First Aiwpwane Ride.

We spent the last two and a half weeks back home for a visit. My sister Myriah got married, which I don't have any of my own pictures, I am just now realizing. The actual wedding was so busy and so much preparation that I neglected to snap any shots of it.

I did, however, remember to take pictures of our plane ride. Olivia was so excited to go back home and visit everyone that she asked me every night for a week straight if we were going to the Airport yet.
The plane ride itself was a short one, just over two hours, which was really nice because in case you haven't met my second child, trying to keep Bianca contained is like trying to control a wild jungle cat who has ADD.
So I had a couple of bags of tricks, lots of fruit snacks plus praying my brains out that we would arrive to our destination safely as well as not cause a riot on the airplane. Mission accomplished.
Olivia had her buddies on the plane with her. This little rag doll of Jessie (Toy Story) is her favorite, favorite and according to Olivia, Jessie was very excited about the plane ride too!
And here the girls are on the plane ride home. I figured just lump all the plane shots together, right? We lucked out with the plane ride home being less full so I could claim the extra seat for my lap child. We flew home later at night and while we didn't use the portable DVD player on the way to WA, we sure as heck busted out that bad boy for the return flight to CA.

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Airplane highlights?

~Trying to fit all three of us in the bathroom to empty our bladders, respectively, before we landed in WA. There was barely enough room for us to all stand with our bodies touching, let alone with someone sitting down on the commode. For Mommy's turn I had to hold Bianca straight out over my legs so Olivia could have room to stand in there as well, beings how none of my offspring were willing to wait outside for Mommy to do her business. 30 lb child held straight out parallel to your body is an awesome workout.

~Realizing, after Bianca dumped out her apple juice, that I had left the wipes in the family bathroom by our gate BEFORE we entered the plane. Which was quickly followed by Olivia announcing to the plane that Bianca was stinky.

~Trying to change Bianca's diaper in the "changing table" they had in the bathroom and using paper towel and soap to clean up her abundant mess. I use the term "changing table" loosely as it was a fold down table directly above the potty that I am sure she surpassed the weight restrictions on.

Stay tuned... More on our WA trip to come!

San Biscuits-so

If you asked Olivia where we were, she would tell you "San Biscuit-so!".

So here it is folks, our San Biscuit-so Trip!

We decided, a day before we left, to blast up to San Francisco for two days. It was a ton of fun! We got lost a lot. Like as in we drove down every street of San Francisco lost, but we saw a lot of architecture which was really cool.
Day One was Fisherman's Wharf and Ghirardelli Square area. Day Two was Golden Gate Park. Day two was my favorite. That park is ginormous and it was so fun to go exploring there. The actual playground area was so fun for the kids and we rode the Carousel.
When we rolled in to San Fran (Sunday) it just also happened to be the day of the San Francisco Marathon. So about a million people there and main roads blocked off. So that was the reason for the first day of being lost, trying to navigate around the marathon. The second day was all my fault in the lost department because I am just no good as a co-pilot navigator. Marcus pulled a few Jason-Bourne-Car-Chase-Scene maneuvers complete with stop and look at the map and then whip out into traffic. Alls I can say is I am glad at least one of us has a good inner compass.
The girls loved the Carousel and were completely enchanted the whole time.
I was completely enchanted as well.

We also drove down Lombard Street! Eeeeek! Thanks to all of our getting lost shenanigans we were able to get in with zero wait. Everyone was lined up the other side of Lombard to drive down the twisty street, whereas we came through on a side street and whipped right in. The other unsuspecting tourists were waiting in a line way down the other side of Lombard for an hour! Go Radders!
Our clutch is cursing us for this trip. Lots of way steep hills with lots of stops mid hill=unhappy clutch.
GOLDEN GATE BRIDGE! Many times I got verklempt at all the cool things we would see. I would gasp and go "Oh my Goodness!". At first Marcus thought I was being sarcastic and would get mad at me for making fun of our adventures and then he looked over and saw that I really was misty eyed. Then he would just look at me, totally flabbergasted and at a loss for words about how overly emotional I am. Then we would both start laughing at how ridiculous I am, all the while I kept exclaiming... "I really feel these things!".
Rainforest Cafe! Food was not so good but the atmosphere was amazing!
Our neighbor at our table was Gary the Gorilla...according to Marcus. He kept trying to explain to Olivia that Gary was nice and that he would hurt her. Olivia kept insisting we leave the Restaurant and go someplace else. You really couldn't blame her for as much as Marcus reassurance was calming to her all of Gary's grunting and tree shaking freaked her out.
After her food came she warmed up to him and by the last thunderstorm that went off she was thinking it was pretty cool. Thunder would boom and the lights would flash and all at animatronic animals would go berserk. Both my girls went berserk too, Olivia out of fear that everything would attack her, Bianca out of sheer joy in all the craziness!
Ghirardelli Square.

We came.

We ate chocolate.

We left.
Sack lunch on the pier over looking Alcatraz in true foggy San Francisco fashion.
Our hotel was a raging success! It was affordable and a short ride over the Golden Gate Bridge, which crossed that off our to see list. It had a pool, was clean, had a kitchen area and granite countertops with a swimming pool that we relaxed in that night!

We also made a late night run to get Haagen Daz and Olivia was still up to eat it with us. It was so fun, sitting on our bed with Olivia in between us, chowing down on ice cream.
I love these girls. In the closet in the corner, Bianca made a little thievery nest. As we were leaving, we couldn't find a bunch of our things and they were all there in the closet in a little pile.
Golden Gate Park had so much to explore.
So much climbing and running around.
There was this big amphitheater thing that the girls thought was really cool.
We opted to pay to see the Japanese Botanical Gardens and it was so beautiful. The koi fish were huge and the girls were totally mesmerized by them.
A lot of the koi fish were all gathered in the bottom right on the picture and the girls just parked it right there and stared at them. Well Olivia stared and Bianca yelled at them.
Olivia loved getting her picture taken....
....and being the picture taker. Unfortunately most of her pictures ended up being crotch and boob shots.

We had a lot of fun, argued a ton when we were lost, said sorry a lot for the arguing, almost pooped our pants, ran around, were overwhelmed by crowds and made memories that we will have forever. San Biscuit-so rocked our worlds.

Block Party

So after our Zoo experience we had a big party with some of our new friends here. The actual 4th of July was pretty cloudy and cool but we still whooped it up in our front lawn with a feast of food. Sadly for living on a military installation there were no fireworks but we still made the most of our firework-less 4th of July.

All the kids were at the "kid" table and they laughed non-stop through the whole meal. It was hilarious. And it wasn't just giggling, as you can see in the above picture, it was throw your head back and laugh til your guts hurt kind of laughing. That picture has Olivia and our neighbors kids, Otto and Kate. My girls love playing with them and Ariane and Mark are so nice. We really lucked out in having some really amazing neighbors. Ariane and I babysit for each other when we need it and swap for date nights and stuff and it works out really great. Otto and Kate are actually over here as I type this!

We seriously had the feast of the century. WAY TO MUCH FOOD. It was all so good and of course I had to do my darndest to sample all the food that came so I could compliment all the cooks! (Jayme! Do you see the rolls?!?)
Here is our full party lay out. It was Radder's, Nielsen's (AKA our neighbors), the Harrison's (Oakland Zoo comrade in arms) and the Enkey's.

Military life means you often make friends only to have to move away from them at a later date. Here your time together is even shorter with the longest stay here begin around 18 months. I can't tell you how many I people I made friends with who are moving next month. The Enkey's will be leaving just as we get back from my trip back to WA. Tammi is always up for getting out of the house and heading to the park. She has two boys that are a little younger than my girls respectively. We also do trade outs with the Enkey's for babysitting. If either Tammi or I make extra food at dinner we will text the other and invite them over. They have gone to the beach with us and often Tammi is my running buddy at night, she really got me on a good routine of getting out and running.

Bianca loves Tammi and talks the best when she is talking to Tammi, which is kinda hilarious because Tammi is from North Carolina and has the MOST fabulous deep south accent. I could seriously listen to her talk all day. I tell her that all the time. I also start talking like her when we are together, which is embarrassing that I copy her accent but I own up to it freely. So I joke with Tammi that to get Bianca to articulate better, I just need to talk to her in a thick southern accent! Who knew that a little taste of the south was the only thing Bianca needed to get her speech rolling! Anyway, they are going to be stationed at Ft. Hood next! I am going to miss them when they move away.

Oakland Zoo

Like a month ago we went to the Oakland Zoo. I was pretty excited as I have never been to a Zoo before and we got a pretty good deal with our military discount. We went with some really good friends of ours that we have made here, The Harrison's. They have a little girl named Brennyn and my girls love her. Brennyn is younger than both of them and they like to take turns mothering her.

This picture was meant to be last, but oh well! After we were done with our Zoo adventures both the girls totally passed out in the car. We don't have AC in our vehicle which is fine 99% of the time because Monterey doesn't really get hot-hot (between 60-70 degrees average) but when you head in land.... HOLY HADES! It is roasting. It was just under 100 as we were leaving Oakland so we unrolled all the windows and the girls passed out with the wind whipping through their hair at 70 mph. As we reached the peninsula the whether dropped 30 degrees in a matter of 5 minutes, it cooled off so fast it felt like we had turned on the AC!
Olivia snapped a shot of me pushing them around in the stroller.
Olivia really loved the Edephants.
This was us stopped for lunch. There was a really big field that you could picnic in but hardly any shade and as it felt like we were literally in Hades we lucked out with finding one of the few tables under a canopy area.

The girls really liked it and I really felt like we got our money's worth. I mean it rocked my boat, but that is also coming from no Zoo experience. The Harrison's said it was lower in the Zoo food chain as far as size and animals but we all agreed it was a steal of a deal for what we got. We also went over a holiday weekend (4th of July) so there were quite a lot of crowds but we still had fun anyway!

It ain't all roses.

So this blog is like a journal for me and while I love to focus on the positive I also like to document aspects of my life that have also been challenging. So I can look back and really remember what a certain time period was like.

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We love living in CA, we love being reunited and a family again, I love having my husband back, we love exploring our new area. That being said, it has also been hard. I feel like I would be remiss not sharing this part as well.

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Separation is hard, for all parties involved. You each adjust and grow and learn to deal with whatever situation you are in. There is growing that takes place on both sides of the equation. It is easy to think that during the separation that all will be right with the world when you are back together again. I really read up on some things while we were apart to try and get myself as prepared as possible, but every situation is so different that it is hard to really imagine what it will be like. THIS article is really insightful.

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The girls were bigger and in a lot of ways were almost like different people than what he was used to when he left. No amount of talking about the day to day activities at home is enough to really bring a person up to speed on how things run. It was no longer up to me to be the only caretaker and disciplinarian. Routines were different, behavior was different, we were different.

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Now don't get me wrong, a lot of things were the same and that brought comfort and peace. But there is a HUGE learning curve. The girls would only want me, especially when they were feeling at their most vulnerable. Marcus had to win their trust and their hearts all over again. He totally understood and was hugely patient but I could see the heart break in his eyes a little when they would turn away from him. We are now at the point where the girls will choose him over me and we silently celebrate those little victories.

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The other night I was tucking Bianca in and she looked at me, pulled out her binky and said it the sweetest voice "Dadda?". I called him in and he stroked her head and told her he loved her and she smiled from ear to ear, then turned over and closed her eyes. Marcus and I just looked at each other after. We didn't even have to say anything, we just each knew how the other felt.

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Marcus and I make sure to talk A LOT about where each other are at. I think that has really helped the transition process along. I just didn't want people to have this romanticized view that now that we are together it is a walk in the park. I know that we can both handle having to live apart and I also now know that we can work together to make things work when we are back together. I really feel like we hitting our stride and that feels really good.

Typical Tuesday

My friend Rachel had me guest post on her blog today. It was a day in the life thing, of a typical Tuesday for me. If you want to read it (and I suggest that you do!) you can do it HERE.

I love Rachel and have been internet BFF's of hers for a while.

Mom's say the darndest things.

Friday was going to be a glorious day. I woke up and had all these visions for what a magical day it was. My hopes were set high. Way too high.

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As it so often happens when your hopes get set too high, everything went horribly wrong. The third phase of things going wrong involved me trying to get a hold of Marcus, to no avail because he was not answering his phone. I called and called and instead of just moving on to plan B, I continued to call and call and be frustrated.

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Then I told Olivia I was very sorry about it "But I am going to Kill you Father."

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"But why Mom, why you Kiw my Fadder?"

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"Because he isn't answering his phone and I really need to get a hold of him. That is why."

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"But Mom! Him wiw answer his phone. I promise! Him a good Daddy. Don't kiw him!".

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"Well alright, I won't kill him. But I am really frustrated with him".

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Then when he got home and my day had significantly evened out, she did me one better. She not only saved me from killing her Father, she sought retribution for me.

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"Daddy. Mom was going to kiw you today. You neber answered your phone. She was bewwy frustrated wid you. Why you hab a phone ifa you neber answer it? Why Daddy? I told her you a good Daddy though, so she neber kiw you".

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I guess I should probably watch what I say around her from now on. And yes, he did deserve it.