Hipstamatic

I'm kind of in love a little bit with this new iPhone app. called Hipstamatic.  It allows me to take analog, vintage-esk photos with my digital camera.  I haven't gotten the hang of it just yet, but here are a few pictures that I've taken with it.

The things that I like about Summer....

Summer has officially hit Southern California.  Blek!  Yuck!  Barf!  

I hate the heat with a capital H A T E!  

My hubby and I are more Fall/Winter people.  We love the cool weather with a capital L O V E.

There are a few things that I DO like about Summer though.  

I like spending tons of time with all 3 of my punk-a-roos.
I like the cool evenings
I like air conditioning
I like coming up with new things to keep my kids occupied
I like July 4th one of my most favorite holidays
And my most favorite thing is going on vacation to Texas

Granted, the heat in Texas is just a intense and annoying, but my folks are there.

This year the kids and I are flying (thank you, Dad) to Austin, and we are going to stay there for the ENTIRE month of July.

I am hoping to cram in a few of my favorite things to do in Texas during that month.  

I like eating BBQ  from Rudy's

I like eating steak at Texas Land and Cattle

I like cruising on Lake Travis

I like fishing

I like shopping with my Mom

I like TXRD at least I think that I would like it.

  I've never seen roller derby and I've always wanted to.  This just might be the year!

I like exploring downtown Austin

I like staying up late around a bonfire

I like visiting with my brothers and their significant others

I like seeing all of my nieces and nephews

I like visiting the small church that my brother goes to

I like Blue Bell Ice Cream

I like sitting down with my Memaw and listen to her tell the same stories over and over again

I like seeing my best friend Dawn Marie who just so happens to be visiting Texas at the same time that I am.  Horray!

I also like catching up with some of my ol California buddies that moved to Austin almost a year ago....not fair

That's all that I can think of right now.  If you can think of some other things that you know that I like about Summer then please add them in to the Comment section.  

Looooves!

I blame it on Father's Day...

Happy Father's Day to all the Daddy's out there.  

In honor of mi padre, here's a montage of pictures for you to feast your eyes upon:  

Dad and my kids at Tom's Farms 

He wears hats like this when he mows the lawn.

Dad showing the boys how it's done.

Look at the intensity in my boy's face.  

Seriously!  What is he doing?

That picture might still be on his desk at work.  

Dad and me chilling at the park.

Dad and Mom at the beach

Dad's "What's up!" face.....

Don't make fun!  I was pregnant with my third right here.

No words!

Dad holding my baby.

Dad at Disneyland with my kiddos

Dad playing Santa for his younger Grandkids.

Dad and his punks.  Don't mind my massively pregnant belly!

Again....no words!  Don't mind my massively pregnant (ahem!) chest.  Sheesh!

My brother, Phillip, and our Dad.

Goooobber!

Dad bracing himself on Space Mountain.

My most favorite picture of all time.

Soaking up the cuddles.

Yes, my Dad was even there when my eldest daughter took her first steps almost 6 years ago.

There was a brief time when I was a teenager that I thought that my Dad didn't know how to handle having a daughter.  Now I know, that it wasn't having a daughter that was the problem, it was the fact that I was a teenager.  Lets face it....none of us are equipped to handle it when our kids turn into teenagers.  My Dad has ALWAYS been there for me.  Even after me being married for 11 years and no longer living under his roof, he still gives and gives and gives to me and my little family.  He is a so generous and loving.  He has taught me so much about what it means to be a parent.  What he has done as a Dad has not gone un-noticed.  

I love you Dad!  Thank you for working so hard, for never turning away from me when I was acting like an idiot, for loving me, for guiding me to the Lord, for loving my husband and our kids, and for always being there for us.  You truly are THE GREATEST!!!!  

Adventures in Dental Land

I've got an owie!  

My adventures into "dental land" have been a long time coming.  

Over 9 years ago I broke my molar on a peppercorn when I bit into a hamburger from Johnny Rockets in Florida (worst state in the union, if you ask me).  

I didn't have dental insurance then, so I never went to get it looked at.  

Before this incident I never really had to worry about my dental work because my wonderful parents always took care of it.  When I was under their roof, I got check ups and cleanings every 6 months like a good girl should.  Funny enough, the week that I was be married, I went in for another routine cleaning and the dentist announced proudly that all 4 of my wisdom teeth were growing in.  What?!  When I told my Mom she said, and I quote, "Hahaha!  Sorry, you're on your own now!"  

Those darn wisdom teeth still remain in my mouth to this day.  

Thanks, Mom!  

Lets get back on track here!  

3 years ago, my chipped molar finally started to cause me pain.  I went to have it looked at and was told that I needed a root canal on my molar AND the tooth in front of it.....immediately.  I drove like a bat out of hell to the oral surgeon, and charged those darn root canals onto my credit card.  Dave Ramsey would not have been proud of me.  A week or so later I returned to the dentist to get a crown put on them.  The dentist told me the price of the crowns and I almost barfed.  

I can not believe how much dental work costs.  I never knew that Dentists can set their own prices and some of them try to rip you off.  

I can only hope that the dentist that I saw for years and years when I was a kid did not try and rip off my parents too.  Believe you me, they had to pay for way too many cavity fillings and crowns for my ol mouth.  What can I say?  I was obsessed with bubble gum.  Mmmmmm bubble gum!  

So, of course, I didn't get those expensive crowns put on because I couldn't afford it.  I went on my marry way and decided to wait it out.  

Fast forward to last month.  

My molar has been chipping away and falling apart for a few months now.  Last month a HUGE chunk of it came off, and I was left with a stabby little toothy in my mouth.  I kept stabbing my tongue and cheek whenever I would eat, or breathe for that matter.  

Luckily, we have insurance this time.  Horray!  

I went to the dentist who was assigned to us by my husband's employer.  They wanted to charge me a barfarific amount too.  Thanks to a few friends of mine, I got a second and a third opinion.  Third time was a charm.  They charged me literally half of what the first dentist was going to charge me.  

Last week, I went to the dentist of my choice (the cheaper dude of course) to have my dental work done.  

They numbed me up and I patiently sat there thinking about how grateful that I was that this junk was finally getting taken care of.  

The Dentist came in and proceeded to do what he does.  I knew that he was going to extract two of my teeth and then put in a bridge.  My mouth was completely numb, so I had no idea what he was doing in there.  He was drilling and drilling and drilling.  When he was done with that, I said, "Okay!  So we're done?  You got the teeth out, right?"  Wrong!  He said that he was just prepping my front and back tooth for the bridge and that he was now going to extract the two bad teeth.  Let me tell you something, extractions are NOT fun.  He was pulling and pulling aaaannnd pulling.  I could hear him grunting and he kept having to stop and drill at my teeth some more.  He also kept grabbing paper towels to wipe the sweat off of his brow.  Seriously?  Then he pulled and pulled some more.  I was so tense that I almost had an anxiety attack.  

Normally, I am not a wuss when it comes to dental work.  I was laughing with the oral surgeon during my root canal for pete's sake!  I don't know why this time was so intense, but it was.  I never want to have teeth pulled again.  Ever!  Ever!  Ever!  I've learned my lesson on this one, that's for sure.

I went back today to have the dentist fit me for a permanent bridge.  He, without numbing me, pulled off my temporary bridge and then proceeded to scrap at my very sore gums.  After the third time that I yelled, "Ouch!" I said, "You've got to be kidding me!  Stop it!"  Thankfully, he was done with scrapping my gums and then took an impression of the hole in my mouth for my bridge.  

Whew!  

It's over with for now.  

My hubby said that I need to demand to be numbed when I go in to have the permanent bridge put on.  I'm also thinking about requesting the gas.  The last time that I had "the gas" I hallucinated rainbows dancing around the dental hygienist's head.  I might have laughed and pointed at them at some point, but that's between me and the dental hygienist.

This might have been what I looked like last week

  

Girl Day at Disneyland

Yesterday my sweet little #2 and I woke up super early.  Not because we are insane, but because we had a plan.  A plan to go to Disneyland without the boys...and the without the baby, of course.  Duh!  

My sister in law picked us up around 7:15am, and we headed out completely bright eyed and bushy tailed.  Unbeknownst to us, the traffic that we were driving into was a complete nightmare.  As we inched along the freeway to our destination, my daughter and her cousin (my niece) laughed and played the entire time.  I couldn't imagine them having more fun than what they were experiencing in the back seat by making faces at each other.  

After an hour past our anticipated arrival time, we finally drove into the parking complex at Disneyland.  The little girls were ready to go.  They planned on riding Star Tours right off the bat.  Disneyland had redesigned this ride and we've have been waiting and waiting and waiting for it to be unveiled.  Well, to our utter dismay the line for this particular ride as 3 freaking hours and 20 minutes long.  It looks like everyone on the planet and their dog were also waiting and waiting and waiting for this ride to be unveiled too.  Needless to say, we will be waiting a few months for the line to die down so that we can ride this ride.  Dang it!  

The girls recovered from their "dismay", and all 4 of us pushed on through the intense crowd.  As the day went on we rode tons of rides.  My daughter even got to ride some rides that she's never been on before.  We've gone to Disneyland almost 100 times (thank you season passes!) and she's never been on Indiana Jones or Splash Mountain.  Thanks to some thinking ahead, I purchased some flip flops that had about 2 inches of foam on the bottom of them, and this made her tall enough to ride that dang Indiana Jones.  She loved it so much that we had to ride it twice before leaving.  Fantastic!  

Yesterday was so much fun, and I hope to be able to escape again with my daughter to Disneyland very soon.  

Here's a few pictures so that you can share in our fun:

Carousel fun

The funky wet ball thingy in Tomorrow Land

Being treated like animals on K.C. Junior

Memorial Anniversary

I celebrated 2 important things last weekend:  Memorial Day and my 11th wedding anniversary.  Both are a huge deal if you ask me.  

I'll start with the former!

Memorial Day was actually celebrated by us on Saturday the 28th.  We were invited to go to a "couples + kids" beach party.  My hubby had to work, so it was just me braving it alone with 3 kids.  Yikes!  When the reality that I would be there with all 3 kids and with zero spousal backup, really made me nervous.  Then I realized that I could imagine it being hard all I want, but I would never really know how hard it was until I actually attempted to take them to the beach alone.  So, I put on my Momma Bear boots, got up early, packed up the kids and headed to the beach.  Incase you didn't already know this, there are about a million beaches in California.  All of which seemed to be lined up right next to eachother.  You can literally drive right past the beach that you want to go to without even knowing it.  Knowing this made me drive very cautiously down the PCH, searching for the beach that I was supposed to meet everyone at.  Luckily, I found it no problem.  Phew!  When the kids and I got there, it was cold, extremely windy and the sun hadn't even thought about coming out from behind the clouds.  We waited it out for an hour or so and the sun finally decided to come out and play.  My #1 and #2 made friends instantly with some girls on the beach.  They played and played and played.  I barely saw them except for when they were hungry or thought that they had been stung by a jelly fish on the butt.  

While they were playing, I got to sit with the baby on my lap, and converse with a bunch of ladies that I had never met.  We all had one thing in common, and that was that we all had kids.  We just sat there and talked for hours about our babies/kids.  I really enjoyed it, although one of these days I'm going to have to learn to have conversations with women that don't involve my children.  For now, it's acceptable!  I think....  

When the late afternoon came around, I just knew that the traffic on the 91 would be horrendous, so I made the executive decision that it was time for us to head home.  I packed up all of our beach crap, loaded my exhausted kids up, hugged everyone goodbye, and headed for home.  The traffic on the 91 WAS horrendous.  On top of that, my baby didn't want to take a nap, but my #2 DID.  The baby wouldn't stop whining, cooing, or jibber jabbing, and that made my oldest daughter very very irritated.  She doesn't realize just yet that yelling at the baby is not going to make the baby be quiet.  Needless to say, the ride home was about as close to hell on Earth as I could imagine it to be.  

When we got home we were all ready to eat dinner and go to bed.  I hoped in the shower in an attempt to get the sand out of my hair.  As I stood there letting the water run through my nasty hair, I reflected on the fact that I did it.  I took all of the kids to the beach by myself, and it was...wait for it....FUN.  Then ut of no where, I felt my thighs stinging.  I actually thought that maybe I was stung by a jelly fish too.  Then I realized that I didn't even get into the water.  I looked down and saw that I had THE WORST sunburn on my thighs.  Ooooops!  Like a complete moron, I forgot to put sunscreen on my legs.  To think, I was actually proud of myself that I was wearing shorts to the beach that day.  My legs hadn't seen the light of day in about a year.  When I got out of the shower I saw that my legs closely resembled a lobster.  Then I looked up, and saw that the one spot on my forehead that I hadn't put sunscreen on was equally as lobstery.  Here I am, 4 days later, and my legs and forehead still hurt.  My forehead has decided to peel too, and boy does that make me feel attractive.  Not!  Thank you, Jesus, for aloe vera!

Now, on to the later!

Our 11th wedding anniversary was on Sunday the 29th.  My hubby planned everything out and was going to keep it a secret, until I was snoopy and figured it all out.  I don't know why I did that, because I love surprises.  My sweet sister-in-law helped us out and watched all of the kids for us.  We drove to Palm Springs and went on the Aerial Tramway up the mountain. It was so amazing!  This was way better than the coffee cup that I gave to him that morning with the lyrics to "our song" printed on it.  He said that he liked it, but come on!  How cheese is a coffee cup? Our Tramway basket thingy had a rotating floor so that everyone in the basket could get a complete 360 view of the mountains during the ride.  I wish that I had my camera with me, because the views were spectacular.  There were some dark clouds that were rolling in which made for a kind of awesome doomsday kind of feel at the top of the mountain.  

My hubby had made reservations for us at the restaurant up there called The Peaks.  The couple who we sat next to were also there on there anniversary.  We toasted to our long lasting relationships and wished each other good luck.  The food was not good at all.  Joe said that he had better ravioli from the frozen section at the grocery store, and my salmon tasted like it was from the Ikea cafeteria.  So to make up for our over priced yucky food, we went to PF Chang's for their Great Wall of Chocolate dessert.  About 10 minutes past, and our food server came back and told us that they were all out of the Great Wall of Chocolate.  She then followed it up by saying that they NEVER run out of THAT dessert.  Just our luck, I guess.  To make up for it, our sweet server had the manager comp which ever dessert we wanted.  

All in all, our anniversary was memorable.  We did something that neither of us had ever done and we experienced it together, which is most important.  Here's to many more years of marital bliss!