Summer heats up

What is the date? August 22nd already? Really? Where did summer go? It feels like it just got here because a) we've been traveling so much and b) the weather in Hermosa just this week became summeresque. School starts next week for many of the kids here, lucky for us we have another two weeks to hit the beach and all the hot spots of SoCal that we didn't get to yet. The boys have been such fantastic travelers this summer, totally going with the flow. They have been on 11 airplanes, stayed in six hotels, hung with grandparents, aunts and uncles, visited the Space Needle, swam in Puget Sound, the hot tub at the Four Seasons and Kalahari's water park in Wisconsin Dells. They have weathered one canceled flight resulting in two irritated parents, one random stay in Dallas without so much as a toothbrush and as Tyler put it, "We had to sleep in shirts, we didn't even have pants!" So true, and sadly the shirts read, "Here Comes Trouble, Dallas." Lucky for us, they have embraced the whole thing as an adventure, especially our pending move to Seattle. Tyler made us feel better when he stated, "This Seattle thing just keeps getting better and better!" Tristan just romps around, happy to be going places and meeting new friends. While Tyler hangs back, Tristan is the first one out there and can always be counted on to run down the jetway with his hair on fire giving his father a heart attack (mom knows going down the jetway is no problem, he can't escape, it's going up and out the jetway you have to watch out for). So, here are a few photos from our summer adventures to Seattle (twice!), Colorado, Iowa and Wisconsin Dells. Whew!

Butterflies and other crawly insects with Grandpa at the Butterfly Pavillion outside of Boulder, cool!

Tristan driving Grandpa's "Big Red Truck!"

Tyler catches a fish with Papa over the 4th of July in Grand Lake.

Tristan gets psyched abou the beautiful mountains and freezing lake water in Lake Grandby.

We could have spent all afternoon throwing rocks into the lake. Tristan kept giving us heartattacks since he would go so close to the water.

Go-Karts at Heritage Square in Golden - woo hoo! Tristan had a MAJOR meltdown when he was not allowed to ride the rollercoaster more than five times in a row. We're talking MAJOR.

Tristan and Elliot ride the arcade rides. I think it's fair to say our rates will be going way up when Tristan turns 16.

Fun at the Children's Museum with Elliott, Uncle Matt and Aunt Kristin.

Our budding scientist, Tyler becomes "Dr. Bubble!"

The three little cousins in their bubble house.

Back home between trips we chilled out on the patio with the tools from Handy Manny and a tea party or two.

Back in Seattle Tristan tries to warm up to the freezing waters of Puget Sound.

Tyler and Daddy meanwhile have no problem loosing all feeling in their numb feet. They even find some dead jellyfish, hooray!

We meet Uncle Ed in Bainbridge Island and tour the town with him.

Back in Hermosa, we tried at art class. The boys complained the entire time and I had to cancel us out of there. Too bad, Tristan looks like he could be really good!

Happy Birthday to Uncle Ed! Make a wish for no headwinds because shortly afterwards, he rode his bike from L.A. to Seattle!

Grandpa and Kookie found time to visit us this summer. The boys love trying to bury their grandparents in the sand.

Bacon on Bainbridge Island tastes good!!!

Tristan on the ferry to Bainbridge. He loved running around the decks and checking out the boats.

Have movie, will travel.
Back in Hermosa, we take the time to check out Wilderness Park and their overly fed turtles and ducks. We also say hi to five of the "Uncle Ed" squirrels that were caught at our house and brought here.

Tyler: "Dude, those waves look epic."

Tristan: "Rock on, man. I took a gnarly faceplant on my longboard this morning. Practically broke my skull."

Tyler: "That is so totally radical."

Then it was off to Iowa for fun in the sun with Grandma and the gang.

We even took a long road trip to Wisconsin Dells, the waterpark capital of the world, where you can play all day on waterslides and never do one twice, or just use air hockey paddles to make yourself look like a manaical Mickey Mouse.

On our way to Iowa, our flight was delayed and we had to stay in Dallas for the night. Tyler is so good at rolling with the punches, he was just excited that we had to sleep in our clothes and freshly purchased T-shirts that read, "Here Comes Trouble, Dallas."

Knee high by the Fourth of July, eh? By August, this stuff is way over our heads! They couldn' believe that there was actual corn growing on these plants literally everywhere we went. This stuff was maybe 50 feet from he airport.







Back, home, safe and sound. Whew!

Since March

I haven't blogged since March, which isn't horrible, considering I was thinking I hadn't blogged since Valentine's Day. The boys are growing so fast it makes my head spin, I can't believe we're already in the first week of summer vacation! We've got a ton planned and I know it's going to fly by, I just wish I could capture it all and hold on to it forever. I know I can't, so I try to take every moment and put it away in my memory cells for later (okay, not every moment, like when Tristan has his tantrums because he doesn't want to do something). Anyway, since March we had Easter, have had numerous days at the beach, went to Santa Barbara with Uncle Ed, John and I went to Florida (alone!), and Tyler had his last day of school. Here are some photos!







Post Easter egg hunt sugar coma

The careful examination of the dyed egg.

Already Tristan can program the VCR, debug the Direct TV and write code.

Tristan and Scout on an outing in Colorado over spring break.

Spring break sunset in the always fun to visit Colorado.

Luck o the Irish

Tomorrow is St. Patty's Day and Lenny still has to get up to his shenanigans, hence this will be short. We spent last Saturday rolling down Pier Avenue in our lovely green attire and decorated wagon as Tyler handed out candy and Tristan lounged in back eating it, looking at all the people and wondering what the spectacle was. All he needed was a Guiness and a track suit and he would have made a perfect Dubliner.

Peek a boo! Where's the little leprechaun?

Here I am!

These little laddies don't really know it, but their great grandfather came over from the Emerald Isle when he was 17, dropping the "O" from "O'Shea" in the ocean. He lived in a stone cottage with 16 other brothers and sisters, their room was about the size of this wagon. I'd say these Shea brothers are a wee-might luckier to be hanging in Hermosa Beach instead of Smead, Ireland.

Who else is lucky? I am because my hubby took me to the Oscars! It was all that and a bag of chips. Truly something to experience once in a lifetime. And, once is all we will get because I got blacklisted from the Academy for taking this picture on the red carpet. You'd think I was taking photos of top-secret nuclear technology and selling it to the Chinese instead of just trying to snap one of us. Oh well, it was a ball! We hung with the rich and famous and realized- again - that we are lightweights and shouldn't drink like we are 20-years-old anymore.

When Tyler is rich and famous, let's hope he gets his own sunglasses instead of taking mine for paparazzi shots like this one taken at the Natural History Museum. We went there with his class and his brother and half of L.A. I couldn't get out of there soon enough!

Ski Week

So naturally after a week of non-stop puddle madness (for the boys) and a weekend of partying like I was still in my 20's (without the ability to sleep in since the boys have hotwired a 6:30 wake up call in my brain), we all got sick. I think the boys lost their body weight in snot on a daily basis. We have all been so congested that we have coughed, sneezed, wheezed and thrown up mucus all over the house (it's lovely, come on over!). Here is Tyler looking naturally pathetic, we didn't even have to ask him to pose for this one. Of course now he wants to be sick so he can drink smoothies and watch TV all day long (hey, I want to be sick, too!).
Then we got some sunshine in the form of Grandpa and Kookie (ahhhhh...) along with a good dose of the real thing. Finally, back to the beach...

Their visit coincided with what is known as "ski week" around here. We all get the entire week off instead of just one day for President's Day so people can go skiing. We went to the beach instead as well as hit some of the attractions around L.A. including.....

The Petersen Automotive Museum where Tyler showed Uncle Jim just what a good trolley car driver would say and do (strangely enough, it highly resembled the Polar Express' conductor's lines).

Then we hit Train Town with our good friends Casey and Kyle from down the street. The little boys could climb on a dozen or so real locomotives as well as go on a miniature train that took us around the perimeter of the grounds a couple of times.

I think a real freight train could pass by and Tristan would hardly notice it if rocks were around.

We also spent some time horsing around at our favorite parks. I can't believe how big the boys look in this picture, where did my babies go?

Letters!

Tyler and his entire class wrote letters then walked them up the street to mail them in a real mailbox. So much fun!

Tyler and Tucker pretend to be pilots at school. "Busy Airflight 1, you're clear for take-off!"

Tristan's best friends are letters, especially "H" for some reason (and not the little one, only the big one!). I use letters to prevent meltdowns even!

This was the start of my Wednesday morning:

Tyler: "Emergency! Emergency!" He races into the bedroom where I am putting away the boy's clothes.

Me: "What is it? Did the guys in your castle eat too many cookies?"

Tyler: "No, it's Tristan. Come look!"

We scramble out of the bedroom to find Tristan standing on the dining room table chewing on a knife he apparently found there. The kid is going to give me a heart attack. This was after I found him standing on the wobbly arm of the chair in the computer room where he likes to play computer games. He was just calling my name, "Mama, mama." Very casually. He either wanted me to witness him jumping and breaking his arm, or he wanted me to save him. I opted for the later. Other than being a daredevil, Tristan is absorbed by letters. Like in the alphabet. We have a DVD about them and he is fixated on it. He loves to play with them in the tub and he apparently likes X so much he picked it off my keyboard (luckily he's not into vowels).

It's raining, it's pouring.....

I'm not even going to mention that an old man is snoring. But, maybe an old woman! Yep, I turned 40 on January 16th and John and I got up to San Francisco to celebrate. Nothing reminds you more that you are old than staying up late drinking then paying for it in the morning. Oh to be young and alcoholic again. Alas, we did have a really fun, albeit rainy, time, especially since Jackie and Tom Lynch joined us! Outside Vesuvios where the beakniks used to hang. This is us, before we were beat.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Cathy and Kevin flew in to help Aleksa take care of the munchkins. Tristan here was channeling his inner Scarlet O'Hara for the folks.

And, once we got home, the rain began. It rained and it rained and it rained some more. Tristan, aka "Puddle-dude" was in heaven. Tyler, too, because rain meant we stayed inside more and played imaginary stories.


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Finally, FINALLY, the sun came out and we got to go to the beach, which was glorious. Boy are we spoiled with the weather out here. The storms were so bad that the waves practically washed away all the sand berms the lifeguards had plowed up to protect the pier. We got in a fun day of "butt berm sliding." Loads of fun.


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Tristan LOVES the water and makes a break for it every chance he gets. I'm sure he's thinking, "rats, I make a run for it one more time and we're going home," right here. Best to squash their little dreams early. Ha ha! Actually, this is him taking a breather after being in the water, sliding down the berms, collecting rocks and shells and running all over the place.

Blogging Resolution

Happy New Year! I've been terribly inconsistent (shall we say nonexistent?) about blogging. Shame, shame, shame!! My resolution is to blog more consistently. It may not be pretty, or well-thought out, but I do promise to blog more often. Here goes! What better way to start the new year than to have a Silly String fight?

Happy New Year! Tyler pops off a "popper" with a firework inside. He's addicted to them and snap-n-pops now.

"Where to, Miss?" Tristan is quite the driver. He looks quite mellow here, but get him behind the wheel of his buggy and he is road rage personified. Tyler likes to play D.J. and work the cd player in our car while Tristan drives. We do this at least once a day.

Santa may be gone, but his replacement is still here! Ho ho ho!!!

While the rest of the country freezes, we are basking in the sun at the beach. I didn't even mind that Tristan ran into the freezing water because it was so warm out! We did a run of "sledding" rides down the hill, too. This is how I get my exercise! Tyler usually hops out as I'm trying to catch my breath and immediately wants to go again saying, "Come on, Mama! What are you waiting for? Let's go!"









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