I had a great time in Vegas although I didn't win any big money. Kat and I did some outlet shopping where we went crazy at the Fossil store. We each bought 2 watches and other stuff (another wallet for Tyler). Traffic was never an issue and we made it to Primm (stateline) in 3 hours. The Primm Valley hotel was like a motel but the towels were excellent (plush & soft). Once in Vegas, we stayed at the Golden Nugget in downtown. I haven't been there since Hector & I got engaged 10 years ago. Man, that seemed just like yesterday...sigh! So anyways, we celebrated Kat's birthday at Morton's and dinner was as always, excellent. We checked out the latest casino, Red Rock Station which is very spacious and beautiful. Yellow Brick Road (a classic rock cover band) was very good but I only lasted one set; I'm more of an 80's/new wave type of gal. My Vegas luck wasn't with me this trip but I still had lots of fun. A chance for me to re-energize and hang out with out the hubby and kids.

Viva Las Vegas

I'm off to Las Vegas Tuesday night with my friend Kat to whoop it up in Sin City. We are leaving around 6 pm and get a jump on the drive which should take around 4-5 hours. We will stop at stateline to stay at Primm Valley for the night, then meet Kat's parents coming in Wednesday morning to head into Vegas. Kat and I will get a chance to gamble and shop at the outlet stores there. This is gonna be my girls' mini vacation since my husband and I take some time to spend with our girl/guy friends. It is a nice break away from the kids and hubby. I get a chance to have time completely to myself and it allows Hector to bond with the kids.

Don't expect any posts while I'm gone, I'll be having fun gambling.

Last year, my best friend Kat and I spent a significant amount of time going to concerts. First was Erasure, then Chris Isaak, Green Day and Depeche Mode. Then my husband and I went to Inland Invasion and saw bands like 311, Weezer, Madness, Jet, Beck and Cake. This year seemed like there just wasn't anything sparking our interest but April has changed everything. Chris Isaak is in concert this summer and I just bought Madonna tickets for May. Woot!! A friend sent out an email Saturday saying she has 3 pairs of tickets to Madonna for sale. I didn't realize how expensive her tickets are normally so I had a big shock. The floor and loge tickets are $350 each and colonade is $150. Don't get me wrong I've spent that much on tickets before but these are the face values on Madonna tickets. Luckily, my friend will sell these tickets are the original face value price. So now this will be exciting since I've never seen Madonna in concert except on television. I'll let you know how it goes!!

I don't have any cool pics of any of the concerts that I've been to. They always say no cameras but when you get inside, everyone has one or a camera phone. So instead, here is a pic of my kids at the drive-in last weekend. It was a double feature of Ice Age 2 and 8 Below which the kids seemed to enjoy. I believe that this is the last drive-in in the Los Angeles area and we have fun, hanging out and eating popcorn.

What's that smell??

Remember my tie-dye Easter eggs? It looks like the eggs get tie-dyed too which looks funky yet cool. And speaking of tie-dye, Tyler's field trip was yesterday and the class wore tie-dye shirts that the teacher made. I was one of the class moms that were able to go on the field trip to Green Meadows in Irvine and it was an experience! 6 Kindergarten classes from our school plus the other hundreds of kids there from various schools made for a big crowd. Overall the place is nice and they did a great job keeping us all together and organized. There are calves, piglets, a camel, horses, donkeys, mules, chickens, ducks, rabbits and even an ostrich. The kids were able to touch all the animals and could even hold a chicken and milk a cow. Of course, the children were put off by the farm smells and there were lots of "Ewwwww" throughout the day. Farmer Scott had to shovel some manure from behind the cow and it wouldn't get completely onto the shovel. After several attempts, he just used his shoe to push the manure on the shovel and 125 Kindergartners went "EWWWWWW!" in unison. Pretty funny.

Here is Tyler holding a chicken which he thought was SO cool. The chickens are pretty docile although a couple of kids got scratched.

Here are Tyler and Ariana on the bus which I think most kids thought was the best part of the field trip. Go figure...

More Maui memories

I have lots of pics from Maui still. We take as many pictures as we can and hope that some of them are decent. The above pic is in Lahaina taken from inside the Bubba Gump restaurant. We had just finished our lunch and the view was just beautiful.

This is our picture perfect sunset which came out pretty good considering that I don't have the technical knowledge of photography so I relied on our digital camera's capabilities. The first night I tried to photograph the sunset, it was very cloudy so the horizon was obscured. This night the clouds and wind were on our side so I was able to get a nice shot.

This photo was kind of a mistake since I wanted the actual statue image not its silhouette. It came out nice especially with the rainbow, clouds and sky in the background. This is outside of our hotel where the manager's reception is held every evening. From 4-6 pm. we drank Mai Tais and the kids had sodas with a snack mix of Cheetos, Doritos, Sunchips and pretzels.

Back to School

The first day back to school after spring break was not as bad as I thought it would be. Tyler woke up before I could even begin the usual process of dragging him out of bed so we had plenty of time to have a relaxed atmosphere at breakfast and be ready to walk to school. Joshua, on the other hand, slept in (he's still on Hawaii time). I woke him up, dressed him and off to school we went. He also didn't make a fuss when I dropped him off at preschool which was a nice change.

Tyler's kindergarten field trip is this Thursday and I volunteered to be one of 2 parents to help. We will be going to Green Meadows which is a farm/petting zoo that allows the kids to go on a hayride, milk a cow and get dirty. I know how much work this will be since I will be responsible for 7-8 kids for the whole day but it will be fun.

My Easter eggs came out all right. My fingers got stained from the neon food coloring and later when I ate some hard-boiled eggs, the whites were colored in areas. I had taken the kids to my mom's for their egg hunt and my mom definitely showed restraint in the candy department which was nice. She bought only one candy egg with Starburst jellybeans and then she got creative. I found Roma tomatoes and green grapes in the baskets too since she said they look like eggs. I really appreciated her efforts this year.

Good Friday

I have lost track of the days while on vacation but I think we are back on track. I've doing laundry, went grocery shopping and cooking my husband's favorite dish (chile rojo with rib tips). Whew! The kids are keeping themselves busy since it's raining outside as I'm typing this. The fun times have come to an end so back to our usual routine. We did take the kids to Legoland yesterday which was fun. It was more crowded than usual due to spring break and we saw a few people that I recognize from Tyler's school. Later Tyler and I will decorate some Easter eggs with a tie-dye recipe that my friend Kat found in a magazine. I'll take some pics of the results...

As you may know, I'm doing the stay-at-home mom thing which I do enjoy. I am technically on-call with my company although I haven't worked in a year. Today I called my district office to cash out some vacation time for my Vegas trip in 2 weeks which is all good since I have 224 hours of vacation. The person did mention that the administration is buckling down on the on-call people to work at least 9 hours a months to remain on the payroll. Hmmmfff! I told her that was fine if they needed to cut me loose; I won't be able to work the minimum time they want. Oh wait an update on that, I had to call my office again and they went ahead & took me off the payroll so they will cash out all my vacation and send me the check. So ends my career in pharmacy for now...

The pics I posted today are of Joshua and Tyler goofing at the car rental agency. Hector was taking an extraordinarily long time getting the car. I watched everyone on the shuttle with us take off in their cars then saw the people arriving after us get their cars too! Finally, Hector emerges and says he has been busy installing the car seat. The first one he had was junk so he found a brand new one but it was a pain to get it just right.No biggie. So I kept the kids entertained by taking funny pics and these are some of the results.

I forgot to mention one thing that stood out on my vacation. While the bellhop was unloading our luggage in our room, he asked how long we would be staying and we said, "A week". "Boy," he exclaimed, "you packed light!" Huh? Really? After 10 years of travelling, I've been trying to pack just the essentials and this time I finally achieved it!! This was a true accomplishment for me since I packed for myself and the kids. I had packed one suitcase for myself and one for the kids to share. We wore everything except the jeans. I just had to share that tidbit since I am notorious for overpacking. There is hope for me!! :)

I'm Baaaack!

Hey, I'm back home in sunny So Cal after a week in Maui. Everyone had a great time frolicking in the pool & beach and getting lots of rest. We stayed at the Embassy Vacation Resort in Kaanapali where our suite was massive with a lanai (balcony) that wrapped around the living room and bedroom. When I originally booked the room, I thought I booked the basic scenic view room but somehow I booked the deluxe ocean view room instead. Wow, what a nice surprise that was!! We had a 12th floor (the top) corner suite looking out toward the ocean and around the corner we could also see the mountains. The pool is very large with a volleyball net. There is also a water slide that ends at the kiddy pool with various little spots where the waterfalls come down. The weather was warm (not muggy) with light rain here & there and some gusty breezes. We didn't have any agenda except to relax and have fun. We'd wake up and head downstairs for the breakfast buffet which was a pretty good and lots of choices. Afterwards, we'd relax in our room playing video games until we heaad to the pool for an hour or so. Then we drove around looking for a good spot for lunch and Joshua would usually crash for his nap. I would somtimes take a nap too while Hector & Tyler played mini golf or video games. Then downstairs for the manager's cocktail reception for mai tais and snacks ( a mix of Doritos, Cheetos and pretzels) after which we'd head to the beach in front of the hotel to watch the sunset. We'd then have to figure out what we wanted for dinner ...then relax in our room. That was our routine (more or less) for the whole week. We did check out other things like Lahaina, Kapalua bay, the Sugar Cane train and Maui Ocean center. More details later!!

Aloha...

We're finally leaving tomorrow morning for Maui bright and early at 8:45 am so that means we have to be ready by 6:15am for the shuttle. The good news is that with the time difference we will arrive at Maui at 11:30am so we can enjoy the rest of the day. I'm gonna try my best to see if the hotel will upgrade our room since we will be there before check-in time and Hector & I will be celebrating our birthdays this week. It's worth a try!!

The rain that occurs will be inevitable but I think we'll still have a fun time. We are bringing the little tiny PS2 to keep us busy if the rain is too much. I don't have any new pics so here are some of Japan, of course!! Later.....

April Showers

Only one more day until vacation and thank goodness the record rainfall in Hawaii has stopped. 40 days of showers in Hawaii totalled 92 inches of rain in March! Yikes! Believe me, I was very nervous about the weather but Hector said there was nothing I could do to change it anyways. Of course he's right. The boys are packed and ready to go. I don't think I'll be blogging during this time but if the rain starts again, I might have to keep myself amused.

Oh, but my big guy Tyler finally rode a bicycle minus the training wheels! I am so proud of him. We practiced at the park and he did really well. Another milestone down. Next up will be rollerblading, so stay tuned.

A few weeks ago, I played tour guide to my friend Sherri and her sister Sandy. We loaded up our combined kids minus 2 kindergartners and went to Venice Beach, through Santa Monica, Beverly Hills and ended with the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown LA. It doesn't seem like much to native Californians but they enjoyed the day. My kids love going to the Bonaventure because the elevators are glass on the outside of the building. The hotel is unusual in its shape (see above pic) divided into sections. The elevators were used in the film True Lies when Arnold chases the bad guy into an elevator while riding a horse.

So if you ever are in downtown LA, check out the Bonaventure and ride the elevators.