Honkin' Haul-O-Ween! - Oct 19

Oh my word, DISNEYLAND.

We have a problem, okay? We know.

Last Monday was our 12th wedding anniversary. WHAAAAAT!? For a large number of our anniversaries we have found ourselves in Disneyland(BTW even before Chloe existed). October in Disneyland is of course very decorated for Halloween so it's always a fun time to visit and the weather is usually still very nice. This particular trip we dodged a pretty decent bullet as for the first time almost ever we drove down on a Saturday and it rained significantly in the area overnight and most of the morning. By the time we got there we kind of drove into the end of a little bit of rain and while water was still on the ground, it was still 70 degrees so we still hit the parks. LOL. Sunday was nice too but overcast/cloudy and Monday, our actual anniversary, was like a so-cal tornado. I was checking the forecast and on Sunday it was like winds 3mph. Monday, THIRTY FIVE mph with gusts up to SIXTY FIVE mph. We left the room at 8am and it was insane. The parks were plagued with rides breaking down all day and lots of rides that could not operate due to high winds so we very much exercised our knowledge of the parks to find plenty of things to do or experience as well as a few things we have never seen before. It's crazy to think as many times as we have been there that there would be things we haven't seen.
Side note, Chloe is fully and strongly opposed to us bringing the stroller and by all means she has certainly long since outgrown it. She will be 9 years old in a few months and she's probably 10lbs and 3 years too old to ride in a stroller but when you go to Disneyland...there is a lot of crap to carry around! The stroller is at least 80% there to carry our junk that we don't want to haul on our backs all day long. Chloe gets super mad and tells us to leave the stroller in the room and then no kidding as soon as we leave just rides in it all day long. =) My Fitbit said that we walked 10 miles on Sunday so I guess if I had an option to ride most of the day, I would probably take that opportunity as well.

It was nice once again to be able to spend our wedding anniversary as a family unit in a place that we all love to be. Chloe appears to have grown even from just a few months ago. It's pretty hilarious that I can go back and use my own photos of her measuring herself to the ride height requirements and now she is literally taller than all of them. I'm glad we have had the opportunity to have these trips to Disneyland but I do fear aside from these photos and videos that Chloe will hardly remember going. One thing I'm sure of is that even if she doesn't completely remember, she will always be wired to love the magic and fun of it all.

Once again here are some photos from the trip. As with a lot of previous trips I do like to include just details and things I/we enjoy to see and for a change we have a few photos with all of us in them courtesy of the park photographers. =)

Have a great weekend, folks~
Happy Anniversary to us!

-B

Conference Week! - Oct 12

This week was a week full or short days at school and to cap it all off it seems that Heather and I both caught the same cold from who knows where. Sweet! Nothing new or exciting to report this week but maybe next week I will have more to share. For now I'm going to bed early and trying to get rid of this cold asap!

Have a great weekend, folks~


B

Life On The Ranch! - Oct 5

On Tuesday Chloe's 3rd grade class had their first field trip! Once again I was fortunate enough to be able to tag along...probably because I still have clearance to drive, LOL. It's a pretty nutty process to get permission/clearance to be a driver, understandably. Of course other parents might have mini-vans and stuff and here I drive a Honda Civic so it was just Chloe and her one other friend, Lilly. It was only about a 15 minute drive to a little ranch in Alamo where the kids would get to pet a live horse and drink hot chocolate before the outdoor classroom would start. In previous field trips the parents were basically there to supervise the kids but this time the parent's were all put to work, lol. The kids were given a short talk about ranching and how lot of these things came to be in the first place and then they were set loose to the various stations the parents were tasked to run.

My station was to be where the kids would create their own "brand" as in "branding the cattle" using symbols and their initials however they somehow lost part of the thing the kids were supposed to do so I just made it up using what we actually had. After the kids made their own brand they were given instruction by this other guy on how to rope cattle which they all seemed to really enjoy. Just snapped a few pics as I was able to and that's what I'm here to share this week. Have a great weekend~

-B

Round 1, FIGHT! - Sept 28

Last weekend the Chloe's obsession with claw games finally came to a head. She has been watching videos on YouTube on people playing these games and she remembered from a birthday party we went to a year or two ago there was a place in Concord called "Round 1" that had these claw games. This place is a giant arcade among other things(bowling alley, karaoke, etc) but Chloe only cared about one thing, CLAW MACHINES. lol

We decided last Saturday to take the trip and make all of Chloe's dreams come true. Now, as you can imagine, these games are not at all designed to pay out, so to speak. The games have vague directions and you will learn quickly you are not meant to win. Most of the games are set up to look like with a slight grab the prize might roll into the drop and you'll win. We watched a couple ladies work on the same machine for at least 20 minutes trying different things and nothing. They probably spend $20-30 in that time. These games very much appeal to the gambling part of the brain..one more..just one more..aaaaah one more and I got it. NOPE. You won't.

We let Chloe try a few times on a few different games and then we switched to games you could actually play. This place is like a gigantic Chuck-E-Cheese but made to appeal to older kids and obviously cost way more money. After being there for a while we found a game that seemed a little more possible to actually win. Rather than the typical claw that doesn't actually grab anything it was a chain you dropped down to try to get over a hook. There were 3 boxes and if you could hood the lid, it would lift the lid and you had a 1 in 3 chance of it winning. We watched someone win and they needed a live person to claim the prize. After they opened the machine they mixed up the lids and it's now ready for the next sucker, uh, person. Heather actually saw which one was the right one but when Chloe tried next she IMMEDIATELY CHOSE THE WRONG ONE. Then, in a weird turn of events, after the worker reset the game a stray little girl walked up behind Chloe and swiped her car and started playing the game! We all stood there like, what the heck is happening right now? This kid just swiped the machine and is going to burn Chloe for the prize!? We stood there and watched and that kid again chose the wrong lid but chose a different one than Chloe so now it was obvious(to us) which one it was. The kid was then nice enough to offer Chloe back her turn..and then we pulled the winner and Chloe lost her mind. =)

So now we have yet another stuffed thing....and it only cost us $30.

Have a great weekend, folks~

-B

Penny's Four! - Sept 21

Well, I wouldn't have believed it myself except I have this handy dandy blog to reference back to but this week our Penny turned 4 years old! I feel like I have been telling people the wrong age when they ask for a long time. WHOOPS. We got her just before Christmas in 2014 and she was whatever she was 12 or 13 weeks old at that point so doing some math and checking the paperwork, her actual birthday was like on Wednesday, I think. On Sunday, Chloe decided she was going to blow up some balloons and tape a few streamers to the front entry and honestly when she first did it I had no idea why. She then filled me in that she was in fact decorating for Penny's birthday. LOL. She's a good kid.

So Happy 4th Birthday to Penny! She came into our lives by complete coincidence and has turned out to be the best fit of a dog for our family that we could have ever hoped for. I mean, literally I don't think if you made a list of things you could want in a dog that we could have picked as many as we got with her. Just a few pics to celebrate the occasion, have a great weekend, folks~

-B

Ew, GROSSSS! - Sep 14

When your last name is Gross, everyone assumes anyone else with that last name is related to you. It's not a super common name so I can totally understand how that would be a thing. Me personally I only know of one girl that went to my high school who had the same last name. She was a year younger than me but once we met each other and it was pointed out that we were both "Grosses", we were instantly bonded. LOL.

To point out how small the world is, I have seen this car around before and as it turns out, they live in the exact same neighborhood as we do and yes their last name is Gross. On Thursday, Chloe and I went to Costco after school and when we came out I found their car parked (of all places) DIRECTLY next to us. Clearly since they have the blue personalized plate from the 80s they have had this plate for a LONG TIME. I showed a few friends and made the joke that I guess I will have to wait for them to die before I can get it. Dangit.

That's all folks. Have a great weekend~

-B

Back On The Lanes! - Sept 7

I definitely feel like a broken record when I say this but, not too much to report this week. Last weekend was of course a 3 day weekend, "Labor Day" so Chloe was off school and Heather was off work on Monday. We all spent the weekend running in opposite directions but we spent Monday together and we kicked it off by..you guessed it! BOWLING! LOL. I thought Chloe really missed bowling and was excited to get back on the lanes(lol) but honestly she probably wanted equally(probably more) to have a go at the claw machine there. She has been obsessed with claw machines after the few tries where I won these little stuffed animals for her. We bowled a few games and then she proceeded to lose all 4 dollars of her allowance, 50 cents at a time. Sometimes you just gotta try your luck to learn you don't always win.

Just a few snaps with the phone. Have a great weekend, folks~

B