3 week recap

I know I promised an Adventures in Babysitting part 2 but I wanted to do a quick recap of the past few weekends before I forget. The babysitting experiences are much easier to remember. After a month of non-stop weekends we finally had a couple of weekends free. We decided that we had to get some good hiking in before our trip to Yosemite Memorial weekend. On the 7th we headed to Poway Lake for a strenuous hike up Mount Woodson. We read about this hike online and knew there was a cool rock at the top. It was a very straight up hike but the reward at the top was worth it. Not only were there scenic views but there was a rock called Potato Chip ledge that was cool to walk out on. I did get a little nervous mainly because John seemed really nervous. The worst part was getting down from the rock. As our reward for our 8 mile hike we went to lunch in San Diego at Urban Solace. I got an amazing steak benedict. I don't normally like eggs benedict but this biscuit, steak, and egg combo just melted in my mouth. John got a duck macaroni dish that was also delicious. That night we met our with our pals David and Serena and we headed to the Irvine Spectrum. This is a massive outdoor mall and John hadn't been there yet. We had sushi and played some games at Dave and Busters. I was the big winner of the night, I pulled the handle on a game to get 500 tickets. After all our money spent on games we walked away with matching coffee mugs and candy.
On the 14th we were originally going to hike in L.A. but my friend in L.A. couldn't make it so we decided to stay closer to home. We hiked to Aliso Summit which was more of an urban hike. Meaning that parts of the trail were on sidewalks with cars whizzing by and we could have probably just parked at several points of the trail but what kind of workout would that have been. This hike was also like 8 miles but was much more flat than the last. We did have to do a lot of uphill on the way back and that short distance almost killed me. I should be nervous about our Yosemite hikes if that little incline wore me out. As always every good hike is rewarded with a good meal. We went to a place called Break of Dawn in Laguna Hills and it was great. I got an egg white Mexican dish trying to be healthy but there were lots of unhealthy parts to the dish that were great. John got drawn in by a macaroni dish again but this time it was full of short rib, cheese, Gouda, and bacon. It was great! If 2 entrees weren't enough we had to get the skillet cinnamon roll covered in whip topping. It was even better than it sounds, very hot and buttery in a warm skillet, yum.
Now I am finally up to last weekend, it feels good to get caught up. My freshmen roomy, Katie, was in San Diego for work and she was able to stay Sat. and Sun. night with us. She got there at like 3 on Saturday and we sat down at the beach while she got a little lunch. Then Brian got us tickets to see the Chivas play the L.A. Galaxy so we headed up to L.A. We stopped at the Redondo Pier before the game to walk around, I of course had to get a churro. Brian put our name on the list so we were able to valet our car under the stadium and head right in to the game. Our tickets were at will call so we found out we had to go out the entrance get our tickets from Will Call and head back in to the game, a little confusing but well worth it. The tickets were for the 4th row and the game was sold out so we were very lucky. I normally am not in to sports but the Galaxy have a player you might have heard of David Beckham and he is always worth watching. We spent most of the game snapping pics of Beckham. It was a very exciting game actually. We stopped at the Spectrum on the way back to get some much needed dinner. Our waitress at Johnny Rockets wanted to discuss the end of the world that was suppose to happen, interesting topic choice. Sunday we toured the farmers market and then all 3 of us had lunch by the pier. After our huge lunch settled we headed down to the beach. The clouds had cleared out and we got some good sun. We even saw John surf for a few minutes. John grilled us a great meal that night and we topped it off with some delicious Golden Spoon. I was sad to see Katie go Monday morning but we had a fun visit. Now I can spend the week getting ready for Yosemite!

Adventures in Babysitting - Part 1

So I am going to recap 2 weekends of babysitting in one blog because I need to get caught up. Over Easter weekend I drove to Phoenix on my own, John didn't get Good Friday off work, so that I could watch the kids while my sister worked. In case you are behind on Lee Family news I will get you caught up quickly. The company Brian was working for closed and so they were looking at several new work options for Brian. One that came up was a job as the head trainer for the L.A. Chivas. The Chivas are 1 of 2 professional soccer teams in L.A. This meant a big change but I think they were both open to something new so Brian took the job. Since the season had already started Brian had to move to L.A. the next weekend which meant Kristy wouldn't have anyone to watch the kids over Easter weekend when she had to work. She informed me the week before that she could use my help so I got up at 5:30 on Fri. morning and hit the road to Phoenix. I drove like a professional driver and made it there in under 6 hours which in case you didn't know is amazing. Julia, the nanny, was there watching the kids when I arrived on Friday. I played with Braxton for awhile since Bralon was in the middle of a nap, it is amazing how quickly we went through all the new games I brought. Then Bralon got up and Braxton went down for a nap. Julia gave me instructions on how to feed Bralon and when to put him down for his second nap so I figured there was no reason for her to stick around. As instructed I gave Bralon his bottle, put in his paci, and laid him in his crib. Keep in mind Bralon and Braxton's rooms are right next to each other. So within minutes Bralon is screaming his guts out because he didn't care to nap and all I could think was how he was going to wake Braxton up. I tried everything I could think of but he was determined to scream if I left him in that room. I don't really have cell phone service at Kristy's house so I couldn't call anyone for advice so I just did want every good babysitter does and skipped the nap. I thought maybe he would just fall asleep on me if we laid on the couch but I was not that lucky. He just started laughing, smiling, and wanting to play and since it was so darn cute I just decided we didn't need the nap. I did consider what this could cause later in the day but I can't force a baby to sleep. Finally Braxton got up and we proceeded to shoot fake monsters, play trains, and wander over to the neighbor's house until Kristy got home. The neighbor has a big setup in her back yard for her grandkids and is nice enough to let Braxton play on it. She also has lots of horses which you can see in the pics. Kristy got home and made us some chicken pot pie for dinner and after a glass of wine I am pretty sure I was in bed at 8:30.
I woke up around 5:30 because I knew Kristy would go in to work early and I was determined to take a shower during this visit. Kristy was gone by 7 and now the real workday was on. We did all the same activities as the day before, apparently 3 year olds like a limited number of games. Braxton would instruct me on my script and what I should do during any imaginary play. I bought him candy land as a gift this trip and we tried playing that a couple of times. Braxton is having a hard time mastering his colors which is the basis of candy land so I am not sure he has figured it out yet. He has figured out where the winners spot is and insist on skipping the game and moving straight to the castle. I would refuse to play after awhile because he always just wanted to win immediately so then he started letting us both win. I think the game will go better in another year. I also bought him a finger painting set and he made several Easter theme paintings. It was convinent that we could call all the multicolor blobs Easter eggs. Braxton takes a lot of work so it is nice that Bralon is very easy. You just put him in is walker with wheels and he will zip all over the house. Or if you just stick him in the middle of a bunch of toys he is good to go for a few minutes. He doesn't seem to mind the morning nap so while he slept Braxton and I made no bake cookies, which Kristy and I were the only ones eating. I should also confess that I definitely broke any TV watching time limit rules but hey I am new at this. On Day 2 it was time for Bralon's afternoon nap and Kristy informed me to give him a bigger meal and he might nap better. So I gave him a whole bottle and put him in the crib and left. After like 20 minutes I could hear him in there just talking to himself and I made a huge mistake. I decided I would just go in there and lay him down with the paci and maybe he would actually fall asleep. This majorly backfired because then he started screaming bloody murder. Finally after letting him cry for like 10 minutes and seeing his little baby tears I just let him get up. I might have told Kristy there was a short nap but I am not sure this is true. I should also mention that Kristy only has 1 bottle in her house. Apparently all the others broke and she is refusing to buy more so when Bralon is ready to eat you better make sure you have that bottle washed. I got to change several horribly stinky huge diapers which Braxton would ask to see, gross. He would also act like I was rude for saying the were really stinky. Then as a special treat when we went out for pizza Sat. night Braxton wanted me to take him to the restaurant bathroom. He had been farting the whole meal and then on the walk to the bathroom he informed me he had to go poop. Great, this meant I got to stand in the small bathroom with him while he went poop. At one point he informed me it stunk in there and asked me to turn on the fan, I wish there was a fan. That night I skipped the wine and just went straight to bed.
Sunday was Easter and the neighbor had invited us to an Easter Egg hunt at her house with all her grandkids. I should mention that these people are really rich. This was not your typical hide some candy in some eggs around the yard type affair. When we arrived we took some pictures then she gave the kids baskets she bought them. Then we went in the back yard where she had put tons of toys out along with eggs. Nothing was really hidden. The kids run and grab the toys and then the parent holds them in a pile. The eggs have either confetti or money. Braxton made 30 dollars from his eggs, there was no candy at this party. After the kids gathered all their toys, she even had a big basket and several gifts for Bralon, then we played games. They insisted that I also participate with the adults in these games. The first game was stand on one leg as long as you can. I wasn't sure if I should lose on purpose since I wasn't part of the family but I guess I am more competitive than I realize because I won the game. As the winner I got a $50 bill, I like this family's style. The first half of the party was during Bralon's nap time so he was sleeping across the street and I was running in the heat back and forth waiting for Bralon to wake up. On like the 4th trip he woke up and so I got him all ready and we went over to the party. He was a big hit and all the little kids wanted to hold him and play with him. I felt like I earned my $50 by babysitting all the kids at the party. One little boy thought it was really funny to break the confetti eggs on my head, I had to be polite and pretend it was funny too. They were getting ready to eat a huge catered meal and I informed them it was Braxton's nap time and we had to go, I was not about to try to control these 2 kids at someone's nice Easter lunch. Braxton told them he had to go home and take a nap, which he does very well. Day 3 was my lucky charm, I actually got Bralon to take his nap to. I made myself a sandwich and sat down to paint my nails and to my surprise Kristy got home early. I had to drive all the way home that afternoon so I was back on the road by 2. Going towards L.A. on a Sunday afternoon really tested my driving skills. I even encountered a sand storm in Palm Springs but refused to let up on the gas. I pulled in the driveway just as John was taking burgers off the grill. It was just what I needed, except he added to much salt and we called them salt burgers as we ate them. Since this blog is already so long you will have to stay tuned for Part 2 of this babysitting blog.

John's birthday weekend - Part 2 - Coachella

The festival grounds

About to go in to the Date movie, not as scandalous as it seems.

Me at 1 AM after walking for 3.5 miles, not real happy

During the Cage the Elephant show before John left me to go in the mosh pit

It is hot there!
So I finally made it up to Coachella, 3 weeks after the actual event. Hopefully I can remember the good stuff. As I have mentioned before John and I went to H.S. with several members of the band Cage the Elephant. Brad has been super generous and anytime they play a show close by he gets us tickets. Last time we saw them it was at Jimmy Kimmel and they mentioned getting us tickets to Coachella. Well we didn't get our hopes up since these are very hard to come by tickets and costs like $300 each to buy. It isn't just a one day concert it is a 3 day music festival. The week of Coachella sure enough Brad came through and told us we had tickets waiting for us and they were like $700 VIP tickets! We were super pumped but needed to make plans fast. Coachella sold out like 3 days after tickets went on sale so things were going to be pretty booked up. The festival takes place in Indio, CA, which is right outside of Palm Springs and is in the desert. I called every hotel in Indio and managed to snag reservations at this classy joint called Western Sands. This is the type of place where there is no lobby and if you see bugs and cracks in the door you aren't surprised. Normally this fine establishment would go for around $50 a night but during special events like Coachella this luxury costs $200 a night. We figured since it was only 2 miles from the festival it wasn't a bad deal and wouldn't have to worry with shuttles and long commutes after the shows. We considered camping but that was already sold out. We hit the road Friday after work and raced to Indio. We made it there with surprising ease and it only got stressful when we had to go to 3 different places trying to find our passes. We got to the hotel crammed down some food and then hopped in a cab to the festival. I need to clarify a couple things here. At some point before we left I got our bed ready so we could just fall in to it when we got back. This meant covering it in all our own bedding. Also, when I say we got in a cab that is only half true. I got a card from the front desk of the hotel for a cab service. I called the number and expected there to be a long wait so I called early to arrange a ride in like 30 minutes. The guy was in the area so he just sat and waited on us and was pretty rude about it even though I told him we wouldn't be ready to go for 30 minutes. Another important point here is the vehicle we got in to that I am calling a cab, it was actually a young guy driving a car like you would see in Fast and Furious, like a fixed up Honda Civic. There was no meter or official cab name on this car. When I yelled at John from outside the room to come on because our cab was here he walked outside and gave me a crazy look. I assured him this was the cab and he got in but seemed a little uncomfortable. So we are only 2 miles away from the venue but for security reasons they have all the roads within a mile of the show closed down and you can't just drive back there without the right stuff. So our cab dropped us off and we paid him $20 but somehow we still ended up walking for like 30 minutes before we made it in the gate. There is only one gate in and out of the festival so if you get dropped off at the wrong spot you walk like a mile to get to the gate. Finally we made it in. We decided to test out our VIP passes and get a drink in the VIP area before the first show we wanted to see. Since we got to the festival at night, it started at 11 that day, we were totally disoriented and very unsuccessful at finding the VIP area. Finally we settled in and watched the Black Keys and Kings of Leon, both good shows. The shows wrapped up around 12:30 and we started on our way home. We decided since we were only 2 miles away from our hotel why not just walk home. I had googled how to walk to our hotel from the show on Friday and was pretty confident on our route. For some reason John had no sense of direction this night and refused to believe me when I told him where we needed to go. In his defense I am usually wrong when it comes to directions so after awhile I gave in and went the way he wanted. Sure enough, I was right and his way took us a mile in the wrong direction. This meant instead of walking 2 miles back we walked 4. 4 miles at 1 AM in my rainbow flip flops and jeans. Every 30 minutes John would have a break down and scream how we needed to call a cab then when all the cabs would be busy we would keep walking. I knew where we were and exactly how far John made us go in the wrong direction so I wasn't panicking, John was still just totally disoriented. At one point some lady in a mini-van offered us a ride for $10 but John felt that was to shady and passed on it. Once we could see our hotel ahead of us I told him that even if someone offered us a ride for free we were walking the rest of the way just out of principle. We actually made it back to the Western Sands in good spirits, had some candy, and then fell asleep on our questionable bed.
Saturday we got up and headed to breakfast at the local country club and then back to the lovely Western Sands before heading to the shows. When we arrived Friday I noticed our shower was not clean, I will spare you the details, and I requested it be cleaned. Needless to say service was not top notch here and I had to call again and get it cleaned. Even though it didn't look much cleaner after the maid left it smelled strongly of bleach so I took the plunge. Since there was record heat in the desert this weekend, like 97 we didn't rush to get to the festival. Even after all our walking last night we decided instead of waiting 45 minutes for a cab we would just walk there, I know we are crazy. We started walking and quickly realized it was much worse walking in 97 degree heat versus the night before. Luckily a family in an SUV pulled up next to us and offered us a ride to the checkpoint area, this would cut our walk in half. You might think this is shady too but they had a little kid in the backseat so what could go wrong right. John and I sat on each side of the little kid in the backseat and hitched a ride to the checkpoint. It was so hot by the time we walked in to the festival that we immediately went to a cooling station and hung out for a little while. We saw lots of good shows that day but most important was Cage the Elephant, it was the best show I have seen them do yet. Don't be thrown off by Matt, the lead singer, wearing a dress, I am sure it was because of the heat. We also saw Mumford and Sons which I was excited about. Included in our festival activities were celebrity watching and eating. We obviously had more luck with the eating part because we have more practice at that. For us to spot a celebrity someone has to be standing next to us being like look at that celebrity. John did almost knock over Paris Hilton at the Porta Potties and we did spot Eric from True Blood and Mac and Dee from Always Sunny. Matt, the lead singer, got to talk to Paul McCartney. Also I read later that Lindsay Lohan, Rihanna, and Katey Perry were there but no luck spotting them. Frankly it is so dark and crowded there it is hard to find anyone. We went back that night and hung out amongst the tour buses with the band. We were about to walk home again, because we haven't learned our lesson, but the manager for the band ended up giving us a ride, what a miracle. On Sunday we went to the historic Date restaurant for lunch. We ordered a date milkshake for dessert and then watch a movie called "the sex life of the date." It is very complicated producing Dates. You would think with all this walking I could have eaten a lot but man did the scale punish me when I got home. Apparently Dates and greasy stuff from food trucks is bad for you. We did head back to the concert because I wanted to see at least one rapper and they were all on Sunday. We took it easy though and just sat in the shade in the VIP area. John thought the coconut waters that came in coconut shells were so cool that he had to get one, guess what, coconut water is gross and a waste of money. The huge snow cone I got was not. Unfortunately we couldn't stay late enough Sunday to see the headliners, which included Kanye, but hey we aren't like the rest of these hippies, we have jobs. We definitely had a great experience and I couldn't think of a better way to spend John's birthday weekend.

John's B-Day weekend part 1

So I have several weekends of information to convey but unfortunately all my work has a been getting in the way. I haven't had a weekend at home to relax in forever which means that I have lots to write about. Let me first take you way back to the weekend of 4/15/11, this is John's birthday weekend and Coachella weekend. I had to look back at my pictures to remember everything that happened. So let me jump write in by recapping John's birthday. Since we were going to be in the desert all weekend at Coachella I had to give John his gift on Thursday. If you remember John's parents were here last weekend so I didn't have any time then to prep for his birthday so I scrambled all week to get ready. I decided that since our $250 Zune Mp3 player died earlier this year (1.5 years after purchasing it) that I would get John a new one for his birthday. Since we will both be using it some might consider it a self serving gift but no more so than the 2 pieces of art he got me for my birthday that we both enjoy at home. So as you can see it wasn't a selfish gift and we would be spending a lot of money at Coachella which I also considered part of his birthday. I just don't want anyone accusing me of just buying something I would want. I am normally a very cheap person but for John's birthday this year I decided I would go all out and get him the new Ipod touch. Basically it does everything the Iphone does except you need a wifi connection for the Internet and you can't call people on it. We will mostly use it for music but I do love all the apps, camera, and video stuff. I wanted to load all the music on it for John, since he isn't super tech savvy so I had to get it ahead of time to start the process. I had been looking at them at Walmart for a few weeks and when I went on Monday to get it they just sold out, perfect. So now I had to drive 20 minutes to Best Buy and get it there, where of course I also purchased the 2 year coverage because if I didn't my husband would break it a week later. So as long as he doesn't lose it, which is a possibility, we are good for 2 years. I hid the gift away in my car and then the next day during my lunch break I went home to download the music. I didn't want him to know what I was up to so I tried to use the spare computer in the guest room to do the downloading but it is a piece of junk and after a wasted lunch break I realized it wouldn't work. So then I decided I would have to do it on the laptop. We have 2 user names but we always just go on under mine so I set John's up with a password and downloaded all the Itunes stuff under his user name so he would not see any evidence of what I was up to. I was up late converting all our songs to the right format for Itunes and was happy to finally shut everything down. Wednesday night was the night before I was going to give John the gift and I got on the computer after he went to bed to finish getting everything set up. When I went under our regular username I saw the Itunes shortcut and realized that the way Itunes saved on the computer the shortcut showed up under both usernames. I did panic yet because John hardly ever gets online at home and I figured he probably didn't see it. Then I checked the internet history and sure enough he had gotten on that day, great. I just had to hope that he was very unobservant. I also told myself that he probably knew he was getting an Ipod but wouldn't guess that I was getting him the nicer one. The next day I gave John all his gifts and he really liked them but like I said he is not super tech savvy so I am sure it will take some time for him to get used to it. Then he told me that the night before after he saw the Itunes shortcut he was laying in bed and guessed that I was getting him the Ipod touch. This really annoyed me because he always guesses his gifts before I give them and just one time I want to feel like I really surprised him with something he wanted. I just went on a walk to pout. Then I decided it wasn't the end of the world that he wasn't surprised and not to ruin the fun by pouting. I feel like this blog is already getting pretty long so I am going to make this part 1 of John's B-Day weekend and Coachella will be part 2, stay tuned. Also I had not pictures of this event so I thought some nice sunset pictures from our porch would work.