VEGAS!!!

Yet again, this is a blog post that should've been done in the beginning of august, when the trip actually took place but hey, better late than never right???

I try to go out to vegas to visit my family as often as I can. Anytime any of my old friends from LA go I try to see them too. It was a 3 for 1 deal for me this trip because not only was I going to get to see my old childhood friends, but we would see my mom and step dad AAANNNDD from Rickey's side of the family we were having a mini-reunion!!!! LOTS of people to see and lots of catching up to do!
I was there for a total of one week in vegas with the kids... rickey flew out a few days later and met up with us there. I went earlier than him because my old childhood friends were going to be there to celebrate our friend Lindsay's birthday!!!! I could NOT pass up the opportunity to catch up with my old "dreamer" friends LOL... so off I went on a road trip, just me with both kids in the car for 11 hours!!!! but I would do it all over again for those girls, I love them very much and I'm sad I don't get to see them as often as I'd like. The celebration plans included one night of a "menswear" theme and all of us ladies dressed up in our glam fabulous menswear inspired outfits and EVERYONE looked soo gorgeous!!! It was definitely one of those "what happens in vegas, stays in vegas" kind of nights ;)
All the ladies looking beautiful!

The birthday girl and me!

A few days later, Rickey's mom and step dad, 2 sisters and nephew drove from LA to Vegas, and his sister from texas flew with her two little kids. He also has another sister in vegas so we were able to get all the cousins together for the first time!!! We had a girls night out for us grown ups, the girls Alyssa and Ja'Lynn had a "slumber party" and just overall it was a lot of fun to see family members that we rarely get to see. The kids had never been with all their cousins before so that was a really nice thing to be able to see them all together. They are all very close in age so we knew they would love playing together and spending time together. We were together for 5 days and that time just flew by way too quickly :( it really is hard though to get the whole family together when we have his mom and 2 sisters in L.A., one in vegas, one in Texas, and us up here in the Bay.... but we are glad we were able to get together and hope to be able to do that again very soon and not let years go by before we all see each other.
Of course we stayed with my parents so the kids and I also got to spend time with them, which is always nice because my mom has a very close relationship with my kids and when they get together it's really special for all of them.
It was a good week trip to take and as much as I loved seeing sooo many people I love, by the end of it I was VERY happy to be back home, in my own bed, in my tiny matchbox condo LOL.
There were LOTS of pictures taken but I don't have them all so for now, I'll just post what I do have.

Tooth Fairy Time!!!

I don't want to forget these special moments and that's why I like to blog. The fact that I blog about events WEEKS after they've happened shouldn't matter LOL, it'll still be recorded here for me to remember. July 22nd, I was working out in the living room and Alyssa comes out and says to me, "mommy, I just lost my tooth" I was mid push up and literally jumped up and asked to see her mouth. Sure enough, there was a hole in the bottom left front. Here's the kicker, she LITERALLY lost the tooth! It popped out of her mouth when she was "pretending to be a puppy" and had the corner of one of my decorative pillows in her mouth and she was shaking her head fast and let go of the pillow. The pillow went flying out of her mouth and so did her tooth! So it took me about 15 minutes of searching on the ground for a tiny little tooth but thank goodness I did find it! That night she was sooooooooo excited to have the tooth fairy come and visit her. When I went to her room to get the tooth that night, I did find a note she had written for the fairy, asking if she could please keep her tooth! LOL I asked her about the note the next morning while I was making her bed and she said she wanted to keep the tooth as a memory. I told her the tooth fairy "buys" the teeth so she really does need it, and she was fine with the money she got from it but I just thought it was so sweet that she wanted to keep the tooth. <3 Yes, I know it's a bit more than a month ago that this happened but now it's in writing and I will be able to look back at this post and be taken back to that sweet memory of my baby girl's first baby tooth.

P.S. Here she is BRIGHT and early at 5:ish AM showing me the sparkly $5 and fairy wand the tooth fairy left her ;)

Sea World Pictures

Once again, my horrible blogging skills have made me fall behind on our family's doings so I'm just now getting around to posting the sea world pictures. I did at least get the rest of the san diego trip's pictures up when we went on the trip ;) here are some of the many many pictures I took during our trip to sea world, I can't wait to take the kids to more amusement parks now that they are getting old enough to enjoy more rides and shows/attractions!