Off to Texas...

Riley and I headed to Texas for a quick weekend trip to attend my uncle's funeral. We headed out VERY early on a Friday morning...me and my little traveling buddy!

I have to stop and just comment at what a great traveler Riley is. She has flown A LOT in her short life and she does have her own Rapid Rewards number now! She knows the drill...as soon as we get to security she takes her shoes off, she rides in her carseat with wheels all through the airport, and she sits in her carseat during the whole flight! She either sleeps or watches movies..of course we have snacks and drinks along the way too! Oh...and most importantly she always double checks the safety brochure before we take off...safety first!

We landed in San Antonio just a few hours before the service...we went to the funeral home first to make sure the memorial DVD I had put together worked with their system and then we went to my parents apartment to grab a bite and change clothes and then it was time to head to the funeral.

Riley had already had a long day but she did great...she watched some Caillou with my mom before the service while the rest of us reminisced and looked over pictures of my uncle.
I had to get up with her in the middle of the service because she was talking and making commotion but I was able to eventually bring her back in.

It was a very nice service...standing room only, great pastor, great memories shared, and a life lovingly remembered. I also was able to see so many people that I hadn't seen in many years...bittersweet day.

After the service we all headed to Los Barrios to eat.

Here's a pic of my and my cousins...Kramer, me, Karson, Quincy, Riley, and Kassie

Quincy is Kassie's adorable baby girl and Riley loved meeting her and taking care of her...I wish these sweet girls could spend time together more often.

After dinner we rolled through Sonic for some ice cream and made the trek to the lake...it had been a long and emotional day and I was looking forward to relaxing at the lake for the rest of the weekend.


As soon as Riley woke up she was ready to get outside and play.



First things first...she had to fish..made her Daddy so proud!


Then she asked when we could ride in the boat!

JoePa said not until she cleaned the boat and the dock!

So she got to work!

Later that morning we went to pick strawberries and my sweet friend Nicki and her little guy Will met up with us. Nicki lives out here in Cali with us but she is from Austin and happened to be in TX while we were so we had to have her up to the lake!

Grammie and Riley...ready to pick!

Nicki and Will

Riley..the best taste tester!

Tuckered out from picking strawberries!

Nicki and I took the kids home for naps while my mom went shopping...she picked up a blow up pool for the kiddos to play in since the lake was still pretty chilly!

Will got to swim commando and they both had a blast!

Love this girl!

We did some swinging!

and some piano playing!

Then we took a nice evening boat ride and look who got to do a little driving!

My parents cooked a wonderful meal and Riley had fun doing some dancing on the porch after dinner!

Riley and Nicki

Wonder where she learned this pose from? I see some Grandma June (my dad's mom) in that pose too!

It was definitely a bittersweet weekend but such great family time.

Party Party Party

This particular Sunday Riley had quite the social obligations...TWO birthday parties! Funny thing is that her bounce house had just as many social obligations...we have loved getting to share the bounce house with all of Riley's friends for their parties and this was day was no exception!

First off was her best friend from school, Vanessa's, book birthday party! Everyone brought a book for a book exchange and it was so much fun!

Here are Riley and Vanessa in the princess dresses!

Here is one of Vanessa's friends reading Riley a book!
Between the parties we decided to just run some errands rather than try and head home...and Riley convinced us she wasn't tired!

Jason went to get his hair cut so us girls headed to Old Navy...and look who was not tired at all!

Don't you know I got many chuckles and comments from fellow shoppers as I enjoyed my time to shop while Riley snoozed. It was hard to imagine she was comfortable and keep her head from falling over but a mother knows how to make it work...if your child is sleeping and you are shopping you will do anything to keep it that way! :)

After our errands and Riley's snooze we headed to her friend Carter's party!

The kids bounced and had lots of fun!

Carter was a little shy when it was time to sing and do cake...poor guy...the other kids had no sympathy..they were ready for CAKE!

Happy Birthday Vanessa and Carter!

Grammie and JoePa Visit!

My parents had this trip planned for awhile but when my uncle passed away we weren't sure if they would be able to make it out.

It all worked out and it was great for my Dad to get away from everything he was having to deal with and get some time with Riley (and us I guess) to cheer him up...if this girl can't put a smile on your face than I don't know what will!

They got in late Thursday evening and we were trying to make it to PF Changs before they closed...when leaving the airport the highways can be a bit tricky and J took a wrong turn and before we knew it and before we could get out of it we were on the Bay Bridge and we were committed...oops! Normally an accidental trip to San Francisco would mean a great meal but it was nearly 9:00 and we didn't know what would be open so we just headed home and had a very late meal at Chili's...it was a fun adventure!

The weather couldn't have been more yucky the ENTIRE weekend but we made the best of it and just enjoyed our time together!

Riley got to go to a movie on Friday with Grammie and JoePa...they saw Gnomeo and Juliet and had a great time!

Friday night we took my parents to one of our local favorite finds...Vintage Cafe. It's in Suisun Valley just a short drive from our house and next to a few wineries. It's quaint and the food is delish!

We took a bottle of Oak Chardonnay that we had purchased from Mondavi and decided this was the night to uncork this great bottle and share it over dinner...it was some of the best wine I have ever had...worth every penny!

JoePa and his girl!

Me and the hubs...


Grammie and Riley

It was such a fun night and a scrumptious dinner!

When we got home guess who put on the "princess hair?"

Saturday morning we relaxed and decided to head to Bab's for breakfast...another one of our favorite finds! We had a great breakfast on a rainy day and then headed home to all take naps :)

Riley felt it very important to get her morning stretches in...my Dad had his bands to stretch his torn rotator cuff and she loved playing with it!

Check out these twinkies in their almost matching shirts!

After nap time we headed up to base to do some bowling!

It was so much fun...we had some healthy competition going on and Miss Riley was right in the middle of it!

Our girl is so inquisitive she was watching everyone bowl and she noticed how people crossed their leg back after letting the ball go and so she started doing it on every one of her turns...it was the cutest thing!

Getting some help from JoePa!

After bowling Grammie and JoePa babysat while Jason and I went on a date...woohoo!

It was a yucky, rainy, cold weekend but we had the best time.

We love when Grammie and JoePa get to come visit and play!

Uncle Kim

The last day that Josh and Andrea were visiting we got the horrible news that my dad's brother, my Uncle Kim, had passed away.

He lived too short a life and left behind lots of friends and family that loved him very much.

We thank God for the blessing of his life.

Big Girl Bed!

We had been talking about moving Riley into a big girl bed for a short while and one day Jason came home from lunch and we decided that was the day!

After I picked her up she and I headed to Target to get her new bedding! I wanted to get something that would still match most of her furniture and other decor in her room and they had the cutest pink comforter and we got everything we needed!

She was so excited about her big girl bed so we figured now was as good a time as any to also encourage her to get rid of her binky...so throughout the afternoon I would casually mention that big girls that sleep in big girl beds don't use binkies anymore.

When we got home we let her watch some fun shows while we got her room all set up...we wanted it to be a surprise for her!

Finally we unveiled the finished product and she was so excited!

After all the hinting she caught on to the binkie idea and made a decision on her own to go without. I thougth for sure it would last all of 5 minutes and we would have a screaming girl but I was wrong.


She slept great and we were all shocked and so proud that she moved into her big girl bed and gave up her binkie all in one night!

The Bakers come to visit!!!

We were so excited to get a visit from The Baker fam...they fit a visit in with us as they traveled to Southern California to visit family and we're so glad they did!

We had several jam packed days and it was all so much fun!

Riley and I picked them up on Thursday around noon and our first stop was In-N-Out for burgers...yum!

We came back to let the kids take naps and we all did a little relaxing!

Once the kiddos were up we played outside. It didn't take long for Riley to get her princess clothes on and Reed was just beginning to understand how girly this house is!

He took a stroll on Riley's bike while she did some dancing!

Slide time!
Monkey see monkey do!

Jason got home a little late from work and we got a late start on dinner...so it was almost 9:00 before we ate but it was yum!



Andrea and I...so glad I got to spend time with one of my best friends!

Just a few hours after their arrival Reed had officially been sucked into the world of dress up...Josh was terrified but we were all cracking up!

Check out Reed's beautiful shoes!

Here he is with the stroller and the dog carrier on his arm...ready to go!

Jason was planning on taking Friday off sort of "under the radar" but we knew that it was going to be tough when his phone started ringing at 3 am due to the horrific tsunami that hit Japan that morning. What a tragic event.

He had to go into work first thing and he wasn't sure if he would end up being able to take the day off but in the end it all worked out.

Our plans were to check out the beach...but we were under a tsuami warning so all the beaches were closed.

These two were looking pretty cute and were ready to have a fun day so off we went!

Reed and Riley held hands on the way!

We were adventurous and found a private access to Stinson Beach and snuck on.

It was a beautiful day!

Beach cuties!

Family pic!

We found some seagulls and Andrea had some snacks on her so the birds were swarming around us and the kids loved it!

We headed to a great little cafe for lunch and then found a cute spot to take some pics of the kiddos...gotta watch this girl!

Next we headed into San Francisco to do some sight seeing and eat some good seafood!

We started walking along the Embarcadero and as is standard in San Fran...there are lots of crazy people!

Unfortunately there are also lots of beggars lining the streets and sometimes it's hard to see all of that. We learned the hard way that having kids makes it even worse...this one guy made balloon figures for the kids and of course we had to pay him for them...it was all worth it because these balloons provided endless entertainment for these two!

We had to keep Reed from hitting random people with his balloon on the stroll!

We headed to Pier 39 to see and smell the sea lions!

These two had so much fun together!

Another family shot

After the sea lions we headed to ride the infamous trolley...it was a little bit of a wait and not as exciting as all of us expected but we had never ridden them either so just another fun thing to cross of the list!

On our way to the trolley Jason was being pestered by someone on the street and he had fallen behind the rest of us...I saw him getting frustrated with this dude who kept talking to him and wondered what was going on. Turns out this guy kept telling him he was going to give Jason a citation and Jason couldn't figure out what for and he was getting ticked. When Jason asked what he did or what law he broke the guy said "I'm going to give you a citation for not smiling"...haha...and then he preceded to hand Jason a smiley face sticker...gotta love San Fran!

Riley had fun hanging on the handles!

We saw this huge line wrapped around an entire block and asked the trolley driver what was going on...his response "there was an Elvis siting"...ha...turns out this was the day the iPad 2 came out and this was the line for the Apple store!

We rode the trolley to Union Square...showed Andrea lots of the big shops like the three story Forever 21 but much to Josh's relief we didn't actually do any shopping but instead just got back on the trolley for our ride back!

One of the funniest moments of the day...Josh and Andrea had made a bet before coming out to Cali that if gas went above $4.00/gallon he could get a new duck blind...unfortunately that's not a common price for gas out here but with the events of the tsunami gas prices happened to go up Friday morning. When we first drove into the city both Andrea and I had spotted many gas stations with gas over $4.00 but neither of the guys noticed so we just chuckled to ourselves and went on...they never knew what we thought was so funny until literally that evening when we were walking to eat after riding the trolley when Josh finally clued in to the gas price at a station we passed and claimed his victory!

We had a great seafood meal at Scoma's...one of our go to places and then headed home for the night!

Saturday morning I came out to find the bounce house blown up and the boys "watching" the kids!

Jump time...the bounce house was out the entire time they were here and the kids just turned it on and off as they pleased!

Miss M came over to watch the kids all day while we headed to Napa for some adult fun...it was a perfect day!

We took Josh and Andrea to Rutherford Grill for a great lunch and our friends Todd and Hannah met up with us as well!

After lunch we headed to the St Helena Olive Oil company and did some tastings of olive oils, vinegars, and all kinds of yummy stuff!

Such a cool place...Jason and I had never been there so it was all new to us too!

Josh deciding on which olive oil to buy!

We started our tastings at St Supery!

Jason being silly...what's new!

Hannah and Todd

The girls...Andrea, me, and Hannah

We then went to Mumm for some champagne tastings...beautiful place with great views!

Me and my sweet hubby

We checked out the art gallery at Mumm where they were featuring an artist who had taken photographs of families in the same exact location over periods of 10-30 years...it was amazing.

After we were done tasting we stopped in downtown Napa at a great little bakery called Sweetie Pie's for some sweet treats...I caught Andrea digging in to her cupcake!

Fun times!

The kids behaved very well for Miss M and had a great day of fun themselves. When we got home we decided to make pizza for dinner and Reed and Riley were anxious to help Andrea make the dough!

Sunday we went to church, took them to our favorite sushi place, and then hit up the outlet mall for a little shopping!

The guys were actually more on a shopping mission than Andrea and I so we took the kids to a little play area and let them burn some energy off!

Reed had to take a little juice break!

That evening the boys went and picked up In-N-Out for dinner because Josh hadn't gotten his fill yet and Andrea and I decided to heat out for a movie...I'll be honest...we both wanted to see the Justin Bieber movie so we faced our Bieber Fever and saw it in 3D!

Monday morning we took the kiddos to the Jelly Belly Factory and Josh braved the tasting line and tasted several nasty flavors..yuck!

Then it was off to the aiport so the Bakers could continue on with their vacation!

We had such a fun time with them here...Riley asked about Reed for days after and I think he did the same. We did a lot while they were here but it was all super fun!

Thanks for coming to visit...can't wait to see you guys again soon!