Vegas, Baby!

Some time back, I whisked Ryan away for a surprise getaway to none other than Vegas. The inpiration for the trip was really our favorite comedian, Jim Gaffagin. Ryan and I LOVE him. Absolutely hillarious. Ryan really wanted to write this post (which is why it is months behind) but finally gave over the reigns due to time constraints. He would have said something dry and sarcastic about bacon and Hot Pockets so use your imagination. I think Ryan has a crush on him. :)

We stayed at the Wynn (which was amazing and very UN-vegas-esh) and had yummy drinks by the pool, lounged by the waterfall over coffee and ice cream, shopped, saw Gaffigan and were on constant lookout for celebrity sitings -apparantly someone famous is almost always at Wynn. It just so happened that the US Olympic Basketball Team was staying at our hotel that weekend; at one point we hung out for awhile about 10 feet away from Lebron James... until I decided to start snapping photos, (which by the way did not come out-sad), and got booted by their security entourage. Oh well.

We gambled a whole twenty bucks and did not win. Boo.

Had crepes in Paris. Gotta love the 1/2 size Eiffle Tower and attempts to avoid triple chins in said photos...

And I'm not sure if I've ever shared Ryan's addiction to Mardi Gras beads. He's obsessed. I'm not sure if it's the hunt or the music or what, but he beelines to the beads. No matter where we are, concerts, fairs, the Rio....he's gotta have him some beads. Haddie appreciated her new costume accessories when we got home too. :)

Montano De Oro

We snuck over to the coast a couple of weekends ago to get out of the blazing heat and hit up some of our favorite spots... Firestone Grill for lunch in San Luis, a walk along the creekbed with Chocolate Milkshake frozen yogurts from Country Culture, and a quick jaunt over to the Atascadero Zoo (I was actually traumatized by this zoo when Ryan took me back when we were dating - I swear there was an anorexic tiger there and it was the saddest thing I have ever seen! Fortunately the zoo's current tiger inhabitant 'Sala' was very healthy this time.). We spent the rest of the day running down the massive sand dunes at Sandspit in Montano De Oro and dodging monster jellyfishies that were all over the beach! It was a great little getaway, but every time Ryan and I go over and drive past the wineries we secretly wish we had ditched the kiddos so we could stop and do a little tasting again. Apparantly it does not bode well to have a kid in one hand and a glass in the other.
One of these days... :)

The Begining of an Era

Briggs started preschool this fall and is absolutely LOVING it. We are now inundated at home with imaginary classrooms where Briggs is "Miss Jeanie" (his teacher, of course), and pleads to go to school on off days. The only issues we are still working on are tears picking him up (he does not want to leave), and more tears from Hadley dropping him off. The first day when Haddie demanded she have "her" backpack for school, I knew it we were in trouble. Briggs let her carry his lunch pail in and she bawled her eyes out when she realized she was not going to be staying. So, on any given day I'm either dealing with her crying (literally) "I want to go to school, too!" or "I want my Briggsy." Poor thing. Apparantly my kids love school. Here's a couple shots for the archives... And yes, that is the brightest, darn tootin', cutest little backpack ever. Thank you McNaughtons!!! Briggs loves his first REAL backpack.

Then Briggs snagged the camera and thought it appropriate to capture Mom & Dad on the first day of school also... :) It was quite possibly an even bigger day for us, you know. :) Our little man is growing up!