Friday, July 24, 2015

Staycation update

I'm back!

No internet at our house is wearing thin, but there's not much we can do (well, except purchase really poor quality satellite internet for a lot of money...but it wouldn't be much).  So I couldn't update my blog while I took a stay-cation last week with my little boy.

Here's what went down that led to my week off:

-We gave our two week notice to Leif's previous daycare in letter-form, which Hubs dropped off the day before we left for Washington.  She was shocked and didn't say much, but I was glad Hubs did it as I'm not one for confrontation.  I know, I'm an adult and this is my little boy, but I know if I did it she would cry and I'd start crying...and ugh, that would have been the worst.  This was definitely for the better.

-I took Leif to daycare the Tuesday we were back from Washington, and it was super awkward.  Once I arrived to work, Hubs and I texted back and forth trying to figure out how to not have Leif go to that daycare for the next couple of weeks.  It would have been expensive for family members to fly down, but I brought it up to my folks and sure enough, they were happy to come down to watch Leif at least for that week!  So they decided to drive down that day and arrive Wednesday.  I have such awesome folks.

-That meant I would take off the following week to spend time with Leif.  Yay!

So here we go with the photos!!!

Wednesday, July 8

My folks didn't leave until late Tuesday afternoon, so I took Leif to work with me in the morning which worked out fine since everyone was so nice and each person gave him something to play with. It was cute.

Hubs met up with us in the late afternoon to grab lunch, then we came home.


I sometimes put him in the clean laundry basket and push him around.  We parked and he got to watch a new short Mickey Mouse cartoon.

Here's Leif showing off his drum skills once my folks arrived.  I swear this little guy has some serious rhythm skills!

 Thursday, July 9

My folks watched Leif while we worked, and when we got home Leif shared some graham crackers with Daddy.

Om nom.
Saturday, July 11

We tried to convince my folks to go to Disneyland with us, but tickets are so expensive.  My dad has been pushing Knott's Berry Farm for over a year, and since tickets are super cheap we ended up going there instead!




While we grabbed lunch, he rode the carousel with Grandpa twice, then once with me after lunch.  
The arcade was probably Leif's favorite place!




This was MY favorite part about the park.  This was the best pie I've ever had.  Now when we come home from Disneyland early, I'm stopping by Knott's Berry for the pie since it's situated outside of the park! 

 Sunday, July 12

There is a park/orchard 10 minutes away from our house that's usually reserved for weddings/events, but that weekend they opened it to the public for fruit picking!  I didn't know what kind of fruit they had-I thought they'd have berries and a wide variety, but alas, they only had orange and grapefruit trees.  I still took Leif with me and we had fun gathering oranges (I hate grapefruit)...



My folks ended up going to a casino that day, so we didn't do a lot since it was so hot.  They came over in the evening and we had dinner together.


Monday, July 13

Day 1 of my stay-cation!  This was the last full day my folks were visiting and my Pa was itching to jump into the ocean, so we went down to Santa Monica.

Leif loves playing in the sand!



 Afterwards we had lunch at Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. then walked around on the pier.



Isn't this cute?!  Leif was trying to give Grandpa a kiss-he loves him!

Don't mind my mom checking her phone, but Grandpa and Leif are adorable.




Once we got home, Leif decided he wanted to wear my hat!


He's never worn my hats longer than a few seconds, but he ran around the house with it on for a while!  It was hilarious.

We had an artist do Leif's name!

 On Tuesday I made plans with a friend to have her bring her 22-month old daughter over for a play date, but alas, she never came over.  But it was good to just relax at home; Leif was all over the place as far as his mood so taking him out would have been difficult!

Wednesday, July 15


He's now at the age where he likes to try on our shoes!

I had to run a couple errands at the shopping center near my work, so we went out and made a day of it.



Lunch at Panera


After playing in the water fountain (which I must have deleted those photos before I saved them, sad), we changed at Toys 'R Us and walked around for a while.
He was obsessed with this wrestler toy's belly button!

When we got home, I was able to have Miles sit still enough to wear Woody's hat.  ;)

Thursday, July 16

Hubs' work schedule was light Thursday/Friday morning, and even though we wanted to go to Disneyland on Friday, our passes didn't work that day.  Found out it was because they were celebrating their 60th Anniversary that day...so we ended up going Thursday instead!  Leif and I took off first thing in the morning while Hubs met us after work.

After the Winnie the Pooh ride, we went over to the island so that I could let him get some energy out.  He played with these water fountains near the entrance for the longest time!

After the Pirate Island, we grabbed a Dole float and headed over to California Adventure...

He ate half the float!

We booked it to Cal. Adventure because we made it for the 11:30am Disney Jr. Live show!

Then we made our way back to Disneyland to the Bug's Life land where we went on a ride...

Then he played in the fountains for a while!

He was having a great time until this rude chubby girl pushed Leif down "accidentally".  The mom at least apologized and scolded the girl, but as we were packing up the girl was still running around crazily.  Leif was so sad!

We grabbed lunch at the ESPN zone in downtown Disney when Hubs made it (around 2pm), and then after riding a Small World we caught the afternoon parade.

This was a nightmare carousel ride...first it took a while to start so Leif got all squirmy and whiny; then this lady wouldn't turn around and face the right way after the attendants kept announcing it over the intercom so they STOPPED the ride to tell her (she didn't speak English well).  Then Leif got all squirmy so I put him on my lap, but then the attendant wouldn't start the ride until I had him belted up.  UGH.  They finally started it after Leif was balling.  It was terrible.

Hubs took Leif on a miniature version of the teacup ride, which still would have made me sick.  Leif had fun!
 We unfortunately stayed until fireworks, and it was unbelievably crowded to the point it made us super cranky.  We had a pretty good time, but had so many terrible moments that we have sworn off Disneyland until 1. it slows down and 2. it gets cooler.  Maybe September?

Friday, July 17

The park was shutting off our electricity from 10am-5pm that day for "maintenance"...on a really hot day, seriously?!  So we ended up going to work with Hubs.  He thought he had a short day, but then they added a session last minute.  So I took Leif to the zoo which wasn't the best idea...it was SO hot, and the zoo is just one big hill.  So we stayed for an hour then grabbed lunch at the museum across the way...but 1. Leif wouldn't eat anything, 2. This crazy old man kept talking to me and 3. Leif kept throwing stuff on the ground, so I went to kick myself up and ended up stubbing my toe really badly on the metal table and got a deep cut.  So while I was trying to ice my toe, the crazy guy kept talking to me and Leif was acting up.  It was a bad situation.  I quickly packed up his food and got out of there!

At least he was in good spirits

Finally Hubs got off and we ran a couple errands then headed home around 3pm just to see if the electricity was on yet...Thank God it was.

Leif opened up his monthly Citrus Lane box and they pack it with brown paper...and Leif had thrown it everywhere of course.
 That day he felt a little warm, but I thought it was because we were in the heat that morning and the AC was still taking a while to come on...

Saturday morning I woke up feeling sick (bad cold from Leif), and Leif was a little off...then as I was carrying him over to have lunch, he proceeded to throw up all over me.  Good times (I forgot to mention the day I picked him up from his last day at daycare, he threw up all over Hubs then all over me...he had been sick for 24 hours but it passed quickly).  He had a serious fever too.  There was a huge storm that day so it was kind of perfect that we stayed in all day resting up.

Sunday, July 19

My cold was still bad, and Leif still had a bad fever.  Meds helped him feel a lot better, and meds helped me a little.  We were feeling a little bit of cabin fever, so we decided to go to Target to pick up a few things.

These display side tables were great drums for Leif.  
Leif was eating, but was still sick.  Monday morning was to be his first day at his new daycare, but he woke up with a 102.3 fever...since this was about the fourth day of his fever, I made an appointment with his doc and let my work know I wasn't coming in.  I was able to get him in to the doc early, and although we had a strep throat scare, the test came out negative and he was okay.  Leif and I slept a lot that day and by dinner time his fever broke without meds.  Phew.

So far he's doing really well at his new daycare, but of course he screams and cries when I drop him off.  I can't wait for the day he feels comfortable there.  And with a new routine, he's been off with sleep-he woke up at 4:30am Wednesday morning and after 30 minutes of screaming his head off, I brought him into our bed but he didn't sleep.  Thursday morning he woke up at 5:30am, and this morning it was 5:45am.  Getting a little better!  And Tuesday after daycare he was a mess-super tired and cranky.  Wednesday was better, yesterday even better, so we just have to get him used to this routine.  As for me, I'm doing better-I still have a slightly runny nose, but no more coughs and headaches.  It's been a rough week but we're managing!

Hubs' friend Josh is coming to town tomorrow from Washington and will stay with us over the weekend-that should be fun.  I have to go to a bridal shower tomorrow afternoon-I volunteered to make one of the game signs, so I bought a really cool frame with burlap in the middle (her wedding theme is all natural/burlap/hydrangeas/blues), and created the sign with Pages:

It's not much, but it took me so long to create the style/find fonts!

The bride's sister has been texting me, asking if I'll make it to the Bachelorette Party.  I want to go only because I don't want to be left out-but it's in Vegas in the middle of August for an entire weekend...I said no because of Leif.  Honestly it would be super expensive (travel/hotel suite/food/drinks/Chippendale show?!), really hot, and I would definitely miss Leif.  And as much as I want to wean him, he's still breastfeeding morning/night.  I really think it's his version of the pacifier because I know I'm not producing a lot of milk.  Let's hope I can get him to wean next month!!!

Thursday, July 9, 2015

Adventures in Washington

I apologize to those who have seen most of these photos on Facebook, but here we go!

Friday, July 3

Of course the night before we left for Washington, Leif woke up at 3am screaming his head off which prompted him to "sleep" with us...sleep meaning awake from 3-5am, then waking up at 8am which threw us all off.  I had been awake until 12:30am packing, and so I was exhausted when we all finally woke up and then had to scramble around to get everything finished before taking off for the airport.  I realized once we hit the road that I forgot SO many things.

We made it to the airport parking lot just fine, and once we boarded the plane, they told us we had to move from the last row (which I did not choose-I had called Alaska Airlines ahead of time to tell them about Leif and they had switched us around), and we moved from sitting next to a nice man to a scowling young woman who wanted nothing to do with us.  Good times.

The plane ride was okay-Leif didn't sleep at all, and was squirmy here and there, so we were glad it was a 2-hour plane ride.

The worst moment of the trip-obtaining our pre-paid rental car.  Leif fell asleep on the shuttle over to the rental car area, and remained asleep for the 30 minutes it took Hubs to wait in line/talk to the rental car employee.  It was ridiculous.  Then installing the car seat was a beast, but Hubs got the job done.  We landed around 1pm-we didn't leave the airport until 3pm.  UGH.

We needed to grab some lunch so we stopped at the Northgate Mall, had mediocre food at the Ram, then walked around to let Leif get some energy out.

He checked all the candy machines and found two skittles which he gave to his daddy right away.  :)

Found a little toddler play area-he kept going back and forth between this piano and a rocket ship.

We arrived at Nana and PopPop's house and Leif soon became very comfortable.  Here he is playing with the duck call Nana got him from their cruise to Alaska.

After we put Leif to bed, Missy, Hubs and I grabbed a drink at the Mukilteo Sports Lodge.  This is my flight of beers-they were all pretty delicious!
Saturday, July 4

Wedding day!
Leif loved this antique horse at Nana & PopPop's house.  He's still too small to make it go, but probably on the next visit he'll be able to maneuver it!
 After a quick ferry ride and a scenic drive, we arrived at the Rocky Point Recreation Park on Whidbey Island for my cousin's wedding.


Waiting around before the wedding ceremony-matching son and father!

Family photo :)

Right before the ceremony-keeping Leif occupied with bubbles.

The beautiful bride Krystal and groom Bob after the ceremony
Waiting around during cocktail hour

Taking photos in their outdoor photo booth

Family photo!

This one is my favorite-besides my cousin looking gorgeous, Leif was captured throwing up a peace sign!

After photos, lunch time in the beautifully decorated reception area!
Delicious buffet lunch
Grandpa and his cutie grandson Ash!

My lovely brother and sister-in-law

Lola playing with Leif

Yay :)

It was great to see my favorite aunt!

Leif needed to get more energy out, so we played outside during the reception.

Here's Krystal's Maid of Honor giving a speech-we left shortly after.
 Leif slept the entire way home and after getting dinner with the Hovland family, Leif went to bed and we watched the fireworks on TV.  A pretty relaxed night for us!

Sunday, July 5

We met up with my folks and my brother Avery's family for breakfast in Lynnwood...

Ash is such a cute baby!

My pretty sister-in-law feeding Ash

We let Ari have Leif's coloring book while waiting for breakfast.  She has grown up so much!

Leif playing with Grandpa's coffee cups

Goofball!

After breakfast, we picked up Missy and Nana and visited the Seattle Aquarium!

I love my Sister-in-Law!

Cutest Jellyfish ever.



Lunch at Red Robin

We were in a good mood when we got there, but it took forever to get our food and it turned out really poor.  Hubs took charge and spoke to the manager-we weren't charged for anything and we barely touched our food except for Leif, who gobbled up his mac and cheese.

We walked around on the waterfront and Leif got his choice of three different ice cream flavors (mine not pictured was good old-fashioned vanilla, my favorite)...

Nana's strawberry ice cream was the winner!

After our trip to Seattle, we came home and played outside-look at that face!

He loved this sprinkler!


After drying off, he decided to organize Nana & PopPop's DVD collection.
We put Leif down after grabbing dinner from a Mexican restaurant and then went to visit friends in Ballard for a little bit.  We didn't get back until 12:30am, and that was super rough considering we had to wake up at 4:30am to return the rental car/catch our flight at 7:40am.  UGH.


Leif was in great spirits!


Since we had a little time, we found a toddler play area for Leif!  He was the only one playing-there were people on the benches sleeping though which was a little awkward...


He started rolling around on the ground after playing so hard which we took as a sign to get going.  He slept most of the flight and arrived home safe and sound.  
It was such a short trip but we had a great time.  We want to return again this summer, but we'll see if we can afford to.  Leif will be two soon and that means we have to buy him a seat!  Once that happens we're not sure if we'll be able to fly as much as we do now...it'll be so expensive!  But I'm glad he did such an amazing job and we already miss Washington.  We'll be back soon hopefully...