Goodbye, September.

I don't know where the month went, but the last post I wrote was saying hello to September, and here we are, waving goodbye to the month.

I usually blog on my lunch break; I may take a day, close the door to my office and leisurely eat my lunch at my desk and type up a few posts at one time and schedule them to go out automatically throughout the week.

Unfortunately, my co-worker resigned late in August and we have not yet replaced her.  I was devastated on a personal level, as we had become great friends over the past 5.5 years of working together. She took a position that put her back into a field she really wanted to be in, so while I'm happy for her, I'm sad for me!  The office is lonely, and she happened to leave during one of busiest times of the year...the start of the new school year.  There were only 2 of us in the department, so it's down to just me....needless to say, my lunch breaks (if they exist at all) have been very short and I'm normally reviewing a resume while I eat, instead of leisurely  writing blog posts. I'm not complaining, and I'm of course happy to have a job, but I am SO ready to have someone else in here!  That process is slow going, so I'm just taking it one day at a time for now.

So there's the catch up on my work life, I'll try to get caught up eventually on our home life, too!

Liam started Preschool 2; he's still in the same center and same classroom, but this year will be more focused on kindergarten prep.  He is always talking about how excited he is to go to school and ride the big bus with Jake next year, so let's hope that excitement holds on when next August rolls around!

Speaking of school, Jake has managed to have 3...yes 3....sick days already.  2 for a random virus that involved a sore throat and swimmer's ear, and one that was a stomach bug.  Let's hope that he got that out of his system and that (maybe!) we will have a healthy cold and flu season!  Here he is, during a healthy time, being silly at a friend's Oktoberfest party recently:

 Other than trying to get back into the swing of school stuff and after school activities, we've been outside a lot, enjoying the warm temps and lack of rain!

A bonus to your dad building you a treehouse and having leftover wood is that you can make some sweet bike ramps :)

Jake had "favorite team jersey" day at school---Hail to Pitt!!

 

 

He likes to keep the front porch of the treehouse free of debris.  A kid after my own heart.

Sometimes we head inside to dress up like Pirate Cowboys or play a board game....

 

Our neighborhood association put out flags for 9/11, and I had a little helper for my block:

 

Brian and I had a few hours to ourselves at a recent wedding...it was at a farm and even though it was a bit on the chilly side, it was a gorgeous day to be out!

And then we celebrated our own wedding anniversary last week!  Thumbs up to 9 years of marriage!

The boys are back in Sunday School after summer hiatus, and I'm always happy to snap a picture of them looking so spiffy on the way there:

Earlier in the month, we celebrated my dad's 60th birthday together with my parents and Nate, Katie, and Luke.  It was so nice to spend the day with everyone...we had good food, played some games, and got to love on baby Luke!

 

Uncle Nate, showing Jake how to fly a drone

It's all fun and games until the drone gets stuck in a tree!

 I always thought I was a baby hog, but I have some stiff competition with Liam around....this kid would hold Luke all day if we let him!

 

Brian finally got a turn....

And in swooped Liam, trying to steal him!

And just in case you needed a little heart-melting today, here is a video of Liam singing "You are my sunshine" to Luke.

Happy 60th birthday, Pappy!!!

So, that's been our September!!!  I hope everyone is enjoying fall so far!

San Diego 2015 - Days 1 & 2

7.5 years. 

Actually, a bit longer than that even, if you count the last time that Brian and I had actually gone somewhere together, just the two of us.  The last time Brian and I went anywhere together, outside of the Pittsburgh region, was for our first wedding anniversary....September of 2007.  A few months later, we had Jake and hadn't gone away since then.

It's not that we don't leave the kids....I've gone away for work, and we've both left separately for time with friends....he's gone skiing or fishing, I've gone away for some girls weekends with the bestie.  But together?  Not in SEVEN years. 

A few months ago, I learned that a conference I have attended in the past for work was being held in San Diego....Brian's company has another office in San Diego, and it's actually where his boss lives, so the location could not have been better.  We could both combine work with a trip away for just the two of us!  Perfect!  It was time.

So last Saturday, after some tearful goodbyes Friday night (me, not the kids...they were totally fine, knowing they were going to have a fun week with Nana and PopPop!), we stepped on a plane and took off for the west coast! 

Funny side note- I was telling Liam that I would miss him and his response was "Don't worry, I'll miss you too...but I'll still be alive when you come home!"  Well, ok then. :) 

Airport waiting.

 After a long flight and 1 layover, we arrived!!!  Thanks to the time change, we still had half of the day left; this also meant that we were very early to check into the hotel, so it gave us a chance to walk around and check out the area.  We stayed at the La Jolla Shores hotel and it was great...spacious, clean rooms and the hotel was literally right on the beach.

courtyard area of the hotel

Who let these pale people out in the sun??

 The weather was absolute perfection.  I'm not exaggerating either....70 degrees, sunny, no humidity, slight breeze. 

After checking into our room and getting settled, it was pretty much time to get ready to leave again; we had dinner reservations at Jake's Del Mar (sweet name, right?) with Brian's boss and his wife, which was very nice.  Unfortunately, the jet lag (and just general tiredness, I couldn't sleep the night before we left, I was like a kid at Christmas!) and sinus/ear issues (presumably brought about on the plane) caught up with me at dinner.  I was having trouble hearing most of what was said throughout dinner, which was annoying, and I felt like I could fall asleep into my food.  But dinner was very nice (what I could hear of it, ha!) and the food was delicious, and of course, it was very kind of them to take us out.  I was in bed by 8:30pm...so much for trying to adjust to west coast time! 

We woke up bright and early the next morning after such an early bedtime, and after a very leisurely breakfast (I didn't have to make anyone food!  or pour milk! or remind anyone to brush their teeth!) we headed out to Torrey Pines State Natural Reserve.  When we pulled in, Brian asked the attendant where we should park and she told us it would depend on if we wanted a serious hiking trail or more of a scenic walk....I'll take the scenic walk, thank you very much!!  (also, if that's what they consider a scenic walk, I would have died on the actual hike) 

This ended up being one of the highlights of the trip for us, we LOVED it here. Again, the weather was great, so I was warm once we started walking, but not miserable by any means.  The views were spectacular, I feel like these pictures don't even do it justice, but here they are:

We did a few different trails that all lead to different views; one of the trails had this giant stone staircase that was fun to go down:

YAY, stairs!!  All smiles on the way down...

But the way up?  Not as fun, let me tell you.  I had to stop halfway up (where they very conveniently had this little bench....gee, I wonder why?) and Brian snapped this lovely picture of me:

On the next trail we came across this little bit of um, festive scenery:

He noticed my Pitt hat and told us that he's a huge steelers fan, tries to get out to Pittsburgh sometimes because he loves the city, goes to see the Steelers whenever they play the Chargers in San Diego, etc....super friendly (though also a touch creepy!) bunny.  We do not have any reason as to why he was dressed like that.

After that, we found another trail that led down to the beach....only to get to the other side of the beach where it wasn't nearly as crowded, you had to squeeze through this opening...thank goodness we're not particularly claustrophobic!

squeeze it in there, kids!

But it was worth it once we got to the other side! 

Grown ups only trip, woohoo!!!

 

 
Brian is crazy and decided to jump into the ocean (it was 61 degrees.....BRRR, no thanks!)

 

After all of that hiking, we were starving, so we headed to a place called Gliderport, where crazy brave people jump off of cliffs and paraglide or hang glide over the ocean.  They also happen to serve delicious sandwiches (at the appropriately named Cliffhanger Cafe) there and have picnic tables outside, so this was our view during lunch:

 

 

We had 5pm reservations for kayaking and unfortunately, I don't have those videos or photos uploaded yet (they are on our knockoff Go-Pro camera, I didn't bring my phone) so i'll have to get those posted another time.  But for now, I'll say that we had a great time (and didn't get attacked by sharks, score!) and that we were able to see dolphins and sea lions, so that was really fun. 

We were exhausted after our big day, and quite stuffed from our late lunch, so we decided to skip dinner, walk around the little area by our hotel and have a froyo dinner :)  It was the perfect way to wrap up such a fun day!

Days 3 & 4 recap to come soon.....