Vacation part 2!

Onto part 2 of our vacation re-cap!!  You can read part one here.

Day #2 of our vacation was spent at Universal Studios!  It was amazing.  

Jenna started out needing a nap while we got ready and she just was so cute I had to take a picture.  She pulled her blankie over her face and put her feet up on my purse. 

 David, Caleb & my sister.  (Did I mention we brought her with?  Partly to help with the kids and partly for a graduation gift)

This is what was filming that day at Universal!  LOVE Parenthood...wish we could have seen some of the actors from the show!  

Shrek: Here smell my hand (after he pretends to pass gas on it)  Princess Fiona wasn't impressed!!

Curious George....ahhh, we love Curious George!

Curious George's space ship!  Including an awesome sprinkler mist under it!

On the backlot tour!!  It was so fun to see a lot of behind the scenes stuff.  Always neat to know how they do things on TV and in the movies.  I took a ton of pictures, but didn't get a ton of great ones.  

It's hard in a moving tram.  

I'm not a Desperate Housewives fan.  In fact, I've never watched the show.  However the tour included a drive down Wisteria Lane.  This house was the one they were filming in that day.  I didn't get the sign that was next to this lady in the picture but it said "closed set authorized personnel only".  Kind of cool that there were actors in there filming as we drove by!

Proof that I was there!  I dont' have nearly enough pictures with me in them!

 The lovely auntie Melissa!

I think this is the ONLY family picture we took the entire time!  I wish we would have gotten one at the beach, but oh well!  

I'll be more conscience of that next time!

The 3rd day of vacation included driving from LA down to San Diego.  We drove down the Pacific Coast Highway and it was absolutely gorgeous, I have no pictures though.  I was too busy enjoying the view and we weren't wanting to stop!  We needed to get to our hotel and get ready for the wedding rehearsal.  One of the main reasons we took our vacation in California was to be there for Dennis & Marissa's wedding!  I started out as Marissa's babysitter when we were younger and now she is not only a friend, but a sister.  I was so thrilled that we could all be there for her big day.  Caleb was the ring bearer, David was an usher and I coordinated!  My very 1st time coordinating a wedding and I really liked it.  Erika & Jenna came with to the wedding rehearsal but for the big day they enjoyed some girl time with Auntie Erika!  It really worked out well for us.  I can't imagine if we would have had them there with us.

Here are a few pictures from the wedding.

The opening prayer

 Caleb discovered his name on the wedding program & was VERY proud!

The happy couple!!  Mr. & Mrs. Dennis Anderson 

My cute little sailor.  He knew he was important that day and was just a doll.

The wedding cake topper that Marissa made!!  I love it!  

And I love the ocean in the background too!

A boy in uniform.  Oh my goodness.  

Could he be any cuter???

 We ended the day having dinner with Auntie Erika at a Chicago pizza place.  

Okay, if you made it to the end of this post you are amazing!!!  That ended up to be WAY longer than I had intended.  There will be a part 3 post of our vacation next week!

Dr. Appt update!!

A month ago Caleb went to the ENT to have his ears checked.  We were told he had some fluid and "abnormal ear pressure" but the doc thought that it could just be caused from allergies.  He was on 2 different allergy meds for the past month and today he went back to see if his ears had cleared up.  Nope.  We definitely think he has allergies and the meds are working because we can totally notice a difference in him.  No runny nose and no coughing all.night.long. anymore!  But the ears have not changed, so tubes it is for Caleb.  I called to schedule his surgery and thank the Lord....he got in the same day as Erika!!!!  Yahoo!!!  Party at the hospital!

This afternoon I took Erika in to urgent care because she has a couple of bug bites that were swelling up pretty bad (like the size of a hockey puck) and making her just miserable.  She had blood drawn for the first time today and she did great!!  She was very brave (even after the nurse said "it will just feel like a little bug bite"  seriously?  what are you thinking, you have the paper in front of you saying what's wrong why in the world would you say that???)  Her lab work came back showing that the bites are most definitely infected.  She's starting antibiotics today.  Had I waited to take her in until tomorrow she likely would have ended up on antibiotics AND steroids.  The doc said we caught it in time before the infection got worse.  Dang mosquitos!!!!  We'll be steering clear of evenings outside for now.  We REALLY don't want anything to delay her surgery!  (tonsils & adenoids out, tubes in)

I tell you what, this has been the year of doctor and hospital visits.  I think back to the 3.5 year period when we had NO health insurance and I am so incredibly thankful that we were healthy during that time!  I can't even imagine what we would do right now without health insurance!

Vacation!!!!!

I have been a bad bad blogger....although I've been a good wife, mommy & house keeper.  I guess that's just where my priorities are these days.  Not that it's a bad thing, I just wish I had one more hour during the day to blog!  Someday I will be as organized with my time as I am with my closets!  Haha!

So vacation.  This will be one of those posts that will have lots of pictures and maybe more details than you care to know about our vacation, but I don't want to forget!!

Our 1st day in Los Angeles we spent quite a few hours visiting Beverly Hills, Hollywood and seeing the sights.  This day wasn't terribly exciting for the kids, but they did great anyways!

It was fun to see the Hollywood sign in person.  More memorable would be the journey to get to the sign!  David had put it into his gps and the directions were going to bring us straight to the sign, rather than to one of the sight seeing spots.  It was kind of hilarious looking at the route on the map because we literally were driving up the side of the mountain.  It was crazy, all curvy, winding roads.  It was a fun adventure.  And once we got close we had an amazing view!  Check out the house in the side of the mountain!!!  I can't even imagine waking up to that view every morning!!!

 Another thing we really wanted to do was get cupcakes from Sprinkles!  We love watching one of the shows on the Food Network with the founder of Sprinkles, so trying her cupcakes was a must!  They were spendy, but wow, the best cupcake we've ever had!!!!  (and they were huge!)

 We drove down Rodeo Drive.  We didn't bother getting out and walking down Rodeo Drive simply because none of us have the kind of money we'd need to buy anything in those shops, but it was still fun to be in the area and see the sights!

 I MISS PALM TREES!!!!!!!!!!

 After we got settled into our hotel and grabbed some dinner we headed to Venice Beach.  BEAUTIFUL!!!!  The pictures from this night are some of my favorite for the whole trip!  I definitely will be getting one of these beach pics blown up & framed!!!

 Erika had been to the ocean when she was 14 months old, but this was the first time when she could appreciate it and remember it!  She loved it!!!

 Jenna was not too fond of the ocean at all.  As you can see by her face.  We've discovered that outside of the bath tub, she's not fond of water at all.

 These were the houses behind us while we were at the beach!!!  Except for the amazing view, I really don't think I'd want to live in one of these houses, but they were still pretty nice!

That pretty much sums up day 1!!  I think I'll split up my posts about vacation, otherwise they'll just be too long!  Stay tuned for more!!!