2019 :: week 39

September 22

Sunday we celebrated Mikey's third birthday at my parents' house. Mikey loves the color green and so he called it his "green birthday." It was so fun watching his excitement as he opened his presents. Mikey is a spirited little guy who loves cars and balls and baby Miles. He is also so very tender with Miles, and I am excited for the two of them to be buddies in a year or two.

September 23

Monday evening we met the Wilson's at Loose Park and Emily took some family photos for us. I wasn't planning on getting additional pictures taken since we got some pretty good family pictures taken in Florida. However, when I printed them out it became obvious the photographer had touched up the dark circles under both Anthony and my eyes. I don't blame her. When we took those pictures we were less than 48 hours removed from our adventurous drive across the country. It was a gorgeous evening and we got all the pictures we needed in less than thirty minutes. We stopped at Hy-Vee on the way home to pick up ice cream for the kids to reward them for their good behavior.

September 24

Tony took Will, Lauren and Knox to the Royals game on Tuesday night. We bought the kids Blue Crew memberships earlier in the season and couldn't quite commit to what game we would take the kids to. Late last week we looked at the schedule and there was only ONE game that we would be able to take them to. Since it was a school night we decided that Anthony would take the big kids and I would stay home with the little guys. Since we had an extra ticket we decided to let Will invite his friend Knox. The kids had a great time, even though it was a very late night.

September 25

The sun was shining bright while we walked to school Wednesday morning. Wednesday was a busy day. I ran a variety of errands getting ready for our trip the next day. We had Elliott's "mommy preschool" with friends from the church, Miles' physical therapy and two grocery runs. Usually Lauren has soccer practice in the evening, but it was fortuitously cancelled, because I had so much to do.

September 26

Thursday morning Anthony, Miles and I boarded a plane to San Diego. We flew into San Diego, then caravaned to Rosarita, Mexico, to spend the weekend with some of Tony's BYU friends. He lived with or near most of them after his mission, but all of the men lived on the 3200 floor of Merrill Hall their freshman year (1999-2000). The guys have gotten together a few times over the years, but in honor of the 20 year anniversary of their initial meeting they invited the wives and girlfriends along for a couples trip. We stayed in two homes in the Las Gaviotas beachfront community. It was gorgeous and we all walked down to the beach for an hour before cleaning up and going to the oddly-named Tampaco Why Not? Steakhouse. Despite the funny name, the food was delicious and we had a great time catching up with and getting to know each other. Many of the wives did not know each other before this trip.

September 27

Friday we spent the morning surfing, playing pickleball, going to for walks, riding bikes and chatting. We went to a delicious taqueira (Tacos El Yaqui) for lunch. This was by far my favorite meal of the trip. Delicious carne tacos served perron style with beans, cheese and guacamole. I'm hungry just thinking about it. Then we went to a beach where some rode horses and ATVs. Anthony played spike ball and I did some body surfing. This was not a private beach so there were many vendors hawking their wares. That night we went out for pizza and then played games.

September 28

Saturday was much like Friday (pickleball, beach, hot tub, etc.) except we didn't leave for lunch. A food truck came to the community and people filled up on fish and shrimp tacos. That evening we went to another good restaurant and then shopped for souvenirs for our kids. After dinner the men recounted a few freshman memories and we began to say goodbye. I played games while Tony chatted with his buddies. It was a great trip. Many thanks go to my parents for watching our kids so we could go and to Miles for being so happy. I wish we had been such relaxed parents with our one kid when we only had one kid!