintaining the house hold. Its a full time job.  P still loves to bake so we try to do that on occasion but he is less than helpful now that he has discovered that cookie dough tastes delicious.

I'm starting to get a bit anxious living in transition mode since most of my things are still packed away in storage.  BML saved some of my sanity by setting up a small little office space just for me that is far enough away from the action that it takes someone at least 3 minutes for someone to find me - so that's some good quiet time :)  I think we'll start to move our stuff into different storage with more access soon since it is on average 77 degrees here each day and I still have Annapolis winter clothe hanging in my closet.

Aunt T, LTD, MLL, and I are headed up to Pensacola Beach / Gulf Breeze this weekend for our cousins baptism and to see family.  We're looking forward to the time together, but we all will miss the boys!  Especially P...we'll miss everyone, but especially P. :)

I'm attaching some pictures of everyone from LTD's computer - is anyone out there on instagram?  we just started - i put pictures on there fairly often and would love to see some of yours!  Leave your name in the comments (ha, like anyone ever comments :) ) or search for us!


p.s.  how awesome is CMD for doing IMPROV!!??  I about wet my pants just thinking about it.  i could never do what he is doing....we're pretty proud!

p.s.  attaching pictures is frustrating me.  i will try again later.  maybe.

don't eat the pizza! and other adventures...

I'm blogging! At 10 am!  How is this possible?  A baby swing and an iphone.  BML and I are new to the iphone world, we didn't know what we were missing!  LTD gave me an itunes gift card for my birthday and one of the first things I spent it one was toddler apps since yay yay! already introduced them to sweet p during her visit.  He is now perched on the couch in "Fish School" learning his letters.  And sweet l girl is quietly napping in her swing.  AND!  Thanks to FTD my house smells delicious with a concoction of cinnamon and vanilla simmering on the stove. (check out this link) I have even brushed my teeth this morning, and last night I read a book!  Only 10 pages, but a book!  Oh quiet time...it's good to see you again.

Yesterday was a completely different story.  We headed to Whole Foods to grab something to eat as our refrigerator was completely bare.  Completely.  And Whole Foods has a parking garage under the store so its easier to maneuver both kiddos in and out.  Except that P refused to ride in the cart, so I let him walk provided he stay by my side the whole time.  It was an experiment, and he did pretty well!  We played I spy with all of the items on my list.  "Where are the bananas, P?"  and he ran to the bananas, I picked them up and he put them in the cart.  We had a little trouble with the eggs, but we managed to make out with them all intact.  We stopped at the pizza spot for some quick lunch - I picked P up to check out the slices and he promptly let our a huge sneeze and splattered the glass with snot.  sick.  the snot, and P.  oops. 

Like I mentioned last time, I spend a good amount of time at night on pintrest.com while nursing L.  Sometimes I spent too much time in the food section and pin all things delicious and bad for you.  But as you all know if you have been following, P loves to help bake, so it's a good activity.  But not good for dropping the baby lbs, especially since I am not doing a lot of exercising lately.  I did about 20 minutes of yoga a few days ago and my body is still yelling at me.  Anyway, a couple of days ago I found this http://playathomemom3.blogspot.com/ with all kinds of activities and I thought, we could do that stuff, no problem.  It overwhelms me though with all the set up and I never have everything you need and I'm not great and knowing what I can substitute so we did the old vinegar & baking soda experiment.  Success!  We played with the eyedropper making volcano's for 45 minutes while L was sleeping.  I managed a couple pictures...

This last picture is us making FTD some art since she has requested some via twitter.  P is making his way toward L sleeping in her swing so I'm signing off...here he comes!  What a lovely 15 minutes...

Every Rose Has It's Thorn

I seriously believe that I have a restless soul. My brain never stops moving, which is not always a good thing. I toss and turn, continually second guess decisions, and wonder what life would be like if I lived in City A, but maybe City B, or a combination of City A and City B with plenty of room to indulge in what I believe is the glamorous life of a gypsy. Only, without the negative aspects like stealing and living places illegally.

Since I have no idea how long I will be in a particular place, I try to make a serious effort to get out and find my own adventure, to make sure that I really live and indulge in the various activities of my new surroundings. That leads me to the subject of this blog post. One random Sunday, I decided that I was going to get up early, and walk down to the Marina District for a relaxing cup of coffee before hopping on MUNI to the parking lot of the Golden Gate Bridge. I'd take a leisurely stroll across the bridge, catch the MUNI over to Golden Gate Park as the fog rolled in to view the Picasso exhibit before heading home to walk and feed the dog. Sounds like a most perfect day doesn't it?

I should mention that I have a love/hate relationship with MUNI (the bus system). It gets me where I am going, but rarely in a timely, comfortable manner.

New York Times' Best Chocolate Chip Cookie Recipe

My morning didn't start out quite like I planned, because I forgot that I needed to make RBD3 some baked goods because LTD and LDL were going to be taking a break due to the impending arrival of MLL. See the previous post of me about my lack of baking equipment. It was quite the experiment. I followed the instructions perfectly, but they didn't tell me that I need to mix the dry ingredients together before mixing into the wet. I don't have a stand mixer, so my forearms had quite the work out. But at least the set-up was neat and tidy!

ALL these people were on my bus.

After messing up my cookies (waaaaay too floury), I walked to Fillmore to catch the sweet view from the top of the hill and grab the bus to the GG bridge. The bus is late. 20 minutes late. But it would be just my luck to head to catch another bus, or start walking, or just go get my car, and then my bus would show up. So me and about 20 foreigners are hanging out, waiting to get to the bridge. Pretty soon it becomes apparent that I live in the city (and I am by myself) so every single party asked me if MUNI was always unreliable. If someone would pick us up soon. We became friends. Good thing too, since when a non-full bus finally arrived (3 full ones passed without stopping) we crammed in like sardines. I took a picture of people exiting so you would have some idea of what the ride was like. OH! I forgot to mention that by the time the bus picked us up (waited for over an hour) the fog had started rolling in, covering bridge views.

After throwing myself out of the bus to prevent trampling, I headed to the bridge to start my walk. With 1,000 of my closest friends. Lucky for me - the Park Service is aware of heavy crowds. To make things even better, the west side of the bridge is closed, meaning that tourists pedestrians, tourist cyclists, leisure cyclists, leisure runners, and crazy people that ride 150 miles a day were all on one 8ft wide piece of concrete suspended in air. Plenty of crisis hot lines were around though. I politely asked the German next to me to take my picture. He took a long time and finally said "Oh. Is it just you?". Yes sir! Just me! Just take the picture already. It's a terrible picture of me. One of those - I shouldn't have to wear sunglasses because there is no sun, and yet I still squint - ugh.

Claustrophobes, turn back now!

Yes, I did this in August and am wearing a sweater.

So I walk the bridge. It gets much better after you make your way past the advertised "vista" where most people stop to shield themselves from the wind, take a picture, and turn around. Truthfully, it was very calming. I couldn't hear much but the tinnitus anyway, so the rush of the cars flying by was soothing. I took a few pictures along the way for your viewing pleasure. Side note: when I take pictures, I move to the side of the "trail" so that the cyclists, runners, and walkers can pass. Not everyone is aware of this piece of travel/picture etiquette. I find that young females are the biggest perpetrators of this rule. They seem to think that every one will think they are cute and funny, lining up their giants bikes across the entire span of the walkway. Yeah. Super cool. Cyclists rang their bells like crazy. Kind of funny.

Lookout for jumpers. Easy to do without fencing. 

Pretty cool right? Even covered in fog.

I enjoyed my walk. I can cross that off the "must do" list. I enjoyed it so much that I was tempted to walk all the way to Sausalito and have a tasty adult beverage (like a hot toddy - in August). But Picasso and his Masterpieces from the Musee National Picasso Paris awaited. So I touched the other side of the bay (to say I completely crossed), turned around, and speed walked back to the parking lot to catch the next MUNI to Golden Gate Park and the  de Young Museum. In hindsight, I should have driven my own car, or ridden my bike but that's 20-20 right? Oh! I forgot to mention, that will I was trying to take a picture of the small window of no fog while waiting for the bus back, people just stepped right in front of me. I just I left too much space between me and the railing. Clearly, totally the fault of me and my personal space.

Really? All up in my "zoom" space

MUNI finally comes to pick me up at 4:00pm. I just discover (via my slow as molasses iPhone) that they stop selling tickets at 4:30 so that the museum can close at 5:30. What? On a week night? But I'm making decent time. I only waited for the bus for 20 minutes, stopped at 10 different places, and finally got off at Fulton. I immediately cross the street and start walking toward the de Young. Except I went the wrong way. I was supposed to be headed toward the Rose Garden and instead I'm headed to the polo fields. GG Park is ginormous.

I missed the last ticket sale. Even the Academy of Sciences had closed at that point. The only food left in the area was Indian (ew) and Blue Bottle Coffee (delicious, but I'm already sleeping funny). The Japanese tea Garden was still open. Everyone and their grandmother was headed over there and it was another entrance fee. So, I called it a day. Missed the 44 - decided to walk to the 1. Rode the bus for 5 minutes until it broke down and we had to transfer to a different bus. Finally got to my home stop, walked inside and discovered that Pax had thrown up in his crate. Awesome. At least I saw the rose garden! In August. Even though it feels like Winter.

If my main goal was to have an adventure in the place I currently call home, then mission accomplished.