Please Respect The Spell Limits! - Aug 24

Time travel! We have gone back in time to a couple of weeks ago where we spent several days visiting some key tourist locations down in sunny southern California. =)

Sunny might be a bit of an understatement. It was unbelievably hot. Temperature wise, we have had hotter days up here but temp + humidity = sweating your body weight and the desire to jump into a pool increases 40x more than normal. This trip was originally born from the strong interest Chloe has taken with the Harry Potter books. A trip to Universal Studios was booked and while in the area a few other things became destinations as well. Joining us for this trip would be Chloe's Grandma Glenda and Grandpa Scott(both Harry Potter fans). Our first Stop was literally Hollywood where we stayed one night(explored a bit) and headed to Universal Studios first thing the next morning. Universal is the home to this whole "Harry Potter World" which may not be what it's officially called but that's what I'm calling it. =P

Once in the park we made a direct path to the Harry Potter place. First thing I noticed was that despite the unprecedented heat, all the snow covered buildings in Harry's world were still perfectly in tact lol. Chloe was in heaven. It really is a very well done themed "land" (even if I don't know the first thing about what I am looking at). We spent most of our time there but we did also manage to visit a the other areas of the park as well. The lines were long and it was really HOT(not sure if I mentioned that) so we probably didn't do as much as we could have but for sure plenty of time was spent in Potter Land. The one and only souvenir Chloe would receive is a special wand of which they have a store literally packed floor to ceiling to choose from. The wands provide you with a special map of which you can walk around and find certain things to cast spells on(and activate some type of activity). Pretty neat and again, Chloe loved it.

We ended our day with an hours drive a little further south to recharge our batteries and rest our feet for another full day of walking and sweating the next day. DISNEYLAND! You knew I was going to say that, right? Unlike Universal Studios, we know are way around the Disney parks backwards, forwards, and blindfolded so we tried to take them through our general routine while trying to hit most of Chloe's favorite attractions. Once again it was HOT which definitely was a factor on our willingness to wait in line for things however ice cream at 10am was definitely on the menu.

The last day we took a trip to Huntington Beach down there and after that we went for an early dinner show at Medieval Times. This is something I was aware of but have never been to before(as far as I know). Basically, if you aren't familiar, it's like a 2 hour show where they feed you dinner and knights on horseback try to..kill..each other.. I guess? LOL. Each section of the stadium gets a knight to cheer for and basically they fight until only 1 remains.

So that's it! Crammed in the last little bit of summer as they say because the last day spent driving home was literally Chloe's last day of summer before school started. Lots of photos to share from this trip. I'm sure Chloe will enjoy looking back through these(Insert Harry Potter joke) muggle photos as well.

Have a great weekend~

-B

Grade 3! - Aug 17

Ladies and gentlefolks, we're back.

That statement actually has a double meaning. We're back as in physically back because last week we spend our last few days of summer vacation out of town. I do have photos from that but there are a lot to go through and I have not been able to get through them yet. The 2nd meaning if it isn't obvious yet but we are back as in we are BACK TO SCHOOL! Crazy.

On Monday Chloe had her first day back officially as a 3rd grader! What the heck? The crazy thing about Chloe being in 3rd grade is that for me personally, 3rd grade was actually when I start to remember school from my childhood. I remember really liking my 3rd grade teacher and in particular she was the teacher that introduced me(us) to Roald Dahl (who would then become one of my favorite authors to read). Chloe funny enough has been reading full length books for quite some time now and I don't feel like I remember really enjoying or wanting to read things until about 3rd grade.
This year Chloe actually has 2 teachers and the teachers apparently are doing a split class. Monday morning Chloe was pretty anxious before getting to school partially because we missed the opportunity the Friday before to meet the teacher(s) and see the classroom. The odd thing this year being that Chloe is in the exact same class room (number/location) as she was last year. That took away some pressure since she would already knew where to line up.

The first day was a half day and as to my relief when I picked up Chloe from school the first thing she said to me was " I like my teachers!". Chloe has always been an outgoing and fearless child but I could tell the morning we dropper her off (and it's obvious in her body language in some of the pictures which I noticed after the fact) that she was nervous. For her to come bound out of the first day proclaiming her happiness with things and the prospect of future things was huge to me. From day 2 on we have have been back to the regularly schedule program. Drop off, pick up, wash, rinse, repeat. =P

So i did lose my bowling partner but I have gained a 3rd grader so that's a weird thing to have. Looking forward to another successful school year. Have a great weekend, folks~

-B

Partners In Crime! - Aug 3

Well. One more weekend after this one and back to school Chloe will go. That was fast!

This week has been a week filled with things. On Sunday my Aunt Michele came to stay with my parents with her grandson Caleb..Chloe's 2nd cousin? My cousins, kid. Anyway he's almost exactly 2 years older than Chloe but they are only about an inch apart and this week they have been on and off partners in crime. Pretty much every day they either went swimming or bowling or mini-golfing..etc, etc. I opted not to lug around a giant camera this week but I did snap a few photos with my phone. Phones just need to be a little bit better before they can completely replace a "real"camera to me but I think they are getting pretty darn close. As per my usual I just wanted to post a few photos to remember what the heck we were up to this week. T-minus 10 more days until school.
Time to start freaking out.

Have a great weekend, folks~

-B