trick or treat

Bates Nut Farm

Happy Halloween!

Brick or treat at Legoland.

This one LOVES to trick or treat. I think this weekly trick or treating at Legoland has created a monster. He asks to go trick or treating everyday. It actually is really nice especially if you remember to fill your coffee thermos with beer. The line seems to move much faster that way. Last night he slept with his trick or treat stash. Tony is a little worried we may have a hoarder on our hands since he did not eat one piece. He likes to save it.

I did it. The San Francisco Nike Womens Half Marathon. 2 hours and 36 minutes. Not bad considering a 10+ minute bathroom line at mile 3 and the 3+ miles of hills we had to run ( in the rain I might add for part of the race). I loved the course ( with the exception of the steep inclines) and hope to make it an annual tradition. For the San Diegans, it was the equivalent to running up Torrey Pines multiple times. The finishers necklace from Tiffany's was a great perk. Hopefully I get picked for the lottery to enter next year.

The Cardiff Kook- I prefer seeing this version of him any day. Maybe I am a little slow at sharing our summer with everyone but I will get there. I found this picture while I was checking to see if I could find our Vegas trip photos. ( still not found- I will keep checking memory cards) . I really don't think running 8 miles to visit the shark gobbled kook over the summer counts as fun but it made me smile.

You know you have issues when a quarter of your sons birthday party budget was consumed by purchasing fabric. I have been having so much fun utilizing all of it. I won't comment on actually how much fabric I purchased but I will give you a hint. Multiply my age times two and add a few yards and that is how many yards of fabric of tool/ construction fabric we own. Scary.

back to school

It has been a long time since I have shared any photos or any stories. Our computer has been crashing and we have now converted to the MAC world. My lack of posting has been due to the amazing weather we have been having and I have been buried with work. Both are good things but I promise to be a little more blog chatty as life gets back to normal.

Brayden is now a preschooler. This is a photo of his first day of "summer school". They did fun summery things like go on a "campout", have a pirate week and go on a field trip to Round Table Pizza among other fun things.

This was yesterday at Kids By the Sea preschool for his first real day of Preschool. He loves going to school. He goes Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings. During the two week break he asked to go back to school everyday. Our kitchen has become a preschool art gallery and loves to showcase his fun projects.

We had a super jam packed fun weekend. We were glad this viscous cold hit us all hard on after the weekend. Jazz in the park, bike rides to the beach, fun 4th of July bike parade, and Del mar fair left our immune system a little compromised to battle this horrible virus. Brayden has finally recovered, I am 50/50 and Tony left for Catalina yesterday still sick with an ear infection. I think surfing 5 times when he knew he had a cold was not the smartest idea. Chaos in the kiddie pool

Chaos on wheels

I hope everyone had a fun 4th.

Who is watching these kids and letting them play and dig things out of the trash at Jazz in the park?

These guys... busted

Watching the Monster truck show at the Del Mar Fair. I lasted about 5 minutes and excused myself to wander around the fair and steak out the food.

Projects-

A VSA San Benito pendant that I purchased at an estate sale that I am having fun working into a fun and bulky necklace. i have had an ounce of this 24 gauge gold wire left over from our wedding. This has been a good opportunity to fix and restring half a dozen of my other pieces that have needed repair or a fresh face lift. I have missed my beads.

Brayden's first sleeping bag. I loved the pottery barn kids one and actually went as far as purchasing it. After thinking about how silly it was to spend $70 on a sleeping bag for a 2 1/2 year old, I better make one and return the fancy one. I am still fighting with the zipper but I am close to winning the battle. I cut up a fishy octopus sheet I had to line the inside and use it on a couple of the patches. The rest of the fabric I had lying around. I felt good to use up a little of my stash. So far it has not been used camping but has been used to tumble down the stairs.

A refinished top to our dining room table Tony made us a couple of years ago.






More pictures from our second home Legoland.. We got good use out of our 4 free guest passes. Tony actually got to go and see where his family has been hanging out.

It could be snowing and he would still run through the splash pad.

The rock n roll finish line.

Looking forward to beating this years time of 2:30.04 next year.
My running partner Jenn.

I love this photo. It was worth every penny I had to spend at Janey and Jack to qualify for the free photo session. This was taken a few days before his tooth got fixed.


It seems that I think about posting a blog entry at the beginning of the month always when I pay bills. Not sure what the correlation is but I have been neglectful in my updates. Another month has come and gone. Filled with running, playing, crafting, lots of sewing and a little work mixed in. I promise to post our latest projects soon. Tony has begun working on a wooden surfboard, and I have been sewing up a storm.

Is May over already...

What a crazy month. I am very much looking forward to June and the rest of the year. I switched companies this month. It is scary, exciting , fabulous and stressful all at the same time. I started at the beginning of the month but I had to complete heaps of training and lay low until I resigned from my former company. I LOVE my new office in Cardiff and have a great branch to work out of in Encinitas. I have to pinch myself sometimes because it does not seem real. It is also bittersweet because I have left my loan officer who I have worked with for almost 9 years. I still plan on working a lot out of my home office too.

Today we stared off summer as we normally do at the beach. Our neighbors host a potluck at San Onofre. We could not have asked for a more beautiful day. Brayden got a chance to ride some waves today which he loved. The water was freezing but he could care less. They are actually riding my old board my friend shaped for me when I was 19. I am glad it made it out of the garage rafters and got ridden.

Two weeks ago we did a little road trip up the coast. We made it as far north as Paso Robles to attend their wine festival. We stopped lots along the way and had a great visit with Tony's uncle Brad and Aunt Janet. Our trip was cut short because I had to hurry back for a week long training in Irvine.

Thinking he belonged with our motorcycle neighbors at the Sandman Inn in Santa Barbara.

Pomar Junction winery in Paso. They actually a train on the vineyard. What a beautiful place. This was my favorite activity we did on our trip. I think next year we will bypass the wine festival and attend all of the events the wineries host instead.

The wine festival with Tony's aunt Janet and uncle Brad

Avila Beach

In other news. Brayden is 90% potty trained just in time for school. He wakes up dry 9 nights out of 10. Very exciting news for the Jacks household.

Catching up

I have had a hard time finding a bed ensemble that I like and that will not look to crazy against our hideous forest green carpet. I made this quilt a couple of years ago out of bark cloth that I had been collecting and had it sat stuffed in our amoire. Mostly because I did a terrible job binding it and the thing is pretty heavy. Barkcloth and a heavy linen are not exactly snuggly fabrics. I brought it out just to see how it would look in our room. It is not prefect but it is better than our Pb luau quilt that Tony would set fire to if he had his way. I think the main reason I brought out the quilt is I am feeling rather tropical today. This morning I booked our trip to Hawaii for December. It will be a 5th anniversary/ expiring air miles needing redemption trip. All three of us will be going to Kauai for five nights and then staying on the North Shore Oahu for the last three hopefully during the Pipeline masters. We are very excited.
Yes....this potty actually got used instead of taking up space. It lives in the living room for now. I think the combination of the new location and chocolate treats are a strong motivator. No #2 yet but I am not complaining at this point. He is not yet shopping at Williams sonoma. The bag has some snacks and bubbles from my aunt from dinner last night). He has been carrying it around since.

We started swim lessons at Murray Callan. That is his teacher behind him and a fellow San Dieguito alumni parent knee in the left of the photo. I need to get his name next lesson. I think he is a couple of years ahead of my class. His kids are partnered up with Brayden.

Last weeks Carlsbad 5000. My dad watched Brayden while Tony and I ran. This was our corny version of 80's running attire which was the theme of the run. I ran my fastest time. 28:55 which puts me just below a 9 minute/mile pace. Tony really pushed me ( which I desperately need if I am going to attempt the rock n roll 1/2 in June). Tony barley had a a bead of sweat dripping and could have easily continued at that steady pace for miles (so not fair) . This was extra frustrating since he has not run once since we did the Oceanside Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving.

In other news Brayden has his teeth fixed on Tuesday. He had to have a partial root canal on his front tooth and 5 fillings. Personally I think three of the fillings were unnecessary because they were baby teeth. An anesthesiologist had to put him under due to his age. They used the same medication ( propofol) that MJ was such a fan of to put him under. I will spare you the ugly details of the cost of all of this. Thankfully our insurance will cover well over half the cost. The worst part was watching the doctor put him under and carry him away only to return to him three hours later to a groggy toddler who had no equilibrium for the better part of the day. I lost it. For those of you who know me well, I rarely ever lose it. The next day he was back to normal and my nerves and emotional state had recovered.

Easter morning at Moonlight. I ran from our house to meet Tony and Brayden. We even attended church this morning. I forgot a local church had an Easter service on the beach. It actually was a really nice service. I felt a little under dressed strolling up to the service in my sweaty running clothes but we stayed anyway.

An egg hunt at a friends on Friday morning. This was as close as a group shot as we could get with this wiggly bunch.

He has got the egg hunt down pat.
Last year he only had one or two eggs and got mowed down by some bigger 2 year old and the pushy parents. This year he held his own.

Score!!!

The highlight of the Encinitas egg hunt-- wandering around inside the ambulance. I think he forgot the hunt was over at this point. I found a couple of tongue depressors in his basket.

Hooray candy for breakfast....The sun was not even out yet this morning when we all got up to follow the trail of eggs to his basket. Good thing the Easter bunny comes early to Carlsbad.

....Note to self. Do not make a Easter back pack with a 30 year old zipper. Even if the zipper was in the original package this does not mean it is in new condition.

Happy Easter everyone!

once bitten...

We have a little injured solider. Brayden played a little too rough with one of my parents cats and he decided to retaliate by biting him on the leg yesterday. My mom took him to our doctor ( you know if my mom took him to a doctor and not wait it out with Neosporin, it was a bad bite) and left with a prescription for antibiotics. He has been in pain all last night and the all day today and he has a lot of pain climbing up anything or being carried. We have been having to lift him up and down from things and once he stands up he gets around ok but has a little limp. We are watching lots of gabba gabba and drinking lots of chocolate milk until the swelling goes down and the pain subsides.

Making Easter cupcakes before the Easter sprinkles forever disappear. He has a tendency to hide any sprinkles he can find in his back pack or in his room. His dentist probably would frown on this activity since he is due to have three fillings in his top teeth in the beginning of April. I have stalled as long as possible but he is starting to complain about his top teeth. Anesthesia is required and I am pretty freaked out by the whole upcoming process but that is another blog post all together. Fortunately, we decided to add him to our dental insurance this year.
Did I mention we became Legoland members? That is where we have been hanging out a lot lately.

I have learned to make this water pad the last stop of the day.

Yep...we are those people who burn through all of the diapers and back up outfits and leave legoland in our underwear.

A daylight savings bike ride to the Carlsbad campgrounds to visit friends for breakfast.

2010's Easter backpack. It really is egg- shaped but when filled with hot wheels and crumpled up monopoly money it quickly loses shape.

Taking money out of my wallet to put into his backpack for the bike ride. I guess monopoly money is not enough anymore.

Score! I think I like this machine more than my new Pfaff. I found it yesterday at a garage sale. She said it worked fine but why would you part with a Viking machine for $25.00 if it worked. I thought my mom may like to upgrade to a machine from the twentieth century. She has had and exclusively uses her Singer treadle machine ( you know the human powered kind). I played around with this machine and I LOVE IT. Everything works and all of the attachments were included. It even does the alphabet. I do not need three machines. I am not that in love with sewing. The Huskeylock I had to have sits nicely it's bag in the garage begging to be used ( honestly, threading the thing is quite a challenge) . My mom came over to take a look did not seem to interested in upgrading to an electric powered machine. Maybe I should start a sewing circle.