July:
We celebrated Kelly's birthday with her customized menu of Virtucio/Medina cooking. The icing on the cake WAS the icing on the cake. I made her favorite cream cheese frosting with carrot cake as an added bonus. She arrived just in time when I was mixing up the frosting and got first dibs on the spoon. We definitely enjoyed celebrating with her--it's always fun to have good food with good company!
August:
The biggest event in August came at the end. We celebrated Savannah's 3rd birthday with an ocean themed party at Arroyo Vista Park. It was a cozy gathering of family and friends. The kids enjoyed playing at the park, and swimming in the big pool.
Once again, we took a simple party menu and took it to the next level. We had enough food to send everybody home with "take-home bags". Consider it as party favors for the adults.
Savannah was quite pleased with her Nemo balloon, octopus cupcakes, and fish crakers/gummy octopus favors. She is already planning for her 4th birthday--unicorn theme.
Savannah celebrated her real birthday at her daycare. Her birthday was extra special since she got to share it with her teacher, Miss Laura. She received such nice presents from her friends/parents and teachers. She also had fun beating her #3 pinata and eating more cupcakes!
The best part of her 3rd birthday was going to Petsmart and picking out Dorothy's new home. Remember Dorothy? Her goldfish from last year's Harvest Festival? Yes! The one who went on "vacation"--TWICE--after Thanksgiving! Well, Dorothy was ready to come home from vacation and needed a bigger place to live since she was bringing home her friend, Toto. After setting up the new aquarium and letting the water run for a day, we finally went back to Petsmart to pick up her two fish. Now, we know she knows it's not the same Dorothy. In fact, every orange fish she pointed out she called Dorothy. And the fact that she asked for four Dorothys clued us in! HAHA!
September:
This month was a little more relaxed. We spent most of it setting up playdates. We did one with Marshall and Samara. We had them join us for lunch and stay to play--we need to do this more often! Savannah and Gaby love having friends come over to play, and I enjoy the time talking to another mom (yeah!!! adult conversation!!).
Our other playdates were with Makayla and Laney. Our first one was at Boomers in Fountain Valley. The girls had a great time riding the train and balloon ride. Chialee and I both donated to their playtime in the arcade room. The best game for the girls was the "Spider" game, where you stomp on the spiders that light up to get points, and earn tickets. Ski-ball was a little challenging, and dangerous at times! Watch out for the overhead throws! We took the rest of the day at the park nearby. The kids got to burn off more energy and roll around in the sand. Only thing to remember for the next park day is a toilet.
We planned another playdate to go and feed the ducks at the lake near Woodbridge Plaza. What a fun afternoon being face to face with ducks and geese! After hanging out with the ducks, we walked around the lake. We were actually able to squeeze in all four kids on to the sit-and-stand! We took a break at the park at the end of the bridge for play time and snacks. We walked back and met up with Robert and Ruby's for dinner.
With school starting up again, and Chialee's maternity leave coming to an end, we scheduled a visit to their house this time for pool day. The weather was hot, but now hot enough to make the pool water a nice temperature of 78 degrees. Ray turned on the heat, but we still spent our time siting in the jacuzzi. It's interesting how you try to fit in bits and pieces of conversations as the kids fight for attention, ask questions, beg for you to play, etc. Sometimes, I feel like I'm experiencing early onset of Alzheimer's after an interruption. It takes me a minute or two to remember what was said last...that is IF I remember it at all. My highlight was getting to hold Jarason a little more =)
Another visit we did was to go and see my friend, Jennifer, and her 2-month-old cutie, Emily. Gaby was not able to come with us since she was sick. Savannah came with me to bring them dinner and give Emily our love and undivided attention. I think Savannah is ready for another sibling. She was so gently and loving to Emily. If she could, she would just hold her all day long. Welcome to motherhood Jen!
At the end of September, we celebrated Mike's birthday at Beach Fire Grill. The kids LOVED the aquarium of various salt water fish--clown fish, puffer fish, eel, etc. We had a nice quiet corner, and the food was alright. Mike was the best uncle to share his birthday treat with the girls. I think they ate more of it than he did. We spent some time at the park across the street for pictures. Then, we went back to the house to taste mom's experimental chocolate cake! YUMMY!
October:
We kicked off this month celebrating Dad's (Manuel) birthday. We met up at O'Neill Park for play time for the kids and pictures. We headed off for an early dinner at Rose Canyon Cantina & Grill. This is a nice restaurant tucked away in Trabucco Canyon. We had a wonderful dinner out on the patio. A great place to relax and enjoy time with family. Mom had another YUMMY cake waiting at home. No siesta that day, but definitely a lot of fiesta!
The following Friday, we trekked out to Long Beach to see the Shark Lagoon at the Aquarium of the Pacific. The whole place looks spectacular at night. The Queen Mary is out resting on the water. There are lights everywhere in the plaza! The Shark Lagoon was actually a lot more quieter than I thought. There were plenty of parents and kids checking out the exhibit, listening to the band, and playing in the play area. Gaby and Savannah loved putting their hands in the water and trying to reach the passing baby sharks. We also saw larger sharks, sting rays, and saw fish in the larger aquarium. Shark Night goes on until December 26th, so I think we will plan another trip or two back to the Lagoon. For a treat, we stopped at Starbucks for hot cocoa for the ride home.
The next day, we were up at the crack of dawn. YEAH RIGHT! We would have loved to be up that early, but we slept in instead and slowly got ready to leave for Oak Glen. We arrived close to lunch and made our first stop at Mom's Orchard. This is the best place to buy bags of apples. They also have other fruits and vegetables, and an aray of preserves, butter, salsa, and mixes. Robert got his bag of peanuts. I got my candied apple. Savannah and Gaby got their bag of caramel corn. We headed off to Los Rios to pick apples off the trees. We shared our first juicy apple--we got in trouble for that--and picked enough to fill up a big bag (and then some). We stopped for fresh grilled corn and watched someone press their own apple cider before we walked back to the car. We came home Double reds, Jonathans, Granny Smiths, and Golden apples.
We had our BIG (Everything) Party on Sunday to celebrate Carlo's, Roselle's, and Robert's birthdays. In addition to that Carlo and Kelly's 2 year anniversary and a welcome to California for Ruthella. We were weary from our previous outings, so I'm especially thankful that my dishes were fairly easy to make. Their cakes were the lava cakes from Trader Joe's, but I did make fresh apple crisp for dessert!
We are now mid-month, and we have packed in a lot of activities. We will be heading out to the pumpkin patch at the end of the month, and Trick-or-Treating at Gramma's and Grampa's neighborhood. I'd love to be able to make it to our church's Harvest Festival too, but we'll see.
As for a family update, we are all doing well. A little bit of a battle with the cold and cough since mid-September and my current pink eye issue. Robert is busy with school papers, reading assignments, and online class discussions. The end is almost near. That's what we keep saying since he is so tired and ready to be done. A few more months! December 19 is his graduation day!
1 comment:
Ohhhh, that's where we went apple picking every year since Andrew and I were dating! We were so sad to not go this year and while we could have found someplace here in Georgia, it just didn't happen. thanks for sharing your pics so I could reminicse...
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