Cooling off in California

Who knew that to beat the July midwestern heat we would need to head to Southern California?

We went from 90-plus degrees with humidity to a high of 65 in a short 4 hour flight. We still managed to enjoy ourselves as we relaxed with Kurt's extended family for a few days. The kids did well on their first flight but took 4 nights to adjust to the time change. We left after night 5.

We made the most of our time there despite being tired and whiny and ornery and seemingly endlessly hungry, but I just told Kurt to suck it up and get over it already...

Our highlight was a day at Sea World, where they seemed to be letting anyone just walk around by themselves these days.

This was Myka's first ride on an "adult" sized roller coaster right after the first big hill.

What? You can't see her? Oh, yeah, she had crawled up my armpit at this point and refused to come out unless there was solid, flat ground, a dry towel and some cotton candy involved.

And probably our favorite attraction was the 4-D IMAX Elmo adventure. If you are ever at Sea World and don't have a two year old with you, do this anyway! It's totally worth it. I think Eli actually enjoyed it the least of all of us.


We managed to find the one day the sun came out and headed to the beach. It was a little chilly, but at least we can say the kids have seen, felt (and probably peed in) the ocean.



This was the point of the trip where Eli pointed out to EVERYONE that he is, indeed, two. Our normally calm, mellow, easy-going boy looked like this for a solid hour.


And I don't think any Hoover vacation in the future will be complete without a trip to an MLB stadium. PETCO Park: check.

I'll leave you with an example of what I find on my camera when Kurt takes it for an afternoon. He should be taking more pictures, don't you think?

Six weeks later

Birthday month is finally over.

We closed the season with a party for some of Myka's friends at Chuck E Cheese. I thought this year was going to be easy to get away with a small party or possibly no party since we would have just moved and wouldn't know too many people to invite other than a couple families we would have celebrated with in some form or another anyway.

I was wrong.

Shortly after we got here in March, Myka started asking about her birthday party. She was so concerned she wouldn't have anyone to invite, and it was our one clear sign that the move had bothered her a little bit. Whenever she would meet someone new, anyone, she would ask me in a whisper if they could come to her birthday party. As of April, her party consisted of twelve year old twin girls from church, an elderly couple who had us over for pie, a babysitter, someone about 3 or 4 we met at the park one day, and Michaela's family. Since Michaela's family was on vacation throughout the month of June, we waited for them to get back and invited some real friends we had met in the meantime.

And while I'm a big fan of the "home party", having just moved, torn up the yard for a deck and a fence, and torn up the inside to paint all the walls, I decided we would be having the party somewhere else. Chuck E Cheese was close, affordable (trust me - when you compare it to what other places cost around here for a party... Yikes!), and one of Myka's favorite places to celebrate milestones. Kurt doesn't mind it either...

We all had a great time and we could tell Myka was satisfied that her birthday had been complete. I got to experience the bliss of not having to prepare much for a party nor clean up afterwords and I may have a hard time going back to my old ways in the future.


And we learned that Sadie likes cupcakes. Should have guessed by the shirt she was wearing...

Happy Birthday, Myka! Looking forward to celebrating with you again in ten months or so.