First stay in Dallas

We arrived late Friday. We enjoyed hanging out at the house (my in-laws') most of the day and went to the library. It was mostly a relaxing day. We borrowed The Wizard of Oz movie from the library since Olivia has been wanting to see it (her friend Abigail talks about it alot).

Today, we drove out to Fort Worth to meet my brother-in-law, his wife, son (12yrs old) and a teacher from Italy they were hosting for the weekend. We ate at Bubba Bahamas, it was okay. Fabrizio (teacher from Italy) asked me what Bubba meant. I told him it was a nickname, I don't know of another way to explain that.

After lunch, we headed over to the science museum where we got tickets to a Star Wars exhibit. While waiting for our 2:15pm time, we killed some time at the National Cowgirl Museum. It was actually a pretty nice museum. I was excited to see Connie Reeves mentioned and pictured there. She ran the riding program where I went to summer camp. She was an awesome lady!

The Star Wars exhibit was interesting although difficult to enjoy with 2 tired girls hanging all over me. It was also hot and crowded. They had alot of models, costumes, commentary and a few hands on activities. We are taking it easy this evening since tomorrow morning we are heading down to Houston for the week.

On the Road Again...

We are hitting the road again today to head south down to the Dallas area where my in-laws live.

We had an awesome time in Amarillo. Since earlier in the week, we went to a free movie (Happy Feet), the pool, the Amarillo zoo (where I met an internet friend from my mommy board, you can see pics on the Stuck in Texas blog), Cadillac Ranch (Stuck in Texas has pics of when they went too). The kids have been having a great time and I figured out if the girls went without naps they went to sleep earlier and faster...although their behavior was on a downward trend.

We will spend the weekend in Dallas and then head down to Houston for the week.

Yesterday and today

Yesterday, we hung out at the house for a while. Then after lunch, we went to a pool. It was lots of fun. There is a shallow splash pool and a deep pool with 3 different slides. Olivia LOVED going down the winding red slide, she wasn't scared at all! I put a float vest thingy on Claire and she had a ball. She was really hesitant about the shallow pool, I think she kept thinking it would be deep. Once I toured it with her, she was having a blast.

Olivia and Claire passed out in the car on the way back to the house. Claire took about an hour nap and Olivia slept a little longer.

Today, we are going to check out the local farmers' market, then go to the gym to work out. My friend arranged a babysitter for lunchtime, so she and I can go to lunch without the kids.

I think I'm going to make Olivia and Claire take naps this afternoon. After an early dinner, we are going to take them to a local amusement park called Wonderland. Hopefully, this will wear them (Claire) out for bed...crossing my fingers!

On our own

We took my hubby to the Amarillo airport yesterday, he had to fly back to CA. So now I'm on my own with the girls for about 2 1/2 weeks till he meets us back in Dallas.

Claire has been a real bear lately, she is not sleeping much and waking the girls. We are having to experiment with the sleeping arrangements. Every night, I keep hoping something will work to get her to go to sleep. She has always been my 'sleeper', but she is having lots of trouble going to sleep. Ugh.

Amarillo, TX

We made it to Texas! We made it to Amarillo yesterday evening and we are now staying at my friend's house. We met them at Ruby Tequila's for dinner, it was delicious Tex-Mex food. Olivia and Claire are having lots of fun playing with my friend's daughter. This week are planning to have lots of fun with the kids. Going to the pool, the zoo, the movies, etc.

Winslow, AZ on the historic Route 66

Well, we survived our first day of driving with a 2 1/2 year old and 5 year old strapped in car seats. We drove through the hot Mojave dessert, had lunch at the McDonald's in Needles, CA which by the way was our only stop. We made it to Winslow, AZ in time for dinner. The clerk at the Holiday Inn Express where we are staying highly recommended the Turquoise Room at La Posada hotel. And it was worth it, I ordered the 'Killer Vegetable Platter' since everything else was just too much meat for me. And it was delish! Not just a bunch of veggies, it was southwestern style vegetables with spice. Apparently La Posada is a famed hotel, must have really been something in it's heyday when Route 66 still existed, it had pictures of all the famous people and celebrities who had stayed there such as Bob Hope, Shirley Temple, etc.

Now we are off to Amarillo, Texas. Hopefully today will go as well as yesterday!

(this post comes courtesy of my hubby who brought his laptop with him!)

Bye!

Well we're off to Texas tomorrow. We will be driving, I hope we survive! We will stop in Arizona one night and go to Amarillo. My hubby will be flying back to Los Angeles so the girls and I can visit my friend and her kids. After a week, the girls and I will head down to Houston for a week then up to Dallas for the remainder of our time. My hubby will join us in Dallas and then we will drive back around August 10th...if all goes as planned! So this will more than likely be my last post until we get back in mid-August.

Purple Goo

Claire was sick for a couple of days with some stomach virus which by the way, she thoughtfully passed on to me. Here she is eating her 'purple goo', aka grape Jello.

Smile everyone!

Their first day of summer school together and Claire's first day of preschool. Since they go to a Montessori school, they were able to be in the same class.

Olivia's Around the World Dora party

For her 5th party, we had a Dora Around the World party. We took 'passport' photos of everyone as they came in, they all LOVED having their picture taken. We cropped them and affixed them to passports.

Olivia got a phone call from Dora (my friend) who told her Swiper took all the friendship bracelets and Dora needed help getting them back. The kids all had to learn about Tanzania, China, France and Russia in order to get the bracelets.

We played a game for every country: African animal charades for Tanzania; Dragon for China; 1,2,3, soleil for France and musical chairs to Russian music for Russia. I also taught them how to say hi in Swahili, Chinese, French and Russian.

For food, we had each country represented as well. We had ham and cheese and cheese croissant sandwiches toasted. African banana fritters and fresh fruit. Eggrolls and fortune cookies. Russian perogis. I think everyone liked to try different things.

Here we are playing animal charades:

Her cake had all the continents on it.

Gardening update

My little herb garden is doing wonderfully except for the cilantro, I think it's too hot here for it. My 2 basil plants are huge!

Here's my little lemon tree already starting to grow lemons.

Homegrown tomatoes! I have had problems with hookworms (they eat the leaves and fruit). I try to pick them off but the only time I can find them is around 11pm at night with flashlight in hand. Yuck! If I had known I would have to deal with bugs, I might not have planted tomatoes.

File under Things That Defy Logic

This is growing in Olivia's bedroom, yes, it's growing up from the carpet and the side of the wall which happens to be an outside wall.