A Great Date

Damon LOVES playing the Ukulele. It is his favorite past time. This uke player from Hawaii, who is SO good, was playing at a club called Anthology. He bought tickets without even asking me because he was so excited. Well he was like a little kid in a candy store when Jake Shimabukuro came on stage and started playing. He loved every minute of it. I enjoyed the evening too. Jake was an amazing musician that brought a lot of fun to his concert. The club was great. It's all about the music there. The food was great too. It was a super great date!

Before the date we have been having lots of fun with family. Everybody was in town for the funeral and we were able to celebrate my brother in law's birthday. I think he loved the hat we gave him. We decided to continue the celebrating by going to Disneyland on Monday. It was fun to go with my sisters and my nieces and nephews. We had a lot of fun and my kids behaved perfectly. I let the boys go off with the older boys and they thought that was fabulous.

My dad and my nieces came down to babysit while Damon and I went on our date. They spent the night and Thursday we went to the San Diego Mission, hung out at school for the Jog-a-thon and fed the duck at Lake Miramar.

It's been a busy, but fun week. I'm still waiting for some down time.

Saying Goodbye

On March 13th my Grandfather, Ray Horspool, passed away. He was a wonderful man who served his country and his family. Over the past 5 years he suffered from dementia/Alzheimer's. It was hard to watch this proud, strong, independent man lose his memories and his abilities to take care of himself. I know that he is now with my grandma who passed away almost 14 years ago. I can only imagine how sweet of a reunion that was. I have so many memories of being at my grandparents house in Riverside. I had my wedding reception there. There were family parties and youth parties and huge easter egg hunts. These are memories that I will always treasure. I am grateful for the opportunity I had to know him and I can't wait to see him again.

A picture of my grandpa going down the slide at his house. I think he built that pool for the grandkids or at least the slide and diving board.

Look at all these cute kids! Love them all!

Nana and Papa Fun!

Nana and Papa came for a vist for a few days and we had so much fun with them while they were here. We were able to go out to dinner and celebrate Nana's birthday. Papa and Damon played golf, the kids were all spoiled by Nana with kisses and hugs. They played Monopoly and got to make cookies with her. We are really luck to have Nana and Papa in our lives. We were sad to see them go and can't wait til they come back.

A new Appliance in the Kitchen

The dishwasher. It's been a love hate relationship since we moved in. The hate side finally got the better of me and it was replaced. Now it is just a love/love relationship. It is so quiet and efficient. We are all happier and our dishes are cleaner

Winter Fun!

Winter fun seems silly when you live near the beach in Southern California, but that's the joy of living here. You can drive 2 hours North from our house, see the ocean while driving, have a beautiful warm 73*F day, and still end up in a winter wonderland. That's exactly what the Afualo Family decided to do this weekend.
We've been having lots of rain and the mountains have been getting a lot of snow so we thought that it might be fun to go visit it. That was until I started gathering snow clothes for everyone in March. That wasn't easy, but thanks to a few friends who lent out their stuff and some overly expensive stores (Sports Chalet), who don't let the national trend dictate what and when they sell things in their store, everyone was properly outfitted.

We had a test run Friday night to make sure everyone knew where their stuff was. Saturday morning we woke up a little earlier than normal and headed North. We went to the place called Forrest Falls, which is at the base of the San Bernadino Mountains, just below Big Bear. We were a little worried at first because their was no snow around, but as we kept going up (in elevation) it popped out of nowhere.
Lily couldn't wait to get on it, in it and touch it. The kids took to snow like they did to water. We had finally gotten them all suited up when the first snowballs started flying. We went sledding as well and I would like to say that I went the farthest. We had so much fun that we have decided we need to not be bottom dwellers (elevation wise) all the time, but will plan on visiting the snow more often. It was definitely a nice break. We think we will try skiing and snowboarding next.

We stopped by Mortensen Manor on the way home and got to play with family and eat dinner there too. It was a great day!

Blue & Gold

The Blue and Gold Cub Scout dinner was tonight and we are so glad it is now over. It has ruled our house for the past month. It was a stressful event, but I think we managed to pull it off. Damon did a great job with the activity. He had the boys pretend they were stranded on a tropical island and they had to be resourceful with the items that they found and tell everyone what they would do. The theme for the month was resourcefulness.
The boys had to pop balloons to get their awards out. Noah earned is aquanaut, artist and athlete badge. He is almost done earning for his Webelo and Arrow of Light. Yea! The boys also had to make a cake for Pack Meeting since we are celebrating cub scouts birthday. They did the cake all by themselves.

procrastinating

So we were feeling a bit lazy on Monday night and by the time we remembered to take out the trash for Tuesday pick up it was cold, dark and late. I told Damon that the trash doesn't come until around 2pm so we could just do it in the morning. Since the beginning of the year the trash has come around 2pm. Well Tuesday morning we were getting lunches ready and we heard the trash truck on the culdesac. Noah and I went running outside in our jammies and no shoes. He came bringing the trash cans from inside the house and I came to get the trash out to the curb. We get the trash out to the curb and my next door neighbor came running out of her house without shoes and started running the blue trash down. I told her it was black trash can day and she starts shouting and the trash man is waiting at my house just laughing at us. Well, we have learned our lesson. Trash will always be out on Monday night at our house no matter what time it is.

Last week Field Trip Thursday...

We went to the library because they were hosting the Wild Animal Park. We were able to meet a cuckabura bird, an American Alligator and an ant eater. It was fun.