Juggling it all...

... I'm thinking, NO... Don't road trips just bring out the best in people??!!

I have been so bad at my family blog lately and I'm feelin' the guilt everyday. I have bunches of pics to post and am finding procrastination to be so easy - shame on me! In the meantime we have been having such a blast these past few days with my brother and his awesome family in town. Granted, it's a bit hotter than we promised them it would be, but their kiddos are lovin' the pool so we can't complain to much. Per my mom's strict orders it was mandatory that family photos be done while they were here, so I played both photographer and photo subject. It was actually quite hystercial...I could only imagine what I looked like running back and forth from the camera/tripod to the family group. There were some kind people that stopped and offered to just click the shutter button for us, but as the crazed control freak person that I am I promptly shooed them away and said 'no thanks, I got it covered'. Here's your sneak peek mom!

The last and final installment of photos from our summer vacation is here! Seriously, when I set out to document our journey on the blog I didn't think it would take me a month to do it... yet, here I sit posting the final images and it is almost exactly one month since we've been back. Shame on me... and I still have lots of other things to post on this blog, too - I'm so far behind! Any ways, on with the show... One of the absolute highlights of the vacation for me (and the family) was on the last little bit of our trip. Once we left the bay area our next destination was Carlsbad for one night. Now, we could have driven down I-5 and looked at nothing but farm land for hours upon hours, or we could make a last minute change in plans and drive to SoCal on PCH-1 along the coast. Really, it wasn't a tough decision! The drive had the most beautiful scenery I have ever witnessed of my home state. Big Sur took my breath away. I could have pulled over and lived out of my ...

My sincerest apologies for that very long dramatic pause between posts. It would seem that you should NEVER solely rely on your external hard drive as your ONLY form of data back up. I escaped this potential devastating loss with a whole new appreciation and outlook on data back up. Any whoooo... on with the vacation recap and photos... We were lucky to see my folks again one last time before we headed home. My bro made an amazing dinner for us all and we had loads of fun watching the kiddos play. Once Sam spotted my bro's skateboard there was no way you could pry her away from it...she was hooked on trying to master a 360 spin and a couple other tricks her dad was all to proud to show her "how it's done". Then there was Brooke who I'm pretty sure tried to sneak her cousins Razor scooter into her luggage to take home...that's how much she loved scootin' around their yard. How many kids can say their cool uncle has an actual recording studio?? N...

OK, now back to the regular posts on our fantastic summer vacation. After staying a couple nights at my folks house we traveled to my hometown of Fremont and man was it sooooo great to be back home... literally! I am so lucky that my childhood home is actually now my brother & sister-in-law's home. So, when I go home, I really do GO HOME... I just love that feeling of walking through that door. We opted to stay at a hotel just a few miles away as our brood can be quite the handful, but once we got checked in we excitedly made our way to my bro's home. I was just dying to see my nephews... 'lil man J and the big chunk master Z who I literally wanted to gobble up the moment I laid eyes on him. We had a lovely first encounter ;-) So day 1 with my bro and fam was super chill...a great time for the cousins to just play and get to know each other better. The next day we ventured to a nearby farm and historical park where we lunched and met some of the local creatures......

I'm interrupting my regularly scheduled vacay picture posts to give a huge shout out to our #1 girl...our big 2nd grader! She started school last week and is totally still on cloud 9! We've sort of started a "thing" when she began kindergarten by taking a quick photo against our front door. It wasn't until I lined up each photo from all 3 school years can I REALLY see my growing, beautiful daughter. The pic below of the 3 cutie-patooties makes me miss the Fab 4 even more! And they're off...

OK, ready for the 2nd installment of our family vacation photos?? And if you think this post is a doozy, just wait for part 3... ;-) So once we arrived to Stockton on day 2 we were greeted with lovely sunshine, a nice breeze and all the Coke and Dr.Pepper we could possibly wish for! We stayed with my folks for 2 nights and the bonus was that my Dad picked up my grandma from across the bay and brought her to stay at his home while we were there...it made for an extra special visit! OK, so besides all the Coke and DP, there were other fun things awaiting us! For instance...this remote controlled plane that Scott is holding that I actually crash landed, and hard... but that's OK because 5 minutes later my dad did the same thing only on his landing the thing nearly disintegrated upon impact...nothing my dad can't fix though! Or the big, fun backyard with the softest grass and wide open field! Or even the magnify glass my Gma gave to Brooke, which then Scott decided would be...

Well, the laundry is almost complete. The house is finally cooled to a comfortable 71 degrees. The car has been washed and vacuumed. And the kids are still asking which hotel are we checking into next. Man it's good to be home! Scott and I were comparing notes on our drive home and recalling some great times we had during this vacation. The one thing we completely agreed on was that our 8 day vacation felt more like 18 days; we truly felt like we had been gone for 2+ weeks. Not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing, but we did A LOT in our 8 days. I don't have any fancy camera shots from our trip on day one as I pretty much wanted to just be 'present' with my kids and enjoy the drive to San Diego and the time on the beach. I did, however manage to snap a few fun pics with my iPhone from our time at Mission Beach... We stayed the night in San Diego on day one and packed up the car first thing in the morning and started our day 2 journey with the long car rid...

Over a month ago we celebrated the twins' 4th birthday. With Mom Herrick passing away and the funeral and a birthday on top of it all...well, something had to give. So, here is the proper post B+B deserved... The day started out at Sam's swim practice... Then we all went and had a nice big breakfast at a yummy restaurant near our house... (and no, Brooke is not in dance class...she just insisted on wearing the outfit and who am I to say no on her birthday ;-) (thank you Sammy for taking this pic!) Then, being the greatest mom in the world (yeah, right!) I naturally gave the OK go ahead to the waitress to bring out this mound of chocolate cake and ice cream...oh yeah, and it was only 10:30 in the morning!! These next two photos are my absolute FAVORITE... they just scream pure joy!