Our Trip to California: Day One

Avery is all packed up and VERY excited to go stay with Grandma and Grandpa this weekend! We dropped her and Holley off late Thursday night and my Dad picked us up bright and early (5:30) Friday morning and brought us to the air port! 

Avery had to tuck all of her animals in her bed before we left, it was the cutest!! 

"Bye Daddy, I love you. You go to California? Wedding? On BIG airplane? Ok, bye"

Friday Morning:

As I sit now, in this most crowded aircraft ever, surrounded by some of the strangest people I have ever seen - all I can think is "warm sunshine, warm sunshine, warm sunshine". 

There is a man on board with the tightest skinny jeans I have ever seen, a curly mustache and a fur trench coat made to look like a bear. No joke... The sleeves have built in fur mittens that include bear claws sticking out of them and the hood of the jacket is a full fledged bear head that can pull down over your face and Wha-la, you're a bear! Then we have the lady wearing 9 inch heels and tie dye leggings who looks as if she hasn't slept in days and can barely balance on her own two feet - she is a sight to be seen, and with those tie dyed leggings, you can't miss her! The gentleman beside us rapping for three hours straight and the baby infront if us who shit her pants 2 hours ago and the no one cares to change it really add to the ambiance! Lastly, right behind us is a family with small children, who within the first 3 minutes of sitting down begin to squak and the mother starts panicking "where's the iPad, where's the iPad, where's the iPad, the iPad can fix everything".  Well, needless to say, the iPad CAN'T fix everything and it's going to be a very long flight! Like Brandon said, "it's like we're at the state fair, only contained in a small airplane... and without the food"! But, at least we are headed to California for some warmer weather and some good company! 

Dirk and Sarah are flying in to LA only 20 minutes after we do and we are sharing a rental car and headed to see Pukin Larry and to meet Suzi! It will be a great weekend... once we get our feet back on the ground! 

Friday Night:

We made it! We survived the crazy flight here and made it to Dinuba in one piece! On the way we stopped for a late lunch at In-n-Out Burger... and my Dad wasn't messing around... IT'S DELICIOUS! The double-double is where it's at and I secretly hope we stop again on the way back to the airport! It's that good! 

We checked into our hotel about 5:00. Sarah and I took a little walk to find some coffee, we might not do that again, there were a lot of shady spots with cardboard houses and mattresses along the way (and a few of the people who lived in them started following us). Anyway, we went to Luke's for the rehearsal dinner!  The food was really good there too! We had ribs, pork chops, crab pasta salad and the whole works! Everything around here is SO DUSTY!!! There are dust storms blowing all over, everything is covered in this really fine powdery dirt! That part isn't my favorite, but it is what it is! A storm rolled in at about 8:00 (but it feels like 10:00) so we headed back to the hotel to get a good nights rest! That's all for now, I am sure we will have all kinds of fun tomorrow to write about!! Until then, good night! 

Avery's First Duck Hunt

Avery has been SO excited to go "dunk huntin'"with Daddy she can hardly stand it! We told her she was going to go this weekend and it's all she talked about all week leading up to Sunday morning. 

We tucked her in early for bed in Saturday night and took the chance of waking the sleeping bear on Sunday morning. Avery is worse than I am when it comes to waking up, it's never good unless it's on her schedule! 

At 5:30am, while all of the world was still sleeping, our little duck hunter popped out of bed, rubbed her sleepy little eyes, and asked to put her Camo on! And I packed her things in a camo bag!

Brandon helped her get ready to go and bundled her up because it was pretty chilly. It took him about 20 minutes to get her dresses but he did good gettig all if the layers on: cotton tights, long underwear, sweatpants, snow pants, long sleeve shirt, sweatshirt, winter coat, camo fleece on the top of that, hat, mittens and winter boots! She was ready to go "get some duckies"!

We drove seperate to the boat landing, just incase duck hunting wasn't as exciting as Avery hoped it would be, so we could leave early if we had to.

This is her giving me the thumbs up as we left the house:

Brandon's friend Scott and his wife Beth joined us for the morning and brought their dog Glory with too! We got the boats loaded up and set off across the lake to our spot. On our way we happen to run into a a few dozen roosting Cormorants with the boat. No kidding- ran into them with the boat. I thought they were going to start hopping in with us!! It was the strangest thing! Avery was laughing at the crazy birds as they swam around us and eventually flew away. 

While Brandon set up decoys, Avery and I had breakfast; warm apple cinnamon pancakes, yogurt bites, and apple juice. It kept her plenty busy in the pitch dark while she couldn't see anything! Once the sun started comig up and she could see all of the decoys she really started to get excited! 

We didn't see very many birds, nothing has started migrating yet because it's been so warm, but Avery had fun wearing her camo and head lamp, blowing her duck call, and yelling "duckies come here!" at the top of her lungs and then turning to me and saying "mommy, those duckies are not listening"! 

We read books, sang songs, ate snacks and spent the whole morning as a family just spending time together! It was perfect! We packed up and headed home around 11:00. We dropped off the boat and went to breakfast with Scott and Beth at the Waverly Café. I would say Avery's first hunt was a success! 

Some of my favorite quotes of our outing:

"I call daddy - daddy not come. I call duckies - duckies not come too!"

"I want to see another duck. 

That puppy will get them. 

That's a fun game. 

That's a reallllllly fun game!"

Halloween Festivities!

Since we weren't going to be here to celebrate Halloween with Avery this year, I made sure to do a few fun Halloween things with her before we left on our trip. 

We painted her nails orange, with glow in the dark polish on top! This was SO cool for her! I don't know that she would like to lock herself in the dark pantry for any other reason than to see her nails glow!

We made Halloween Snack Mix! Muddy Buddies with mixed in pretzles, candy corn and Reese's pieces! She made some goody bags for her cousins and friends! 

We read TONS of Halloween books all week long! Great Grandma Lucy and Great Grandpa LeRoy were in town on Wednesday evening, so we stopped by for a quick visit, and brought ALL of our Halloween books with because Avery knew how her Grandmas would love to read them with her!!

We made a Halloween owl mask for her  pumpkin that is at our house not carved. Her carved pumpkin is at Grandma and Grandpa's so she could light it on Halloween! 

Here is her carved pumpkin! She helped choose all of the shapes we used for the face and worked hard to scoop the guts!

Avery brought over a pumpkin for Ryann too, since she happened to be at Grandmas when we went! She is always thinking of her friends!; proud mommy! 

Avery went trick-or-treating tonight with Ashley and Harper! By the voicemail she left us, it sounds like she had A LOT of fun! Ashley sent us a few pictures too, it looks like it's pretty chilly back home! Yikes! 

HAPPY HALLOWEEN 2014!

Trick-or-Treat Downtown

Avery and I went trick-or-treating in Buffalo last weekend with Brooke, Blake and Gage! It was totally last minute to hook up with them, but I am so glad it FINALLY worked out to see them! The kids had a blast and the weather was perfect! 

Grandma stopped by to see us too and walked with us for a little bit!

We also stopped by Andy and Jenna's house that they have been fixing up to trick-or-treat there! Good thing Avery didn't notice me pass some treats off to Andy so they had something when we came to the door!! 

Anyway, I was really happy I was able to do this with Avery since I am feeling terribly guilty for not being here on the true night for trick-or-treating. I know she will have fun without me - she is REALLY excited to go out with Harper and Ashley! I hope they send me lots of pictures!! 

The "Bear Bear" Store

This past week Brandon and I had a bad tummy bug. We both got sick on Sunday evening and weren't feeling well through Tuesday. Shanon and Ollie decided to let me have the whole week off to rest, recover and get ready for our trip (I am unbelievably thankful for them and their generosity once again). Brandon went back to work on Monday even though he was still sicker than a dog and I used every ounce if energy I had to tend to Avery.

She was such a good little girl, playing quietly by herself most of the day(s) while I rested near by. She knew "mommy didn't feel good" and did her best to help me feel better by delivering me Lego ice cream cones, giving me every stuffed animal in her collection to snuggle with, and reading me lots of stories! Anyway, we had a pretty uneventful week and didn't leave the house except to go to the dentist so they could fix my crown that needed a little bit of an adjustment from my root canal last week.

Once we were starting to feel a little better I was able to do some laundry, washed the bedding and rid the house of any leftover sick germs might have been lingering! 

On Thursday, we packed up our bags for California and for Grandma and Grandpas house and then headed out for a little mommy/daughter date. Avery noticed earlier in the week that her "Bear Bears" dress was losing some sparkles. 

Side note: Bear Bear is a Build-a-Bear that used to me mine and still has the original clothing I picked out for it  years ago! 

With that being said, I told Avery that we could go Bear Bear Shopping and find Bear Bear a new outfit at Build-a-Bear. After getting Bear Bear buckled safety into the car, with a book to read (just like Avery), we headed out to Ridgedale! I wanted to get my eyebrows threaded before the trip anyway, so it was the perfect way to spend the day walking around enjoying time with my love bug out of the windy cold weather. 

We did all of "mommys" things first and then headed over to Build-a-Bear only to find it wasn't there any more!!! I was heart-broken!! I walked all aroud, read the mall map and - no - nothing - not there!! I couldn't believe it! How was I to tell Avery after we had been talking about it all morning? After she was so patient doing all of my things first? After she has carried Bear Bear so carefully all around the mall telling Bear how she was going to get her a new outfit for Grandma and Grandpas house?!? 

I stopped waking and got down to Avery's level, held her little hand and told her "Avery, I'm so sorry, the Bear Bear store isn't here any more, they don't have any bear clothes at the mall". I was about in tears myself anticipating the disappointment, waiting for tears and "whys?" But Avery smiled at me and squeezed my hand saying "it's ok Mommy, we can find Bear Bear more clothes later, right Mommy? Is there more bear bear stores? Like different... or something?!"

I knew there was another Build-a-Bear store at the Mall of America, but it was almost noon, time for lunch and a nap. Did I dare drive 25 minutes to get there? And then show up with a very hungry, overly tired child? I was crazy to even ponder the idea... And then hearing an "I love you Mommy" mid thought, and looking down to see those little eyes peering up at me and Bear Bear wearing her faded pink dress dangling from Avery's arms... My decision was made!  We all got back into the car and drove to The Mall of America. 

Avery loved looking at ALL of the tiny bear clothes and accessories. We spent about 45 minutes looking around before she decided on the perfect outfit for bear! A new tutu, Mini Mouse shirt and Mini Mouse underwear (because Bear Bear is a big girl just like Avery, so she needed undies too)! We got bear dressed and showed her off to everyone who worked there! I am so glad I decided to make the trip to MOA, it was everything I had expected. Avery and Bear Bear had a great time spending the day together! And I even had a little fun too!! ;) 

On the way home we surprised Grandma Judy at work! Avery couldn't wait to show off her "new" bear! And Grandma was really excited for a surprise visit!! 

Pickin' Pumpkins!!!

We spent the day outside running around the pumpkin patch! There is an "on your honor" pumpkin patch on Highway 7 that I discovered last Fall on my way home. It's nothing fancy, just a field in the middle of nowhere, but you can come and go as you please and take your time running around searching for the perfect pumpkin.

This kids were so excited to go, although they had no idea what a pumpkin patch even was! Durning breakfast they were asking "are we going to ride horses there?" "I can't wait to see the cows and piggies" "what kind of things can we do there?" "Do they have treats there?" 

Not to mention that Avery was SO excited to go, that she was up for an hour in bed taking to herself about the pumpkin patch and kept calling "daddy, I have question" so he would go in, and she would ask things like, "can I see a horse at pumpkin patch? You coming to pumpkin patch? We get big punkins at punkin patch?" ... And on ... And on... And on... She finally fell asleep sometime after 10:00. 

So, I was a little nervous taking them today, hoping they would have fun and not be too disappointed when we ended up in the middle of nowhere, with no animals to feed or ride, no treats to buy, or games to play. But as soon as I pulled up and let them run loose, they had a blast!!!

I am so glad I remembered to grab the wagon! They had it overflowing with pumpkins in no time! Trading pumpkins in and out, catching pumpkins that rolled off  and using teamwork to push the wagon was really fun to watch. I just love giving the kids some room to play and explore new things when I can stand back and watch them learn and grow together! So many times, they asked "can you help? This pumpkin is too heavy?" Or say "I can't push the wagon, pumpkins keep falling off" and I asked them to use teamwork to solve their problem! Sure enough, the four of them gathered up all of their ideas and strength and got the job done! And WOW, were they ever proud of themselves! 

It's experiences like these that help them foster their independence and self confidence. They were in control of the situation and had a huge success!

At the end of our trip, everyone got to choose one pumpkin to take home that we will be using next week when we learn all about pumpkins! I grabbed a few extras so we had some to carve at home this weekend too! We had a great day together! It was the perfect outing for a 70* Fall day!!

This is a photo I took one morning this week of the girls when we were out "sploring" after bringing Cullen to the bus! It's just too cute not to share!