Friday, May 29, 2015

Celebrations

Oh, the ebb and flow of life-it really is about balance, am I right?

After all the health problems our family faced, I think life got significantly better these last couple weeks.

Wednesday, May 20

I was still recovering from food poisoning/stomach flu, but I managed to attend "Campus Community Day" at work.  Basically the school has someone speak in the morning-this year they had an award-winning yoga instructor come and speak about "mindfulness".  I actually enjoyed it.  Then they have these hour-long breakout sessions that you can pick from to get a better sense of "Campus Community".  Here was my day in a few photos:

First Session: one of our executive chefs demonstrated a barley-vegetable salad with salmon.

Here's my sample-it was really delicious!

Next session was at Starbucks, demonstrating "Latte Art".  It was really short and I didn't learn much since I was a barista before!  It was just time to kill pretty much...

After lunch they do recognitions of people who have worked here for long periods of time.  Someone has been with my work for 40 years!  But that person was actually sick in the hospital and couldn't make it, poor guy...so I don't think he'll make it past the 40 year mark.

This year they tried something new and put together a softball team.  Even though my stomach wasn't fully better, I still played because I miss it!  I had a good time!

Thursday, May 21

Yay turning 33!
Randy, gal on my left, always puts together lunches/happy hours.  I told her I only wanted a few people to celebrate with, so here are the two Admin Assistants to the Dean and the Theater Arts/Art Admin. Assistant at Cisco's Mexican Restaurant!

I received a text that afternoon that Leif was running a fever, so I left work early to pick him up.  Poor guy was burning up but still was chipper.

Friday, May 22

Leif still had a fever, but he went to daycare and still had a great day.  At home that evening he decided to color with his daddy. :)

Saturday, May 23

Eric, our piano faculty, threw Michael and myself a joint birthday party!  (Michael's birthday is the day before mine, same year)

Leif was a handful as he kept wanting to explore the house/backyard...


Yummy birthday cake courtesy of Hubs!

Michael and I getting our cake on

Yay Hubs!

Sunday, May 24

We are spontaneous...and decided to get a hotel that night in Anaheim so that we could be at Disneyland earlier Monday morning for my birthday celebration!  :)

Dinner at El Torito in Anaheim

Leif loves macaroni and cheese and refried beans!

Happy Hubs

Monday, May 25

Hubs booked a Hilton room and Leif was fearless of heights!  
Disneyland was packed, but at least everyone was nice and happy!

Lots of character sightings right away!  Here's Daisy Duck...

A large group of characters!

Waiting in line for Haunted Mansion, which Leif did a great job in-no cries!

Disneyland was celebrating its 60th Anniversary, so the castle was decorated for it.

Leif was indifferent...

What's up photobombing scooter man?!

We tried out the carnival games in California Adventure this time-there was a fishing booth where you win every time, just depends on the color/size of the prize.  Leif ended up winning a medium sized Mickey Mouse!  The last credits we played a squirt game where you aim for the target and the object rises.  I won a stuffed Dumbo for Leif!

Waiting in line for the Jungle Cruise...Leif loves playing with Daddy's camera.

Waiting in line for the Carousel!

Fun ride :)

Leif and daddy trying to pull out the sword, but alas, Leif was not the one.

Having a fun time!

Thursday, May 28

Hubs had the day off yesterday, and since work is slow, I decided to play hooky and we went to...drum roll please...Disneyland again.  Hahaha.  Yes, we are Disney freaks.  But this time we dropped Leif off at daycare and had an adult day!

Star Tours!


Astro Blasters!  I won just because we stopped in the middle and I hit this one target over and over...

We can't go to Disneyland without getting our Raspberry Macarons!

I tried the Passionfruit one-it was just as yummy!

On our way to Radiator Springs we spotted the Incredibles!
We were only there for five hours but we managed to ride five rides, get lunch and snacks and shop in Downtown Disney.  We had so much fun!!!  We definitely felt guilty for not bringing Leif, but it helped us find more rides that we can take him on the next time we go.

And today is Friday, hooray!  Although I did take my car in for an oil change this morning and came out with new brake pads/rotors.  It was expensive.  But cars will always be expensive.  We are thinking of upgrading to a larger car soon since it's hard fitting our entire family in either my hatchback or hubs' hatchback...let's hope that won't break us!

I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!


Tuesday, May 19, 2015

Rough Weekend

This weekend was...not the greatest...

First, last Thursday I went in to "fix" my hair.  She did a good job, but the color and cut just weren't gelling; if I just washed and dried it, put a little product, the ends would flip all weird and just didn't lay right.  So my stylist softened the ends and put a brown gloss over it, and voila!

Much better!

Saturday, May 16


Glad he's still smiling!
Our daycare lady let us know she was going to watch another baby that night and that if we wanted to bring Leif he'd have a friend there.  So we took advantage and ran over to IKEA to grab a new dresser.  It's definitely much easier navigating that zoo of a store without a toddler in tow.  We also wouldn't have been able to fit the dresser in the car with Leif in, as we had to fold everything down AND tie the trunk down.  We were a little anxious driving on the freeway, but we made it back without anything falling out!

That evening my stomach hurt-we had eaten at a place called Snapper Jack's Taco Shack close to my work for lunch, and ever since I wasn't feeling good.  Ugh...


Sunday, May 17

Leif was doing a "smooshy" face with his spoon.  This was the best shot Hubs could take since he always stops what he's doing when he knows he's getting a picture taken.
I woke up feeling a little better, so after hanging out at home in the morning we decided to get out and explore the Glendale Galleria/Americana.  What a mistake...it was crowded with rude people.  Seriously-from the customer service (we were about to eat at Red Robin, and the hostess was talking to hubs, but then these girls walked up and the hostess started talking to them all friendly, ignoring hubs-so he said some rude comments and we walked off), to the people overcrowding the elevator when they didn't need to take it, to people walking right at us.  It didn't help that we were "hangry".  The mall/Galleria was terrible and noticed the Americana/Cheesecake Factory was right across the street, so we rushed over and waited patiently for a table.  My stomach felt like it had something stuck in the middle of it, so I couldn't eat much, but as for Leif...

Leif really enjoyed his mac n' cheese
 We walked around the Americana after lunch and just noticed...more rude people.  There was this huge area in the middle with nice, green grass but it was all roped off and big signs that said, "Do not walk on the grass".  What do we see?  Families and kids running all over it.

I walked into Sephora to grab something/get my free birthday gift, and all I saw were girls standing in the middle of the aisles, blocking all pathways.  It was ridiculous.  I tried to hurry through and made my way out.  Sigh.  Before we left everything, we took Leif to this toddler area to burn off some energy.  Kids there were just as bad as the people/parents-running around all crazy, being just as rude-one little girl even kicked Leif in the head making her way up the slide-but at least the dad was there and made her apologize.  Finally, someone with some decency.  We didn't stay too long.

At least Leif was in a good mood that day.

Sunday evening my stomach still felt "full", so I didn't eat much.  And then I woke up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat with nausea...and proceeded to throw up everything I ate that day and then some (sorry, TMI).

 Monday, May 18

Yesterday was rough.  I alternated from waves of nausea, to being super hot, to being freezing cold-I couldn't eat anything, my stomach was doing somersaults.  And I absolutely HATE throwing up, so I fought that off all day.  Thankfully hubs had the day off and he was able to take Leif to daycare and grab me food/meds/drinks.  I didn't start feeling good until right before Leif came home, and even then I could barely move.  I at least felt good enough to eat soup for dinner.  Then of course Leif woke up at 3am...he'll do that time to time, but this time he kept tossing and turning and crying for half an hour.  I finally decided to get him up, give him some baby tylenol and let him sleep with us.

Tuesday, May 19


Leif didn't wake up until it was time to leave for daycare
And here I am at work.  I thought I was feeling better, but I'm still pretty weak and out of it.  I tried eating an apple with almond butter, but I've only managed to get a few pieces down.  Not feeling it.  Wish me luck as I try to make it through the day...it's pretty quiet around here now that students are gone, but my boss is here and well, the day might still go pretty slowly.

Tuesday, May 12, 2015

Mid-May post

It's been a crazy roller coaster of events these past couple weeks...holy smokes!

Monday, April 27


This was the cool piece of art we picked up from Venice for Leif :)

Friday, May 1


Thank you Nana for the awesome Mariners hat!

Saturday, May 2


Leif and Daddy being silly while I did my morning routine.


We decided to try out this fun restaurant/bar in Burbank that was super kid friendly-they even had a bean bag/astro turf area in the front for kids!  Leif loved his grilled cheese.

Yummy breakfast burritos!

May 2nd happened to be Free Comic Book Day, so there were some fun characters out... 

Sunday, May 3
The L.A. Zoo opened early to members on Sunday, so we decided to take Leif before having a date-day of our own.

Snake!
After we dropped Leif off at his usual daycare, we went and saw The Avengers 2 which was way better than I thought it would be!

Monday, May 4

Being silly since I had the day off-my friend Anne from Holland was coming to visit!  That morning, my right eye was a little pink and puffy, but I thought nothing of it...

After I picked Anne up, we dropped Leif off at daycare and then I took her to the little park/hiking area near our house.

We saw a snake on the trail!  Miles even stepped on it but it didn't move...I thought it might be dead until it stuck its tongue out at us...
 After our hike, we got ready and drove down to the Getty Center-alas, I didn't know it was closed on Mondays!  So instead, we drove over to the Getty Villa in Malibu; not as nice, but still interesting since it was filled with Greek and Roman artwork.  First, lunch!

THIS girl.  She ran the Boston Marathon with a 7:50/mile pace-her time was 3 hours, 24 minutes.  Seriously!  I think she deserved this pizza and then some.

The children area of the museum was way more fun than the rest...

I've always taken photos of "Life Imitating Art".  Well funny how the Getty Villa encouraged you to do so on each statue placard.  So we took the challenge.  Anne has photos of me, which she never sent, but I have a couple of her!

That evening Anne hung out with Leif before bed time, and Leif fell in love with her!

We put our old bed in the living room for Anne, and Leif loved hanging out with her there.

He gave her a kiss!

Look at this little man!  He loves electrical cords, and found her headphones, so they were playing around with them.  He seriously laid down like this next to her, I've never seen him do that before.

Wednesday, May 5

I took Anne to work with me in the morning so I could get a few things done; it was opera week and I knew things were going to be chaotic in the office.  After a few hours, we took off to the Outlet Mall so Anne could find a few things for her boyfriend.  :)

Lunch at PizzaRev-a build your own pizza place that was super yummy!

After quick shopping, we headed back to school to try and print out her boarding pass but it wouldn't let her since she was traveling internationally (to Canada!).  So then I took her to my hairdresser and chopped my hair off-I love it short, and think that's probably what I'm going to stick with.  :)  Then off to dinner to meet up with her friend.  We braved it and went to Salsa and Beer on Cinco de Mayo-not too long of a wait and our food came out quick!

Eye was more pink and puffy, so it was glasses time.

Funny faces.  :)
 Wednesday, May 6

It was sad to see Anne go that morning, but it was so awesome to actually see her for a brief time!  I haven't seen her since 2008!

My eye had gotten even worse and I really thought it was pink eye; so I called my doc and they told me Urgent Care was open at noon and I could just walk in, so that's what I did.  Apparently I had a stye, ick.  She gave me antibiotics and eye meds and said she couldn't clean/drain it because I was driving.  I wish I could go back and do everything differently (more grossness to come), but I thought nothing of it and went on my merry way.  She told me to save my breast milk for seven days before giving it to Leif due to the antibiotics (which was impossible), so I decided to be a rebel and just treat my eye with the cream/drops and skipped the antibiotics.  Oops...

Thursday, May 7

I woke up and my eye was nasty looking.  I decided rather than parade it around, I wanted to look more like a pirate...
Yaaaar

Friday, May 8

My eye was much worse.  I let one of the music faculty members look at my eye (he made me-he said he had kids and has seen it all) and he said I needed to go back to Urgent Care.  UGH.  So my awesome coworker/friend Randy drove me over thinking they'd drain it now that I had a driver.  This doc said: Nope.  He couldn't drain it-I had to make an appointment with an ophthalmologist.  UGHGHGHGH. The first doc I saw on Wednesday was seriously useless because if she would have told me exactly what I had and how to treat it (she briefly said sty and that was it), I would have called someone to drive me back to work.  The doc on Friday prescribed stronger antibiotics and said I had to take them, and it was time to stop breastfeeding.  :(

So I came back, frantically answered countless phone calls by people asking if the opera was still on due to the crappy weather, got everything taken care of and took off early to pick up Matt and Leif...we had to drive down to Anaheim to pick up my race packet for the Tinkerbell 10K!  Oh yeah-doc said I ran the risk of getting sweat into my eye if I ran, so I figured I'd attempt to run/walk it.  :(

I met up with my friend Christina at the expo/packet pickup area and we had dinner at the ESPN Zone in Downtown Disney.  Not too shabby of a buffet, but it was food!

We went back to the hotel and Leif absolutely loved it.  He's a great traveler...he loves playing with alarm clocks, safes, TV remotes, Refrigerators, etc.  But then it was time to get him to sleep.  Sigh.  We brought two bottles, but we totally forgot the nipple.  After attempting to give it to him via bottle with straw and his water bottle and failed miserably (the whole time he was screaming and crying because he wanted to drink from me), I researched on my phone why it was bad to breastfeed while on antibiotics.  Turns out the worst that could happen was he could get diarrhea.  So I bit the bullet and let him drink because it was better than a screaming kid at 11pm in a hotel room.  Sigh.

Saturday, May 8

After about five hours of sleep, Leif woke up when my alarm went off at 3:45am and was searching for me to drink.  UGH.  I nursed him and was able to finally get him to settle down at 4 and off I went to get ready in the dark.  I pulled it off miraculously and walked to Downtown Disney to meet Christina.  I decided instead of attempting to run in glasses, I'd become a "Pirate Fairy".

We met around 5:15am and our corral was let out to race around 5:45am.

We stopped just a few times to take photos and get water...

I honestly did not train at all for this race.  The last time I ran was the previous Tuesday (over a week and a half ago) and it was on the treadmill for two miles.  Before that I ran maybe 2.5 miles the week before.  So here's how it broke down:

Mile 1: Feeling awesome
Mile 2: Still feeling pretty good
Mile 3: Okay, getting sore
Mile 4: My shins are on fire, my ankles are locking up
Mile 5: My hamstring is dying, my ankles are still locking up, but I'm going to run faster to hurry this run up!

So I actually jogged the entire 10K.  I wiped sweat from my eye every half mile or so, and it wasn't dripping like it could have (the weather was nice!).  I was super proud of myself for running an entire 10K for these reasons:
1. I ran with ONE eye (which was pretty disorienting)
2. I didn't train properly so my whole body was going haywire
3. I ran the entire thing-no walking!

As I crossed the finish line, I honestly thought, "How do people run half-marathons/marathons?  I can't imagine doubling that route, let alone quadrupling it..."
I definitely was under my PR, but hey, I did it!
I slowly and painfully walked back to the hotel room after parting with Christina and her folks, showered and then off to breakfast.  We found this cheap buffet place which turned out decent, then hubs found a couple things to do in Anaheim while we were down there (our Disneyland passes weren't valid for that Saturday!)

We stopped at the Orange Outlet Mall...

Leif fell asleep in the car and was still sleepy when we took him out.
 Shopping with him is becoming much harder to do as he wants to walk, then be picked up; walk out of the store, go crazy, be picked up.  We managed to do a little shopping.  Afterwards we drove around a little while, but couldn't decide so ended up getting our favorite sushi again back in Newbury Park, picked up Miles from Susie, then home.  Needless to say we were both exhausted from a crazy day, and it was nice to be back home.

Sunday, May 9

Happy (belated) Mother's Day!

I had a wonderful day, terrible start.  Hubs got up and wanted to go get me fat-free half and half for my coffee (in my mad rush Friday morning I forgot to put it back in the fridge)...he walked out into Leif's play area to find:

Yes, that's Miles' poop everywhere...even inside the pop up play tent.
We figured he must have eaten something bad at Susie's, and that was the last time we let him sleep outside of his crate.  Sigh.

Hubs left and came back with flowers, a pretty orchid, cards, fruit for Leif and yes, my fat-free half and half.  He then made Trader Joe's Cinnamon Rolls (the best ever) and then got ready to have an adventure...at the Camarillo Outlet Mall.  Hahaha.  Hubs is working a lot lately so he's happy to have extra income to take me shopping.  I've got the best husband ever.

This was right after Leif's nap/before we left.  I love these two.

 Monday, May 11

Finals week!  Work went by quickly and home with Leif was fun.

He is obsessed with refried beans-he didn't touch anything else on his plate and that is what's all over his face.  Love this kid.  And you can't really tell, but my eye is doing much better.
And here we are today.  My eye is definitely better, but Urgent Care wants me to see an ophthalmologist still to make sure my eye is healing properly, so my appointment is tomorrow at 8:45am, which means I have to use more sick time.  Ugh.  I can't wait until my eye heals completely-then I can wear my contacts and start working out again...with all these weddings coming up, I have to get back in shape!