First Day of School!

The first day of school was pretty seamless this year! Both kids woke up on time and got ready without needing much from me and arrived at school before the bell rang! They also both had the same experience of the day being pretty boring but Paige had the added bonus of a teacher giving her a sucker so she might have come out on top:)

 

Kayaking

Some friends were going kayaking and invited us along! We definitely needed the distraction so we said yes, not thinking much about how they had chosen a 7 mile route. That's a long way!! It took awhile to get in the groove and there were low-hanging beehives to dodge as well as fallen trees. My kayak got stuck in some shallow water at some point too. We persevered and made it through and all went to an Irish pub after for lunch. It ended up being a lot of fun but maybe next time 3-4 miles would be good:)

 

Back to School Feast

I slacked off on pictures of our Back to School Feast this year but I have a little evidence that it still happened. We actually had the exact same dinner as last year though--lasagna, broccoli and apple pie rolls for dessert. It's hard to believe Owen is a sophomore and Paige is in 7th grade now! I hope they have amazing school years!

 

School Supplies

One of my favorite traditions! I took the kids on their individual school supply shopping trips the week before school started and the section was already so picked over that we had trouble finding everything. Next year we'll have to go earlier. Owen doesn't need much anymore now that he's in high school but I still like to keep the tradition alive. 

 

Daisy

When we got back from vacation we had one day to recover and then we adopted a goldendoodle puppy and named her Daisy. This is a hard post to write because we went through an extremely rough month with her before we had to rehome her. We all loved her and she was a good puppy but it wasn't a good fit for a lot of reasons. So we're working on healing from the situation but I didn't want to forget that even though she was here for a short time she was so loved and there were a lot of good moments in between the tough moments. 

 

Coronado

We had one last stop on our trip and that was Coronado! I didn't think I would like being here as much as I did because I'm not big on beaches but the hotel was amazing and the town was fun to explore and the weather was beautiful, although that meant the water was freezing! Pat and the kids spent a bunch of time in the water anyway, not caring about the temperature. I watched from the beach and took pictures or read. We stayed at the Hotel del Coronado and it was a pretty fancy place but so so nice. I'm definitely glad we chose it! The kids didn't really even want to leave the property but we ventured out to check out the shops and bought a few things and ate some Chipotle. We also spent a lot of time at the pool which was hardly ever crowded and you could hear the music underwater! The only other time we left was to go see the San Diego Zoo. We had heard how amazing it was and felt like we shouldn't miss it while we were there but ultimately even though it was nice, we probably could have skipped it. I was so excited to see pandas and they didn't have them anymore! We made so many fun memories on this trip, I'm so glad we committed to as many days as we did even though I was worried it would feel too long. It was perfect!

Beautiful sunset!

Pat rented a bike and came with me on a run. We had a view of downtown!

Nighttime swim

Trying out the chairs in the main part of the hotel

Owen hanging out outside Seaside Paperie, my favorite store

The main area of the hotel, we stayed in a different section called The Views

More beach

Beach

I had a sunhat!

Loved seeing these two get to hang out so much

They had ping pong too!

Family pic

Paige outside the stationery store

At one of our meals

Other side of the table

A dessert we tried. It wasn't great but it looked so fun

The zoo!

 

Disney

We were only in Anaheim for 2 days and 2 nights but we made the most of it! The first day we arrived we went to Downtown Disney and shopped and ate. We got back to the hotel and swam for a short time and relaxed until it was time for fireworks. Because we stayed on Disney property you could see the fireworks from the parks and they piped in the audio too! The next day we got up early and went to Disneyland! It was interesting to see the differences between Disneyland and Magic Kingdom. We spent all day there and left after the last fireworks and I think we got to 95% of what we were hoping to do. It was so nice being on Disney property even though the hotel wasn't very impressive. Made it so easy to get to the parks and kind of fun to be immersed in all things Disney!