Week 2 of Spring Break ~ Laughlin

After an exciting birthday bash for Owen and an awesome day at Disneyland we decided to leave for Laughlin a day early and head out Tuesday after swim practice.  I HAD to get my spray tan on (*FYI Mystic Tan is DA BOMB DIGGITY!…I LOVE IT!!) I decided to go for a “medium” tan this time around, which looked fantastic…except for my feet! haha I used the protective booties since last time I didn’t use them and my toe cuticles were brownish/orangish for WEEKS after. SO I “protected” my toes and look what happened? haha Next time I need to use that barrier cream a tad bit better! lol  Actually the FUNNY part about this is that if I would have known about the weather in Laughlin I would have NEVER needed to use the darn mystic. Anyway, We arrived Tuesday evening…and just hung out w/ the Manley Family.  The weather seemed nice, but little did we know that Laughlin was in for a whole lotta fiery, weather-wise, in the next few days.

  We learned on this trip that Owen LOVES “bideo games” and “arcades”…so the Daddies took Owen and Caroline down to play on the games. They are such cheap dates too…all the games were free, they don’t even know the money! It was so cute to see them so excited running from one game to the next “playing”.

So on Wednesday we heard the weather wasn’t going to be great, but we headed to the boat anyway. Of course, we got on the boat and it wouldn’t start. Hmmm…so we just let the kids play while we sat and waited for the batteries to charge (at the time we thought that it was just the batteries…haha we figured out later that its probably the starter…so the Souza Boat is out of commission for some time )  Again the kids enjoyed the day just playing on the boat watching the ducks and just hanging out!  Poor little Wyatt was restless b/c he just wanted to crawl everywhere and it was too dangerous.

 

So after a few hours of hanging on the boat…I noticed the sky wasn’t looking very nice…and thought it was a good time to pack up head back to the hotel.  THANK goodness we left when we did…b/c it started pouring rain minutes after we got to our cars!

<-------   Look at those angry skies!!!

 

 

 

 

It seemed we did a lot of playing in the room and eating on this trip! haha  Of course the kids are totally easy and didn’t mind that a bit!

On Thursday the Gerke family had arrived, we knew the boat was broken, and a HIGH WiND WARNING was in effect. So we headed to the Harrah’s beach before the winds picked up.  Ended up being a WONDERFUL day in the sun. Kids played in the sand, the “big kids” jumped in the freezing water and the Mommies sun bathed…it was perfect!  And let me add that Harrah’s beach was actually really nice.

Give the little kids some sand toys and they are entertained for hours. And of course the big kids…Yosh, Kris & Joel

 

It was cute the silly “adults” had Owen as a cheering section with the water entries…he was all about it THEM going in and him just pretending like he was going in! No cold water for my smart little child!

 

And of course another night at the arcade! Whoohoo

Sorry I know this post is getting long, but I must continue.  On Friday the Manley’s headed home because it rained. We stayed in Laughlin with the Gerke’s to try and enjoy some time away from home!  So we decided to give Owen a try at a movie in the theater. For those of you that don’t know my little man…he is VERY scared of loud noises, dark areas, etc.  He is sensitive to loudness (just like his Mama!), so I totally thought the movies wouldn’t work, but why not try, we had NOTHING else to do in Laughlin. So the only kiddie movie playing was “Rango”..the one about the lizard, Johnny Depp is his voice?!?!? Yeah I didn’t know much about it either…and it wasn’t the best movie, but the only cartoony one playing.  I prepped Owen how it would be dark and loud, but everything was going to be ok. We’d have Popcorn and “candy” (fruit snacks).  Well I’m very happy to say he did GREAT!!!!! We stayed about an hour…I was actually bored at that point too. Addi also did great.  I’m now soooo excited to bring him to a good movie…like   Cars 2 or something. He’ll so love it!! So it was a cute “first” for Owen…actually TWO firsts…first movie and first DATE!

        

The rest of spring break is a blur to me…we headed home Saturday morning…at which time I caught some type of stomach bug….I was very very ill…and not a happy camper to try and make a 4 hour drive home. But I did it and was then in a coma in bed for the rest of the weekend. And of course…Sunday night before we’re back to work..poor Owen caught the same stomach bug and was up for 6 hours puking! Was horrible. So needless to say, I called in sick today from work…so I’m back to the grind in the morning.  Hoping  Yosh isn’t the next victim of this horrible stomach bug!!!

Thank you spring break for being another “memory” and great story about one of the worst Laughlin trips ever to tell about!!! haha

FLASHBACK…heehee….

    

My goodness…this little man is growing up so fast….:: sniff sniff::

My little man’s 2nd birthday

I can’t believe my baby is now 2 years old.  Its weird in one sense I feel like it was just yesterday that I had him, but then again it feels so long ago too…since so much has happened over the past 2 years.  The day I went into labor was pretty funny. It was Friday April 3rd, 2009, and I went to work, it was the last day before spring break. I felt “different”…and thought I was peeing myself all day…haha You know when your pregnant your body does weird things. But I toughed it out all day at work, didn’t want to waste a day of sick time if I was in fact peeing myself, even stayed after the bell to finish up my sub plans, IN CASE I went into labor over spring break. I got home from work and told Yosh that I thought (well Mom told me I had to) go into the hospital just to get checked. So packed a bag, just in case and away we went. I didn’t even stop for dinner, since I thought we’d get to go out once we left Kaiser (one of the biggest mistakes of my life…always, I repeat always get food BEFORE going into the hospital).  Well I wasn’t peeing myself…it was actually my water, I had a slow rupture and was admitted. After 30 hours in labor and only getting to an 8cm the doctors figured it was time for a c-section.  At 10:25pm out came our little boy, Owen Paul Souza, 7lbs 11oz (which at the time we didn’t know if “it” was a boy or girl…so it was a very pleasant surprise to have the doc announce it). Our little Owen is such a little man now…30 lbs of “man”, very talkative, smart, witty little rascal! heehee. Note how I don’t say brat…I try to pretend that MY child would never be a “brat” lol.

So we had a pirate themed party for the little dude on April 2nd.  I was praying the weather would cooperate. Very annoying that all week the weather was warm and wonderful and of course the day we are set to have the party its cold, windy and rainyish. Darnit.  But the party was a success. He had so much fun with all his little friends! All 34 children (yes I said 34 children…ALMOST all our friends have children…makes for lots of friends for Owen!) had a map to help them locate their goodie treasure chest.  Was pretty fun until the little kids were just picking up the first chest they found, not necessarily the one that was on their map! hahaa Oh well. It was the thought that counted. Owen LOVES bouncy houses, so we had to get a jumper. The little man couldn’t get enough of it.  Piñata time was fun too…but it wasn’t organized very well and I was just waiting for some little kid to get hit! I was nervous. Yosh and Joel was the rope holders, since we don’t have any trees to hang the piñata from…

 

 

   

But a huge thank you to everyone that came out to celebrate Owen’s special day with him!

*FLASHBACK*

  

(I finally have longer hair than my son! haha YAY!)

On Owen’s actual birthday, since it was during spring break we thought it would be a great time to bring him back to Disneyland. (I guess I wasn’t thinking that our spring break would be the same time as the rest of the plants spring break…yes it was a nice and crowded day at Disney…and very warm as well!) He had already been twice before, once when he was 3 months old and again last x-mas eve. We knew he’d love it, and that he surely did! Thanks to the wonderful Arneson famiy, we were able to enjoy our day at both parks!  Gabby, Ronnie, Penny, Diana, Diego and Concha & Nick Jojola were there enjoying the HOT HOT HOT day at  Disneyland too…so we met up with them for a bit to get on some of the kiddie rides (which have the freakin’ longest lines I swear!)

 

Owen met lots of characters on his birthday!! He LOVED Lightening McQueen & Mator the most!!!

We ended our day going on It’s a Small World, Yosh’s favorite ride. haha Poor Owen got nervous on all the rides, and I know that b/c he covered his ears during all of them (he does that when he's scared or nervous), no tears or anything but would be nervous during the ride,  Heck I was kinda nervous on Snow White…have any of you been on that ride in a while…its freakin’ scary!! When the ugly witch turns around I jumped when Owen did! But he didn’t cover anything on It’s A Small World. He loved all the singing…

It was such an awesome day. Seeing your child’s face light up with excitement is one of the best feelings on the planet. 2 years down…a lifetime to go. I can’t wait to see what my little dude turns into when he grows in to a man! …wait I guess I can wait, I don’t want him to grow up yet!

Week 1 of Spring Break 2011

This year our school district moved over to a different yearly schedule…and I LOVE it!~ Instead of the usual 1 week for spring…we got TWO! Yay. And of course we try and jam pack as much as we can into the time off!  But we never truly get a break, since coaching swimming still has to be done. We had a meet against Norco on Monday the 28th and 3 out of our 4 teams won (whooohooo!) Varsity Girls, JV Girls and JV Boys all won (note BOTH my teams won!) haha.

On Tuesday we drove up to Big Bear to visit the Gerke’s who had rented a cabin ON the lake with Taryn’s parents, Brenda and John Goller! Some of the nicest people…even bought Owen an early birthday present! We all played in the snow…since a few days before we went up they got a few feet of snow (ok maybe inches but whatever).

They got sled rides (we won’t talk about Taryn & Addi’s rough ride down the hill though), played with sand toys, threw snow balls…Owen was cute…he didn’t want to touch the snow to MAKE the snow balls but wanted to throw them..was a win/win for him and lose/lose for me who had to make a million snow balls!

Addi & Owen went on the sled together…and laughed and laughed. Was so cute!  Kris and his father-in-law, John had lots of fun fishing. While we were there a fish took a tied up pole into the water. Kris fetched it out of the water to find the fishing-pole thief! Owen wanted to touch it…but once the slim hit his little finger he was done!

We had a wonderful time (once we got up there…me and that mountain road DO NOT go well together blaaaah!)

Thanks Gerke’s and Goller’s, and sorry for kicking your butts in Cranium

 

On our way home from Big Bear we made a stop into see Mya & Papa in Redlands….Owen adores them so much. He kept tackling poor Papa to the ground!

 

 

 

So we went from freezing weather up in Big Bear to HOT HOT HOT weather here at home (it was in the 90’s)! We had plans to use our Free Annual Pass at Sea World but had to cancel since we had so much preparations for “His Lordships” 2nd birthday bash (that will be a separate blog post!)  While home we finally put together his Pirate Ship Water Station (which doubled as a great decoration for his party!)

Yes he was showing some butt-crack like Daddy! But Owen played with it for HOURS and cried when I made him come inside. This lil man loves his water toys!! And thankfully…he has his fathers skin-tone…was outside (yes w/ sunscreen) for almost 2 hours and didn’t even get the slightest bit pink/red!

Other  cute pics from our first week of spring break include:

and….

Owen went pee-pee on the potty for the very first time. I’m NOT potty training him yet…well at least I totally THOUGHT he was not ready for that yet. But thought “hey, why not” before bath-time I’d give it a shot…and first time on it he peed! I’m sure its beginners luck, but it gave me hope for this summer when we try and potty trainer in full force! Thank Goodness for camera phones, I was able to document this HUGE milestone! heehee. I know…he’ll SOOOOO appreciate this when he’s older!