Lunch with the Princesses--Lots of Pictures!

Princess Pictures and photos of fire engines--a little boy's dreams have come true! On Monday, we went to Disneyland and had a special lunch with the Princesses. We went with my friend Christina and her daughter Sarah, who is Einar's age. They sat us at our table and then announced that we were the "Honorary Royal Family" and we had to get up and announce the arrival of Princess and Belle. After that, all of the Princesses stopped at our table right after they came into the room. Belle, Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Princess Minnie Mouse, and Ariel all visited with us! Their dresses were absolutely amazing and looked just like they had walked out of our story books at home. My little princess admirer did come home with a princess mug and a place mat from the gift shop. At every meal now he tells me which princesses he saw and he's been very proud that he's drinking his water out of a mug like a big kid now.

It was the first time that Einar wasn't just awestruck in the presence of royalty. He smiled, talked, and even gave them hugs. Neither he nor Sarah ended up eating much lunch that afternoon since they were both so excited. After lunch we went on more rides at Disneyland--teacups (2X), Alice in Wonderland, It's a Small World, the carousel, the double decker bus, and then we rode the monorail out of the park and into Downtown Disney before going home.

Last Friday was Putting on the Glitz in downtown San Clemente. They close down the street, decorate the place all pretty for Christmas, have caroling groups all over, and even have the fire department out with the truck. I think that the fire truck had brought Santa into town for pictures, but we missed that part of the evening. I think it started Einar's big interest in Christmas lights as well. He keeps his eyes peeled in the car for all of the decorated places as we drive around at night. Tonight we took a 10-minute detour on the way home just to look at lights and we had a blast. When we got home I put up a string of lights in the dining room for our own festive atmosphere. Since we'll be travelling over the holidays, I won't be decorating our home much, just packing and trying to get our cold-weather gear together and to make sure that it still fits the growing boy and the expanding pregnant body too.

Day After Thanksgiving

We might not be out shopping at the mall on this gorgeous day after Thanksgiving, but we are bright- eyed and bushy-tailed after sleeping in till 9! We've even showered and I'm dressed, but Einar decided that he wanted to put his pajamas on again after getting all clean. He is now watching a new show called Word World--more animals building words, but not as "Scary" as Super Why. Super Why had an episode about Hansel and Gretel several weeks ago and it really freaked him out and now he won't watch the show at all.

Yesterday we had a nice relaxing Turkey Day here in San Clemente. My friend Betsy drove down from Yucca Valley with her two kids to spend the day and eat turkey. Her husband Frank is deployed in Iraq right now. I cooked an 11lb turkey that turned out really well and now have a stock pot of soup in the fridge too =). Einar and Jacob played trains most of the day and the two little kids and the moms even got a little bit of a nap in after our noon meal. Betsy took the pictures yesterday, so when I get some of those I'll post them.

Today is a blank slate. I just know that we're not up for a day of shopping!

PICTURES! PICTURES! PICTURES!

Blog Catch-up Time

Well, I've been remiss in updating the blog these past two weeks. A lot has happened, I just haven't been keeping you updated--sorry.

Einar and I spent a day at Disneyland with Nathan, Hailey and Kathleen. We saw princesses, rode the Jungle Cruise and were completely terrified by Storm Troopers and Darth Vader.

The next day, Jared took us to Knott's Berry Farm. All sorts of fun rides for Einar to enjoy there! His favorite was a semi-truck course where the kids rode in the cab with the parents sitting on top. Each truck was outfitted with four bulb horns that made a tremendous racket. He rode it twice and even though he threw a fit when we tried to walk away, Jared told him that he could ride it again when they got rid of the horns. We also went on the log chute ride which was fun.

On the morning that Jared left on his deployment, Einar finally figured out how to put his shoes on by himself. Jared had been working with him on this skill for awhile and now he's very proud that he can do it himself. He was even able to tell Dad about it when we saw him off on the ship. We're still working on figuring out which shoe goes on which foot.

Jared left two weeks ago on his ship. They are headed West and have now crossed the International Date Line. I get emails from him fairly frequently since he has his own desk and computer and since his job requires him to be on the computer a fair amount. We've sent a couple of letters, but according to Jared they have only received one mail drop so far and he doesn't expect them to come with any more frequency as the deployment progresses. I guess this is when we start numbering our letters so that he knows in which order we wrote them.

Before he left, Einar and I did get a brief tour of his ship including his bedroom that he shares with at least 50 other guys, his dining room, and his office and exercise room. He can't sit up quickly in his bunk because I think there is less than 2 feet of clearance from the mattress to the ceiling. They stack the bunks four height! He does have a curtain that he can draw and a reading light in there too since I guess it's dark in the room most of the time so that the people who work during the night can sleep too. We weren't able to stay and wave the ship off when it departed, but we did get to say our good-byes.

Let's see. Since then we've been adjusting to how dark it gets in the late afternoon (sometimes before we even wake up from naps!) and eating by ourselves all of the time. We were pretty busy the first week with meetings, Church on Wednesday night, and cousins visiting on Wednesday and a trip with them to Legoland on Thursday. However, this past week we've been in quarantine with nasty colds.

Einar had a fever from Monday afternoon till Friday night and we've both had the congestion and yucky cough. He's been a really good sickey taking care of himself by sleeping, drinking fluids, and being pretty quiet. I've been doing the same, but have been itching to get out of the house!

Today we finally left and drove to Perris for a Day out With Thomas the Tank Engine. Since we had already purchased the tickets it was worth the trip, but now we are both tiggered out. We met up with our friends Betsy and her two kids Jacob and Molly. They live in Yucca CA now and so the train museum was about halfway for both of us (they'll be driving down to San Clemente on Thursday to have Thanksgiving with us too). Jacob and Einar were thrilled to ride on the Thomas train. It's about a 25 minute. The Orange Empire Railroad Museum does an awesome job putting on the event each year and we thoroughly enjoyed it. Thankfully it was about 10 degrees cooler this year than last. I do much better in 80 degrees than in the mid 90s! When we returned home over the mountain we found out that it had been cool, overcast and foggy all day here on the coast

I had some trouble with pictures on this post so I'll do a picture only post as well to get you updated on the growing boy.

Happy Halloweenie!

We had a really nice Halloween today with our Railroad Engineer. After Einar helped me make some pumpkin pancakes for breakfast, he settled down on the couch to catch up on his reading. I took the quiet opportunity to spend some time updating my roster of wives for the upcoming deployment and to make some phone calls. Then we finally got dressed and made a trip to the commissary since we didn't have any candy in the house for the evening on the off chance that we'd see a trick-or-treater.

Einar wore his cowboy suit to go grocery shopping and was one of several costumed kids helping their moms shop. Then it was home for lunch and a nap for the little guy.

I stayed up to make some rolls and start dinner. I'd invited a friend and her two kids over for dinner and to hang out at our house so that she could escape the crazy trick-or-treaters in her neighborhood on base. After dinner, Jared and I took Einar out for trick-or-treating in our neighborhood. We met up with the Cobbs and had a good time. Both Einar and Nathan were ready to head home as we hit the last house. Einar wouldn't say "trick-or-treat" but he did blow his train whistle for people and on occasion said "Happy Halloween!" Our group included a pirate, a witch, a goldfish, a horse, Belle from Beauty and the beast, me as a cowgirl, and Einar the Engineer.

Tomorrow we'll probably binge on candy!

THE SMOKE HAS CLEARED

The smoke has cleared in our area. There are still some fires burning in the Southern California area, but we are well away from them. With the air quality, not so good, there was a lot of couch potato time.
The sky was smoky for a couple of days of a red sun from sunrise to sunset. It was like living in Mordor.
Now that it has cleared up, there was an opportunity to rinse off the cars, which got dusty even though they were parked in the garage. Einar got to help and did a great job using the hose, and he didn't spray himself or anybody else.
This entry brought to you by Jared.

VISIT TO SOUTH DAKOTA!

Just kidding, we went to LEGOLAND today. The LEGO sculpture of Mt Rushmore was particularly good. We also rode several rides and had a lot of good walking. Mommy rode the Rescue Helicopter and Mommy and Einar rode the boat. There was some trouble with that because the boats had to be steered like a proper boat and Einar was behind the wheel.

Yesterday was a Moms Club Halloween Party with Einar as a train engineer and Mommy dressed up as a cowgirl.
After nap time, there was an opportunity to share Daddy's jump rope and pushup handles. Exercising in pajamas is okay, as long as it isn't before bedtime.

Making Halloween Cookies with Paige

Tonight, Mary Ann brought her two kids over to have dinner at our house. I had made up some cookie dough so that we could make some Halloween cookies before dinner and the kids got really into the project. Brendan is not quite a year and half so he was just watching, but Einar and Paige wore their aprons proudly and wanted to help with everything. They were exceptionally good at eating the flour/sugar mix that I had on the table for the dough rolling process. Einar however claims that he isn't eating it, only "licking" it. The finished products made a lovely end to our meal with a round of milk for everyone.

We See Jared!

If you look closely at the horizon in this picture, you can kind of make out a ship. I think it's probably Jared's ship the Tarawa hanging out off the coast of California. Einar and I have been waving to him today.

I also got around to decorating a bit for Halloween. Just some small stuff, but it looks more festive. Tomorrow I think we'll make some sugar cookies with some friends who are coming over for dinner.

Tonight it is MOMS club board meeting at our house so that I don't have to hire a babysitter. It's potluck so I just have to make some potatoes. Einar likes a party and is usually on his best behavior during our meetings.

Off to clean the floors before the other Moms get here!

Disneyland Dream Experience

Monday. I contemplated staying home to clean and decorate for Halloween this morning, but I think that I made a much better decision when I chose to pack up a lunch and head off to Disneyland with Einar. We started off at California Adventure riding some of the Bugs' Life rides and then visiting the talking/animated Crush the Sea Turtle. Then Einar wanted to ride the Disneyland train so headed off to the other park. Once there we rode a double decker bus down Mainstreet until it dropped us off at Sleeping Beauty's castle. Then it was a short walk to the train station by Toon Town.

I was pretty excited that we got to ride in the front car and watch the engineers drive the train. After a couple of stops, one of the guys came back and asked if Einar and I would like to ride with them up in the engine around the park!! Boy was that exciting! Einar was a bit in shock I think, but did crack a few smiles for the engineers. They let him ring the bell when we came into a couple of stations. It was hot where we were sitting, but even hotter in the engine house where the engineers sit. They said that it gets to be about 130 degrees in there in the summer! It was Einar's job to wave at all of the people when we came into each of the stations and he was doing a great job. I don't think either of us will forget that train ride anytime soon.

Once they dropped us off at the Mainstreet station again, we looked down and there was Cinderella (Einar's favorite princess) greeting people! We waved to the train as it left and then said hi to Cinderella.

After that much excitement, it was time to leave the park, share a Jamba Juice, and hop a tram back to the parking lot. Einar fell asleep in the car on the way home and I was able to transfer him into his crib once we got home.