Sea World 2013

Last weekend we made an impromptu trip to San Diego to pick up our Passat that was shipped to the port there by the military.  Since it’s a 5.5 hr drive from our house and since Sea World is offering military personnel and their families free admission to Sea World this year, we decided to take the kids to Sea World while we were there.  We weren’t sure if we’d be back in San Diego before the end of 2013 and wanted to take advantage of the offer, and we’re glad we did!

We stayed at the Hyatt right next to San Diego, thanks to Priceline.  We could have stayed at the base right on the beach near Coronado, but decided to see if Priceline could give us a hotel that was similarly priced.  I put in $90 as my max price since rooms at the base are $86/night and they gave us the Hyatt, which seems like a good deal until you have to pay $25/day for parking and $10/day for internet.  I think Priceline should include these things in your max budget, or give you that option anyway.

Anyhow, we grabbed a quick breakfast at Einstein Bagels which overlooked the marina.  Ben was in heaven.  Between the pigeons all over the place and the planes he could see taking off, he was highly entertained.

See the seals on the dock and buoys out there??  They were making a lot of noise!

We went to get the Passat and drop it back off at the hotel and then headed right to Sea World.  Luckily picking up the Passat only took about 10 mins so we got to Sea World around 10:30am.  We decided to go see the Shamu show first since it was showing at 10:45am and we weren’t sure if we would still be around for the 2nd showing at 5-something.

We weren’t sure how the kids would react to it, but they LOVED it.  Both of them!  We thought Ben might be a little too young to be interested, but he was riveted to the show the entire time – almost more so than Abbie was.  We sat at the top of the splash zone where I figured we wouldn’t get wet but were still kind of close and I was right.  It’s not quite as good now that they don’t get in the water with the whales, but it was still entertaining.  (If you click on that bottom left picture where the whale is in the air, the kids faces right below it are hilarious!)

We had a great view of Atlantis walking in to the park and the entire walk in Abbie was telling us how she wanted to go on that ride.  I was surprised, but we decided to humor her after the Shamu show and take her on the ride since she was tall enough.  I thought she’d chicken out, but she didn’t!  Mark took her on it and she loved the ride, but didn’t like getting wet.  I stood there for 15 mins waiting for them to come down the slide, but apparently I missed them since next thing I knew they came walking out.  Grr.  I was annoyed that I missed that shot.  We ended up buying the crappy quality photo they took of them, just to have her first “real ride” experience documented, but I’m still annoyed that I missed it.

The before and after photos.

While Mark and Abbie went to buy the photo, Ben and I watched some sting rays try to eat a bunch of lettuce.  He was fascinated with them.  A little afraid at first, but when he realized they weren’t going to get him, he liked to watch them.

After the Atlantis ride, I took Abbie on the Artic simulator ride, where it simulates riding on a helicopter through the Artic.  Again, I thought based on her last experience, she might chicken out, but she wanted to go on it.  When we were in the ride and it started to move she freaked out a little bit because she didn’t want to leave Daddy behind and was wondering how Daddy was going to get there with us, but after I assured her that we would come back and land at the same place, she was good.  It was fun watching her on the ride because she really thought we were in a helicopter doing all these crazy maneuvers.  Three years old can be a fun age.

Abbie kept asking when we were going to be able to swim with the animals and she was quite disappointed when we told her that you don’t get to swim with them, you just get to look at them.  In the Artic area they had little pathways that looked like caves that kids could crawl/walk through and Abbie really wanted to do it but she was terrified that there was a polar bear in there, especially since you could hear polar bear noises through the speakers.  I convinced her that the bear was sleeping and if she wanted to, she could go through the tunnel quickly, which she did and then sprinted out of it because she heard a growling noise.  It was quite entertaining for us, but she was disappointed that we never did see the polar bear.

When we let Ben walk, Abbie LOVED holding his hand and leading him around, and he didn’t seem to mind too much, so I got quite a few shots like these.  It was funny to watching people go “Awww!” as they passed them.  If they only knew that normally Abbie is yanking Ben around and he’s screaming at the top of his lungs.

Next we went to see the Clyde and Seamore show, which Benj slept through and that was really the only 35-40 min nap he took the entire day.

After that we took Abbie to the kiddie area since she wanted to climb around on the nets.  Mark and Abbie went through that while I chased Ben around since he refused to go back to sleep.  Abbie saw the rides and decided she wanted to go on them, so we spent an hour or so taking the kids on the rides.  They LOVED them.  Both of them loved the rides.  It’ll be great fun to take them to Disneyland later on since they loved the rides so much.

Mark took Benj on his first ride too and Ben was so excited!  He was pretty upset after he got off and Mark took Abbie on it again.

After that we went to see the dolphin show, which again, both kids loved.  It was a pretty good show between the dolphins and the high divers!

Then Abbie dragged Ben around some more.

I thought this tree was really cool.

Both kids loved the sting rays.  I remember being terrified to touch them when I was little, but Abbie didn’t hesitate at all and I’m fairly sure Ben would have jumped right in there with them if I’d let him.  And even more surprising to me, Sea World’s big roller coaster is called Manta and as soon as Abbie saw it she was BEGGING to go on it.  Unfortunately she was 5 inches too short, but she really, really wanted to go on it.  Hopefully next time she’ll be big enough!

We went on the Sky rail ride and the kids loved that also and I had nightmares about them falling out.

Our hotel is that tall building in the distance.

And lastly we went by the starfish pool and Abbie held a bunch of starfish.  Again, I would have been very nervous to pick one of those things up at her age, but she had no fear whatsoever.  She was just curious and wanted to hold them all.

Overall, the kids did GREAT at Sea World.  No meltdowns at all and I think they had a great time, and we did too.  The ride home, however, sucked.  Ben screamed, not cried or fussed, but screamed at the top of his lungs for the last hour and a half of it.  He’s lucky he’s cute…

The difficult one

We’re slowly getting settled into a routine here.  Mark went back to work on Monday and is now going through the IPUG (instructor pilot upgrade) at Luke, Abbie’s going to preschool Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8am-1pm and I’m doing a little more work from home now that things have settled down a bit.

We had thought we might have turned a corner with Abbie and her “difficult-ness”, but I’m not sure she’ll ever be “easy”.  That kid throws me for a loop numerous times a day.  She can be so sweet and so good, but then there’s the other 70% of the time.  She is bugging Ben CONSTANTLY.  It doesn’t matter what that poor boy is doing, Abbie is bugging him.  He’s fine when she’s at school and he’ll play with the hundreds of toys we have and go outside and explore and push his push toys around and do his own thing.  However, Abbie never has been, and I’m not sure if she ever will be, like that.  If Ben has a toy, Abbie wants it and will go take it from him.  I must tell her 58 times a day to give him his toy back, and she never just does it, it’s always a fight with me threatening her before she’ll give it back.  When she’s not taking toys from him, she’s literally dragging him all over the place.  She grabs his hand and just pulls him along to get him to where she wants him, and he screams the whole time while trying to stay on his feet.  And now he’s doing the preemptive screams when she even gets near him because he knows she’s going to do something he doesn’t like.  It gets SO old.  I don’t know what I’m doing wrong.

Today we were outside and Abbie came up to me and said, “You need to get me a drink right now.”  I told her that I wasn’t going to do anything for her when she talked to me like that.  So then she said, “I told you to get me a drink and you need to get it now.”  I ignored her.  Then she started getting in my face and poking me while demanding that I get her a drink.  I grabbed her arm to get her to stop, she pulled back, I let go, and she fell on her butt.  She didn’t get hurt, but she got MAD.  And then it just got worse from there until I took her upstairs to her room and told her to stay there until I came and got her.  She screamed and threw her fit for a good 10 mins and when she was quiet I went back up and we had a discussion about why she was up there and she apologized and then asked nicely for a drink, which I got for her, and that was the end of it.  Well that round anyway.

That is one of the many examples I could give you of her behavior this week.  I don’t know why she does things like this.  She knows we’re not going to do anything for her when she acts like that, and yet she still does.  I will ask her politely to do anything 3 times and then after that I will say you are going to do this right now or __fill in the consequence here__, so I know she’s just skipping the first 3 steps and going straight to the fourth, but holy cow.  It’s EXHAUSTING.  I feel like I spend a good 95% of my waking hours arguing with a 3 year old, or disciplining her, or refereeing between the kids – aka protecting Ben.  She’s great when she’s getting attention 100% of the time, but I just don’t have the time or energy to constantly entertain her, even though that’s exactly what she wants.  She’ll ask to paint, so I will drag out all of her paints, she’ll paint for 2 mins and then say she’s done with it and then I clean it all up.  I would say on average, my set up and clean up time is at LEAST twice as long as whatever it is I’m setting up or cleaning up holds her attention.  Is this normal?

I feel a bit guilty because I read blogs about how parents are outraged that schools aren’t offering half day kindergarten anymore since they want their kids at home with them.  I think I could sign her up for 10 hour a day “kindergarten” 6 days a week and be perfectly fine with it.  She is much better for other people than she is for us, I think.  Kids usually are.  She does better in a group setting and loves being around her peers also.  I don’t let her get away with misbehaving and because of that, I am spending a good 75% of her waking hours disciplining her.  I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong at this point, but it’s obviously something.  Next year she’ll go to preschool 5 days a week for 3 hours a day and I’m hoping that’ll help her.  She’s also in a stage right now where she thinks she doesn’t need to nap and getting her to nap is a huge fight, but if she doesn’t nap then she’s an absolute bear to deal with by 4-5pm.  It’s great fun.

All you parents out there – anyone have any tips?  Suggestions?  Recommendations for good boarding schools?  Ha, just kidding.  Kind of.

The Mesa Market

While Mark’s parents were visiting we decided to head over to the Mesa Market because we’d heard good things about it and it looked interesting.  It was interesting to see, but there was also a bunch of junk…  We’d like to go back sometime when we have a little more time to explore.

There were LOTS of vendors there.  We liked the iron sculpture places the best and would like to go back and get something for our wall when we have the house more done.  They sold everything from food to clothes to plants to purses to kitchen stuff, jewelry, artwork, tools, etc.  Pretty much anything, but it wasn’t really top of the line anything.  But it was fun to see and I think the kids enjoyed it.

Ben and his best pal, or maybe Mark and his best pal.  Either way.  =)

Ben at 16 months

Benj is already 16 months old!  It’s hard to believe!  I have to calculate it in my head when people ask me how old he is.  I want to say 14 months, and I kind of wish he was still 14 months old.  He’s getting way to big.  It’s hard to believe the pictures in my header on the blog are from almost a year ago!  He’s changed so much!

Ben is getting pretty good on his feet now.  He’s almost up to running although it’s still the funny awkward “run” with his belly and butt stuck out, but he gets around pretty well!  He loves to go for walks and is usually pretty happy riding in the stroller.  He LOVES watching Abbie run around like a loon too.

Ben is just fascinated with things in the sky.  He jabbers like crazy when he sees any sort of plane in the sky, while pointing to it.  He loves to watch birds and he points at them and says “Buh” over and over.  He says “thank you” now, although it sound more like “tan tu-ba”.  He’s kind of out of his cheese kick now, but he loves to eat raisins and yogurt and bologna.  He’s all in to trying to feed himself with spoons and forks now, and gets quite frustrated if you don’t give him one to use.  He doesn’t get a whole lot in his mouth with them yet, but he’s getting better.  He also loves to dip things – chips, fries, whatever.  If he sees you dipping any food into something, he wants to do it also.

This boy loves to sleep.  He’ll do our sign for sleep and say “nigh nigh” when he wants to go to bed, and he’s actually “asked” to go to bed a few times.  Last night was horrible with him screaming when we put him to bed and then he was up 5+ times last night crying, but that is VERY rare.  I’m not sure what his deal was last night, but tonight he went to bed great, as usual.  He’s still in 18 month clothes, size 4 diapers and size 5 shoes.  He’s starting to say more words, and is up to 5-10, but he’s getting better at pointing to what he wants and he’ll shake his head no if you get it wrong.  He LOVES drinking out of straws and he spends good portions of our meals out trying to put the lids back on the squeeze packs of food I bring for him.  He’s a determined little guy, for sure.

 

Ben at 16 months and Abbie at 16 months.

(I need to take more pictures!!  I haven’t been taking many of the kids lately, but hopefully I can get back in to photography mode once we’re settled.  And I’m back on WLW!!  I love this program!)

Loving it

Abbie helping in her Easter dress

I've had quite a few people ask me if we're liking Arizona.  The short answer is: yes!

The long answer is:  Are you kidding me??  We freaking LOVE it!  So far, we love EVERYTHING about it!  Granted it's not 120 degrees yet - our feelings might change a little bit mid-July, but then again, maybe not!

Living here is amazing!  Everything just seems easier here.  We know where everything is, and if we don't, we can easily look it up online.  And everything is SO CLOSE!  We've never lived this close to all this shopping and it is so convenient.  Within a 5 mile radius is Kohl's, Joann's, Tuesday Morning, Wal-Mart, Lowe's, JC Penneys, Target, Michaels, Best Buy, Pier 1, Ross, Barnes and Noble, Old Navy, Babies R Us, Marshalls, TX Maxx. Homegoods, etc, and that's forgetting a few and not including any of the smaller stores.  I could WALK to Target in about 10 mins.  There are about 40  - 50 restaurants within 10 mins (and they're not all Italian!!!!!) and gas stations, grocery stores, banks, churches and Abbie's preschool (plus the other one we want to send her to).  There are nice parks, SIDEWALKS (didn't have those in Italy near us) and even bike lanes throughout our neighborhood.  We have a great yard for the kids to play in and we can just turn them out there and let them go and they have a great time.

I think the main reason we are loving AZ so much, and the reason we disliked Italy so much, was because of our houses.  We hated our house in Italy.  It was too small for the 4 of us and 2 dogs, to start with.  It was always cluttered because there was no storage.  It wasn't big enough to get away from the kids ever and with Abbie not being the best sleeper in the world, it made it difficult.  This house in AZ is obviously a lot better.  It's over twice as big, so we're not on top of each other.  We can put the kids to bed upstairs and enjoy our "free time" downstairs, watching TV or studying or whatever.  We can make popcorn after Abbie goes to bed without her being able to immediately smell it and start yelling, "Are you making some pa-corn??",  "Will you save some for me?", etc.  The kitchen is ginormous compared to the one we had in Italy and I don't have to keep my pots and pans on the stove because they don't fit in the cabinets.  Our master closet is 2-3x bigger than our master bath in Italy and our master bath here is bigger than our bedroom was in Italy.  We are a bit spoiled here with all this space, but it's another reason we are loving it.

The dogs don't drag as much stuff in because it's dry here, not wet 70% of the time.  The dogs drug SO much stuff into the house in Italy.  Dachshunds don't have much clearance, so they drag tons of stuff in on their bellies and paws.  I had to sweep the floor every single time they came in in Italy since they brought half the yard in with them.  And since it was muddy, they left paw prints everywhere also.  Have you ever tried to clean up wet dog poop?  Even cleaning up dog poop is about 300 times easier in AZ.

I miss my friends in Italy, and I miss living by the mountains and the travel opportunities we had there.  But we are surrounded by pretty decent hills/ mountains here and we're excited to do some hiking around them.  And we have some great travel opportunities here also that we're excited about.  Not traveling around Europe exciting, but exciting none-the-less - and cheaper!

I loved having the experience of living overseas, and someday, I wouldn't mind living overseas again - when the kids are older and more independent.  But for now, at this point in our lives, we are SO happy to be back in the States.  Now if we could just get the house done so we're not in the constant state of renovations....

I am so sick of painting!!!  Three more bedrooms and a hallway to go!

Mark installing our new backsplash!  We love the way it turned out!

Sedona with Alex and Sarah

While Alex and Sarah were here, we also drove up to Sedona, which is about 2 hours north of us.  It was a beautiful day - in the low 60's.  Perfect for hiking!

None of these pictures are edited since I don't have our desktop computer to use.  Only a few more days until it's here hopefully!

I love all these trees in AZ!

Ben pointing at planes as usual.

 I had fun taking pictures of Abbie while we went on our short hike around Bell Rock.  She pooped out about halfway through but we let her lead and then she was happy and excited to find the next pile of rocks to walk to.

Do you see the woodpecker??

Bell Rock

View from Bell Rock 

 The picture above shows one of the rock piles that Abbie was looking for.  They marked the trails, kind of.   I wished we'd had more time to go further up the rock, but it was way past lunch time, so we headed back to the car.

Mark and the kiddos

Sarah and Alex

Benj loved the walk.  I think he fell asleep on Mark on the way back to the car, but he's happy as a clam when he's out and about and seeing things.

The Pips

Admiring the view

Abbie refuses to let us pull her hair back, which is why she's always holding it out of her face.

This summer we'll try to hike some of the other trails around Sedona.  It really is a beautiful area.  Eventually I would love to get an L series lens to improve my shots, but it's kind of hard to take a bad picture there regardless.