Third Street

An other thing we always do when we go to California is walk down Third Street in Santa Monica. They have stores like Disel and Armani Exchange (which, btw are run by gay arabs-not that there is anything wronge with that) on the same street that they have a Cat who tells your future or a rollerblade-wearing-guitar-struming-guy in a turban. At night time, there are always street preformers out there with a hat for change and a microphone just hoping to get discovered. It is a mash up of California's riches and poorest, all walking on the same side of the street.

Mimi had taken Lauren to play with her cousin Taylor and her Auntie Dawn, so Chad and I took Evan to Third Street. And third street did not disapoint. From the gay arabs to the crazy talking bums, third street remained the same since the last time we were out here.

Here are pictures of Lauren and Taylor. Lauren loves Taylor and will often say that she misses her friend Taylor in California.




And here are some pictures from Third Street:


Right after I took this picture, the stroller tiped over and Evan fell down. I felt kind of bad about that, but what a cute picture!


We had fun at the Sunglass Hut. They had this computer that will take you picture of the sunglass that you try on and it will e mail it your e mail address so you can see which one looks better on you. We were trying on a bunch of sunglasses and sending to pictures to us. Its the little things that make life fun.

These are $200.00 Ralph Lauren sunglasses.

These are $250.00 Oakleys. I like them both. Now all I need is a little mula to get them.



And here is Chad in $600.00 Oakleys. Yep, you read that right. $600.00, and they weren't the most expensive ones. We had fun, but Evan let us know when it was time to go. (he has good melt-downs when he is tired). But we will be back the on the next visit to California, and just like this time, I am sure that Third Street will be just the same.

I heart the Beach!

First of all, I got a new camera. Nothing to exciting or expensive, just a small Cannon point and shoot camera. I love my SLR, but I never really took it anywhere because it isn't very portable, and this camera fits nicely into my pocket. Lauren and I broke it in the day we got it.




I love that girl! She is so entertaining :)

We are now in California! I love the air here. That might sound crazy, but I do. I love how the air smells and feels. I love that at night time, it smells like it is going to rain-even though it never really does. But most of all, I love the family I get to hang out with while I am out here. That is why we are here, just for family. Chad's dad had some work for him and I was able to get work off, so it was perfect. Yesterday, we went to Pointe Dume, which has to be the best beach in California. I love it. We had lots of fun while we were there.








Lauren was loving running from the waves. But at one point, a wave caught her before she could run away and it swept her feet out from under her. The rest of the day, she was telling us how she "almost drowned". Evan would say "see bird mommy!" and Lauren would answer back, "Yes, Evan. But I almost drowned today." We would say,"Hey guys are you hungry?" and Lauren would answer, "Yes, because I almost drowned today." Here is a video of Lauren telling us of her harrowing drowning experience.




And here are pictures of Chad saving her. I joke, but it was sad, and it really scared her.



Then Chad buried the kids in the sand. They loved it.

While we were at the beach, we saw some awesome animals. We were watching pelicans dive into the ocean when I saw a couple of fins pop out of the water. There were a couple of dolphins right near the beach! I have never seen that before. It was awesome. I got it on camera, but you have to watch closely to see it. It was pretty cool.

Ok, I have been trying for awhile now to upload the video of the dolphin's to no avail. I will try to do it again tomarow because it is pretty cool.

We also saw a cute little baby seal on the beach. I hope that it found it's mommy because the poor thing looked so lost.






I love the beach. It was so nice to be there and feel the ocean air. A visit to California wouldn't be complete without it.

Backyard Drama

If you have been on facebook in the last couple of days, then you have already seen this. But because I have no life lately and therefore am at a loss as to what to blog about-I am blogging about it too. We have some lovely neighbors. These lovely neighbors of ours are at it again. Apperently, when they decided to buy a house in a neighborhood, they failed to realized that in suburbia, there are many dogs and children who love to play outdoors when the weather is nice. Chad was outside in our backyard when he noticed this little kind sign from our sweet next door neighbors. It was at the top of our hill, nailed to a tree, high above the fence, facing our yard. They must think highly of us to go to so much trouble in sending us a message.

I don't know weather to laugh at the absurdity of the effort that they took in finding the wood and spray paint, painting the sign, getting a step ladder and nailing it to the top of a tree, or to be flattered that I have so much influence in their lives. And before you ask, no..they do not have any children. So I can only assume that along with their childish behavior, they also need naps like children. My only advice to them is to either get a sound machine (like we have for our children's naps) or move to a city where no child is allowed to enter..or dogs for that matter. Needless to say, I have not stopped my super cute, and noisy kids from enjoying our backyard.



Sooo...I was thinking, just as soon as Chad gets the branches cleaned up and hauled away..I am planing on having lots of giggly little kids over to jump around in our bouncy house. I haven't yet picked a day, but I know the time...between 2 and 5.

Green Eggs and Ham

One thing that I remember fondly from my childhood is my mom making us green eggs and ham for breakfast. Both Lauren and Evan are not egg eaters, so I thought I would give it a try to see if having green colored eggs would entice them to just try them. They were so excited this morning to be making them. It was way cute.




I think that they turned out real good. They had lots of fun making them, but alas..even eggs the color of slim couldn't make my kids try them. They liked the ham and toast though. It was worth a try.

I was a bad bad mom this year and I totally forgot about Easter. Well, I didn't FORGET, it just snuck up on me. Lauren came bounding down the stairs on Easter morning..so excited and so ready for her Easter basket. And then there is me, feeling like the worst kind of mother to let Easter come upon me without so much as a single peep buried in neon green plastic grass. How could I do such a thing. In my defence, I am working 5 days in a row, with a double on Saturdays. But still, I felt like a heel! You know those old Looney Tune cartoons where someone holds up a picture of a donkey, then a heel, and maybe even a screw ball? That was me Easter morning. She has yet to get an Easter basket. I need to get on that one because she asks for one every day. But I did manage to dye eggs with her on my first day off after Easter.





I feel so bad sometimes lately. I crazy miss my kids so much and feel like I just don't have enough time with them. And when I do have days off, I am so tired that I just don't feel like a present good mom. I want to take advantage of this summer, Lauren's last before she enters school. But I really am so tired all the time. I miss seeing my friends and getting to go places. I miss seeing Chad because right when he comes home from work, I have to go. And I get home so late at night. But, on the up side, we have half out debt paid off already. I am hoping by years end, we will be debt free and I can go back to being a mom. This work experence has taught me that there is no other place I would rather be then home with my family. Next time I decided to spend my time away from my family, I want it to be because I am going to school to get a degree. I never want to forget an other Easter again. Or anything else that my little girl finds important.

I love my husband

Let me just start off by saying just how much I love Chad. He is always making me laugh. I love his little quirks just as much (maybe even more) then when I married him. One of his quirkiest quirks is that he is very very good at demolition, but not so much at construction. If the road to life is paved with good intentions, then Chad has a very well paved road. Our house is full of half finished projects. He tore out cupboards in the kitchen without anyway of fixing it when he was done, he started to demo the conversation pit..and it is still in limbo. And my demolition man was at it again the other day.

We have this apple tree in our backyard that was severly over grown. Chad got this amazing idea (which is a good idea) to trim the tree. Which he did beautifully. He just forgot that we have no where to put the branches and no way to transport said branches to a more appropriate location.





The good news is...Lauren and Evan can now climb on tress without me worring that they will fall out and break their arms. The bad news...well, that might be all that they can do in the backyard for awhile. I love you Chad.

The case of the missing camera

Since I had work off last night, we decided to go hang out at the mall. It was a lot of fun. I feel like I never get to just play with my family anymore. I havn't seen my friends in so long, and lets just forget about doing fun things with Lauren and Evan. So even a trip to the mall becomes an adventure for me.

I really think that they are growing up right before my eyes. They get bigger and more mature every day. When we were ate the mall, be grabbed some Chick-fil-a to eat and let the kids play on the merry-go-round.



I love how at this age, a dollar can bring so much joy. While we were at Bath and Body Works rubbing on about a million different kinds of lotion, Lauren reached under the seat cover of our double stroller and pulled out none other then my missing point and shoot cannon camera that I thought I lost in Disneyland 6 months ago!! Can you believe it! It was like Christmas. I wasn't so sad at the time about loosing the camera since it was really starting to not work very well anyway..it was all of those cute Disneyland moments lost forever that I was so sad about. But now, I have all of those moments back!! Yeah for me. So..6 months later..I am doing an other post on our Disneyland Adventure! I am so excited!!! I hope you are ready for a Triplett family picture overload, because here it comes.

Lauren was so excited to go to Disneyland. We told the ride operator at the Peter Pan ride that this was Lauren's first ever ride on her first trip to Disneyland, so she gave her a pin that says "1st Visit". Lauren slept with it on that night. She didn't want to take it off.




There are to many cute pictures to choose from, so I will just have to pick some and explain the story behind them. I want to put up a little video of Lauren's first time on The Star Tours ride. I wanted to record her reactions because I remember thinking that Star Tours and The Pirates of the Caribbean were real. All you can see is black, but her voice and her words are just to cute not to share.
I also have an other video of her on Star Tours where she yelled "I am going to be the Princess of Mars!!" I am not sure where she gets these things, but I do know that she is so stinkin' cute. She had so much fun in Disneyland. She was on a high energy adrenaline rush the whole time we were there. After spending all day going on various rides, we ate dinner at the Tomorrow Land Terrace. While we were eating, they had a band singing and dancing. Lauren loved them. She danced right along with them. We watched the sun go down to Lauren dancing to the music of the band.




But all good things must come to an end. It was time to go back to the hotel that night. Lauren was heart broken and Evan was zonked out.


But we came back and had some more fun the next day.





We went over to California Adventure and spent the day over there. This is turning into quit the blog post, so I will end with just one more funny thing that happened while we were over there. We ate at some hamburger place there and Evan was thirsty..and well..it was gross.

In case you didn't get to see the delicious, custom made drink Evan was gulping down...here is a still shot of it. Yummy. Don't you wish you could have some?

It was a lot of fun. I am so glad that I got to take my kids to a place that held so much magic for me as a kid. And I am doubly happy that Lauren found the camera!! I want to go back there soon. I would love to go before Evan turns 3 since children under 3 are free. We'll see...cross your fingers. But until then, I could always relive the trip by looking at my long lost pictures.