SchlegelRock

The boys and Jessica (our neighbor) and I go to Great America every Thursday and we pretty much have a routine.  Meet the other families in the kids area, go to Boomerang Bay and play in the water, then split from the group and do some of the bigger rides.  Today Tru needed a bathroom break so we ended up going by the ride Delirium.  He asked if he could ride it so we asked the other kids if they wanted to go on and they all said no so Tru decided to ride it by himself.

The ride spins in a circle and swings back and forth so at some point, more than once, you end up staring straight down at the ground lying on the harness.  The line wasn’t too long so I told Tru he could go on it.  While he was at the end of the line where I could still stand near him a group of teenage girls came up and asked if I was in line.  I told them I wasn’t but that Tru was (I’m always scared that older kids will walk all over my little kids in line so I was asserting his position).  One of the girl’s squealed and asked if he was riding by himself.  I told them he was and all of a sudden he became their little pet.  ”Look how beautiful his eyes are.”  Petting his hair.  It was hilarious.  At least I knew he would be in good hands while he was in line.  He ended up sitting in between the girls on the ride and at one point during the spinning I looked up and he was holding one of their hands.  It was the cutest thing I have ever seen.

When the ride was over Tru didn’t even look back at them.  He ran off yelling, “That was AWESOME!!!”  Max and Jessica say they’ll try it next time we go.  Oli is a few years off from being tall enough to try.  I can’t wait until they’re all tall enough so we can all ride the rides together.

Scott’s favorite restaurant is Benihana’s so Monday night we got together with his parents and headed over to Vallco to eat.  For those of you who don’t know, Benihana’s is a Japanese restaurant where the food is cooked at your table by special chefs who put on a show for you with their cutlery and cooking utensils.  We had such a great time.  The kids usually do well at restaurants but on Monday we didn’t hear a peep from them.  We did order too much food for them but that just made dinner Tuesday night so no problems there.

Benihana’s is pricey so we only go there every once in a while but when we do we absolutely love it.  Truman is asking if we can go back for his birthday in March.  I’m totally OK with that.  Beats Chuck E Cheese’s any day of the week!

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You guys probably already know this but the aquarium is one of my favorite places to go.  We had a season pass a few years back before Max started school and I would take the kids every two weeks or so and I absolutely loved it.  Scott’s cousin and his family were down after Christmas so we headed down to the aquarium for the day.  It was so much fun but it was pretty crowded so our family was totally wiped out by the time we got home.  Thanks Gary and Elaine for dinner.  Scott also bought me fudge at one of the shops on Cannery Row.  Just one more reason to love him.

Have you guys been to the aquarium?  Do you love it?

Click here for photos.

We had a very nice time in Arizona.  It was nice to finally see Mark and Markaa’s house and meet Markaa’s family.  They even have two dogs that the kids kind of got used to by the end of our trip.  My favorite part of AZ is the cacti.  I love to go up and feel the spines of a cactus.  I love how some of them are blunt and some of them are ridiculously sharp.  I even found one that releases it’s spines into your finger if you touch it.  Luckily they were easy to pull out but could you imagine falling into one of those.  Really any of them.  The cacti aren’t enough to make me want to move to AZ but I felt like a little kid playing with them.

I also found two flowers that I thought were absolutely beautiful.  One of them I’ve seen in CA before so I know I could plant it in my own home but the other I’ve never seen.  I don’t know the names of either of them so if anyone knows let me know.  I used the call the first ones whirlygigs.  But I just can’t see that being their real name.

I can not tell you how happy I was to get home to cool Sunnyvale.  Still warm enough to wear shorts but cool enough to tickle your legs and arms with the breeze.  I have never been so grateful for green grass and trees on every lot.  I was walking around just marveling at the beauty.  I love green.  Love, love, love it.  It just goes to show there’s a climate and location for everyone.  Mark and Markaa found theirs and Scott and I were born into ours.  What a beautiful world we live in that you can find a place that’s right for you.

Well, it actually happened.  Oli is in school and I’m sitting in a deathly silent house all by myself.  I’m ashamed to say, I’m a little lonely.  I’m sure I’ll get over that though.  This is supposed to be my workout time but I’m obviously squandering it on less strenuous activities.  Oli was excited about school until this morning.  He kept saying he didn’t want to go because “We’re going to do bad things at school.”  What does that mean?  I don’t know.  He wouldn’t explain.  Then he didn’t want to go because we didn’t buy him new school shoes like the other boys.  Whoops.  Kind of dropped the ball on that one.  It must be confusing for him to see the kids in their uniforms and new shoes and not think he needs the same.

Scott stayed home to take him to school with me and it was just so weird.  He’s my baby.  He’s not even four yet.  The kids been running around the house the last week making baby noises and totally reverting about a year.  The nice thing is, I totally trust the teachers and the school that he’s going to.  We started there with Max and except for a few minor run ins with the office staff we’ve had a great experience with them.  The main thing is, the kids have had a great experience with them.  Not one complaint from either of the older two.  Not one.  They loved their teachers and going to school.

So in case you’re wondering, he’s going to Community Preschool.  I would highly recommend it.

First, Scott did another Tri two weeks ago and he bettered his time by a minute. It was the same course as the last one he did so he knew what to expect this time. He was even so fast that the shutter on my iPhone missed him as he ran past. How ridiculous is that. Do you have a problem with that? I can never time my iPhone shutter right on action shots. Anyway, good job babe.

Then I had to go to Kaiser to drop of a Medical form for Oliver’s preschool and ran into a van with all these Indian wolf stickers on it. Of course it immediately reminded me of Jacob and his pack of werewolves (or shape shifters if you want to get picky on me). It just totally tickled me. I really doubt that I’ll run into any stickers that remind me of Edward. What would they be? A picture of a diamond? I seriously don’t know. Have any ideas?

Then, an update on swimming.

I was terrified to get back into the pool after that first encounter. Every time I thought about going back in any kind of water I was gripped with fear. So I started out slow. I took the kids down to our pool with the idea that I would just get in and not do any swimming. Well once I got in I was totally fine so I did laps for about 15 minutes with occasional stops to play with the boys. It was a really fabulous experience because Tru would wait for me to turn back to the shallow end and then he would swim towards me and shoot me. This was just so hilarious to him that it really brightened my experience.

So it was time for a trip back to the big pool. I didn’t touch the 13 feet. I swam in their smaller pool that’s meant for water aerobics so it’s shallow all the way through. But I swam for about 30 minutes without getting scared once. Now I just have to get back into the big pool and the circle will be complete. All I have to say is thank goodness I tried swimming before doing the Tri. Now I can try to prepare myself for the breathing and the open water factors. Although, I do think the open water is going to freak me out. At least I know if I can swim I can make it through it if I stay calm. I’ll keep you posted.

So after another day of our comedy of errors which included me running a red light and almost getting in an accident we made it to the theater. Unfortunately when we got to the theater Laura got sick. Really sick. About to throw up and pass out sick. Poor girl. So we sat on the steps in front of the theater and people watched. There were 1800 people there. Most of them young girls but there were a lot of Twilight Moms (An actual online group of fans. We’re thinking of starting our own group so stay tuned.) and there were quite a few guys there. They were attached to girls of course whether they were dads, boyfriends or sons. Once we got into the theater it was set up to look like the book ends of all of the books with the center one saying Breaking Dawn Concert Series. (Sorry the picture isn’t very clear. You get the idea though.)

The one thing I did not prepare myself for was the screaming. The three of us assumed erroneously that everyone would be calm like us and politely clap at appropriate intervals. Holy crap, were we wrong. Dead wrong. They screamed when the doors to the lobby opened. Screamed when the doors of the theater opened. Screamed when the lights went down. Screamed when the MC came out on stage. Let loose when Justin Furstenfeld came out. Screamed through his songs. Screamed louder when they were done. Then all hell broke loose when Stephenie came out. I honestly thought I was going to fall to pieces it was so loud. Imagine how Laura felt. She totally had her hands over her ears. The part that made me mad though is that they would scream during the interview and Stephenie wouldn’t be able to speak. I’m pretty sure they got through all the questions though.

So this is how it went down. Justin came out and played three songs acoustically. Then Stephenie and the MC came out and did a Q & A. Among the questions was what the cover of the book meant. She said the pawn was the human Bella, the weakest player on the board, turning into the queen, the strongest player on the board. And I’m sorry to say I can’t remember any of the other questions except that Jacob and Nessie will both be immortal since Jacob doesn’t age as long as he keeps phasing. Which she said wasn’t a problem for Jacob. (Sorry I can’t remember more. It was a really long day and night.)

Then Justin came back out and he played some of the songs from Stephenie’s play lists and Stephenie introduced them. My favorite of his is “Hate Me”. It’s from the time when Edward left Bella after Jasper attacked her. I really can relate to and get that one in this context. It just makes sense. The rest I had to try really hard to concentrate on. There was one really annoying point where she said this song “My Never” off of Justin’s next album reminded her of page 355 of Breaking Dawn. Everybody got out their phones and their books and started looking for the page. So it was annoying two fold. First that Stephenie didn’t give a better explanation (though the song really did speak for itself if you paid enough attention, which I had a hard time doing). Second that everyone had their stupid phones out distracting me from the song.

If I’m remembering correctly Justin left the stage and the MC came back out and her and Stephenie closed up the show. At that point Stephenie thanked Justin for being there and said he made doing this fun and that she usually hated her book signings. To which quite a few people made disappointed noises. I don’t blame them but I can understand Stephenie’s side too. I think if I was in her shoes I would hate that part of my job too.

I’m going to hopefully put a link in a future post so you can go to iClips and see the concert on their archived footage. The concert was totally worth going to. In fact I think I’ll watch it again just because my memory is so bad. It was a lot of fun. My favorite part being when Justin and Stephenie were on stage together.

I’m going to write about actually meeting Stephenie in my next post. I know this is taking a long time but all I wanted to do was spend time with Scott when I got home. Reading these books makes me love him even more than ever. Man, I love this series!

Edward + Bella 4-ever!!

Maybe it doesn’t seem like a big deal to drive down to LA but for the 7 of us it was another one of my comedy of error days.  Unfortunately, it spread to my friends also.  So to start of with I was running about a half hour late which worked out great because Laura L. got caught in horrendous traffic coming home from Jordyn’s swim lessons.  We finally got everything packed up in the car and made it an hour away when I suddenly realized I left the tickets for the Breaking Dawn concert at home!  As you can imagine I pretty much freaked out.  So we found a place to turn around and made the hour trip back home.  In the meantime the battery for the DVD player died and the kids were not happy, to put it mildly.

We got to my house and everybody piled in surpring Nicole, my sitter.  We all used the bathroom, changed diapers, etc.  We got back in the car and set off and got to almost the exact same spot where I realized I left the tickets when Julianne realized she forgot her purse at my house!  Laura L. and I promised to cover her money wise but her glasses and phone and, girls you know everything else that’s important in your purse, were at my house.  So Scott, that purse in our house is Julianne’s in case you were wondering.

Finally we figured out how to plug the DVD player into the van and still have it reach to the back seat so most of the kids (Julianne’s 3 and 1 1/2 year old and Laura’s 3 and 10 month old) were pretty happy most of the drive.  We originally left the house at 11:45 and didn’t get to Desert Hot Springs at 10pm.  The only other signigicant event that happened was we were driving past a big rig and at the exact moment it blew one of its tires.  Holy crap was that scary.  It didn’t swerve or anything but the noise sent my heart out of my chest for sure.

I am so excited about tonight.  I’m almost as excited about getting out of the desert where it promises to be 108 degrees today.  If you know me you know I hate the heat.  Anything above 80 is too much for me.  And Laura keeps saying that anything above 100 just feels the same.  I would agree.  It all feels like hell to me.

What kind of crazy comedy of errors trips have you guys taken?

The picture is of Julianne’s son, Bennett.  He climbed right up to the top bed and got cozy.  it was too cute not to take a picture.

Laura’s parents put us up last night and tomorrow night we’ll be here too.  They’re also watching the kids while the three of us girls go to the conert tonight.  Big thank you to them.

This morning was a comedy of errors. First I left the house without my helmet and when I rode past the group of painters that are always standing around during my runs or bikes one of them said, “What, no helmet?” Crap, I had left my helmet at home. Well I was too embarrassed to turn around so I made the big loop back to my house the whole time terrified that I was going to get hit by a car and get brain damage.

So I make it back home and get my helmet on. Then I was too embarrassed to ride past the painters again with my helmet, so I went the opposite direction of my normal ride. Instead of all right turns it was all left turns which meant crossing the street with two lights for each turn. I get the first light at the end of my street and take my right foot out of the holster to put it on the curb. I decided to kind of angle myself so I could easily take off to the left when the light changed and boom. On the ground. I totally fell over on my bike. Luckily there was no one at the intersection, which is a rarity, so I got up and picked my bike up and got back on and waited for the light.

When I got to the next light and it turned green I started to go but swerved a little bit as I got my balance. Apparently I scared the guy in the car next to me because he yelled something at me. I’m just not that good at riding bikes. “I’m learning,” I wanted to shout back at him but didn’t.

The thing that made it all worth while though is when I got home and realized I’d been riding around with blood dripping down my leg. How cool is that!!? It was a sissy amount of blood, no gushing, but still, it was blood. It made me feel proud of myself that even though it was kind of a crappy ride I still did it, blood and all.

The pictures are of my bike. When you get into the higher end racing bikes you don’t get fun detailed seats or swirly frames. I’m glad I got an entry level bike if only for the pretty factor. And the fact that I’m going to fall down a lot.

So we just got back from Pleasanton where Scott ran his second Tri for Fun. I’m going to tell you about both triathlons briefly since we haven’t heard from the illustrious Scott Schlegel. The Sacramento race, featured on the right was a 1/2 mile swim, 16 mile bike, 3 mile run. The Pleasanton race, featured on the left, was a 1/4 mile swim, 10 mile ride, 4 mile run.

The first race he ran was in Sacramento with his cousin Todd. There was a pretty competitive crowd there that day including two teams full of thirteen year olds that were ripped. It was kind of creepy looking but then again maybe I was just jealous. Today’s race was in Pleasanton and Scott did it with his co-workers Armin and Greg. Greg’s fiancee Jamie was there to support him so we got to hang out more than the guys did. This race was much more laid back. A good one for beginners.

So in this first shot in the top left corner you’ll notice two nuclear silos. (You may need to enlarge the photo.) That’s right, Scott is swimming in the cooling water for the power plant. Now before you freak out, it’s actually the water that goes into the plant, not the water that comes out of the plant. Fun story though, huh? You might also note that my man is rockin the speedo. Oh yeah!! In the second shot Scott is behind the big blond head. He has graduated into tri shorts which are meant to be worn for all three legs of the race. You’ll have to check them out in the next two pictures cuz you can’t see them here. Thanks blondie.

In Sacramento I was able to get up close and take a picture of Scott dismounting so you can see what a kick butt mountain bike he has and how cool he looks getting off of it. In Pleasanton I wasn’t able to get that close so you’ll have to bear with a faraway action shot. That’s Scott on his new road bike (which I regret not being able to capture) wearing the blue bike shirt which is a step up from the white t-shirt he wore in Sac.

Now, I don’t know if you can tell but soccer shorts wearing Scott is worn out at the end of the Sac triathlon. He hardly prepared for this race but he still managed to finish in in the middle of the pack. Incredible. Doesn’t it just make you mad? If I had tried that I would have drowned. I wouldn’t have even made it to the bike. But anyways, Scott did quite a bit of training for the second race and bettered his time by an hour! You can tell by the sexy little swagger with the shirt ripping open from the hottness.

So the bike upgrade helped a ton. The upgraded shorts were a big plus. The next step is the sleeveless shirt like the guy in the black in front of him. Then the super transformation will be complete. Bwah, wah, hah, hah.

Since I’ve told you about a bad day as a parent that I’ve had I thought I’d tell you about a good one.  Yesterday I picked Tru up from a birthday party and started driving home past Steven’s Creek Trail.  Max and Tru recognized it from when our Ward had a walking group there and started shouting out that they wanted to go for a walk.  My initial response was to keep driving but then I thought, what the heck?  So I pulled around and we started down the trail.  When we got about a mile in I remembered that Linkedin is right off of the trail about another mile down.  So I asked the boys if they wanted to see Scott and we took off.  My only mistake was taking the lower trail for the last mile.  It ran across two “streams” and one fallen down tree.  You can see the tree from the vantage point of the main trail in the picture.  The kids did great.  Since it was spontaneous I didn’t have water or a snack or anything so we had to wait ’til we got to Scott.  The sun was warm but not hot and there was a fabulous breeze that kept us cool.  The weather couldn’t have been more perfect if I ordered it myself.

Then we got to our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.  Scott was there waiting for us (that was lucky indeed since he easily could have been in a meeting.)  He gave us water and pop tarts to fuel us on our way back.  It was a really great trip that we all had fun on.  By the time we got back to the car the kids were exhausted which made me warm and fuzzy inside.  They went to bed so easy last night it was comical.  Both Oli and Tru were asleep before I even finished reading from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.  Now I know  that they can handle long hikes I think I’ll head up to Rancho San Antonio with them once school gets out.  What a wonderful world is opening up to us.

btw I know that the rock star theme has nothing to do with hiking or pots of gold, I just really liked it. And yes, Tru is wearing Batman pajamas with a cape.  It was a themed party.

Lance and Amanda N invited us to a Memorial Day BBQ at Golfland in San Jose.  The weather was nice but too cold for the water slides.  Not that that stopped others from going on.  After the BBQ we played golf and talked with friends.  It was a great day.

Our trip to Forks was amazing. Everything seemed to fall into place for us and we even had great food along the way. If you stop by Forks go to the Coffee Shop and order the Blackberry (or Boysenberry, I can’t remember) cobbler. It is so yummy we almost went back a second time to just have it again.

Here’s the best part of the trip. Julianne was running and listening to the local Forks radio station when they announced the Prom was being held that night. She came back to the hotel room and we were so excited by the news. We went out Saturday night and hunted down the Prom which was held above a Mexican restaurant. We didn’t sneak upstairs for a peak, but when we got to the front of the building there was a silver Volvo just waiting for us. Could we have better luck or what? That was my favorite moment from the trip because it meant that some lucky girl had a guy that was willing to play along with her Twilight fantasy. Good for her. I just hope he was as virtuous as Edward. What are the chances of that though?  I tried to get Scott to buy a Volvo S60R but he’s not having it. He’s set on a Mini. I guess that’s OK too though.

You’ve got to love the theme of the prom: “Above the City Lights”. There’s seriously one main strip. But, they were above it, so it counts.

If you want to check out the photos from our trip, including one of the Elks Lodge and the church building we attended that didn’t make it to the blog, you can check out the photos here:Flickr

And Laura H. you give me a few months to save up some money and I’ll gladly go back with you. I never did find Jacob’s house or really get to hang out at First Beach. Plus if you go on Bella’s birthday the Quileutes will do a wolf dance and the town is set up to celebrate Twilight. And I would totally have more cobbler and fish and chips. I’m in!

And a big THANK YOU to Scott for holding down the fort while I was gone. Laura and Julianne, I had a great time, thanks for inviting me!  Too bad all the Volvo’s were already let out when we got to Seattle.  That would have been over the top cool.

Anyone for a Harry Potter sight seeing trip? Not that I have the means to make this happen but wouldn’t it be fun? l just like imagining it.

This is the last stop on our trip; Forks itself.  This is an interesting building.  It’s the grocery store, outfitters (clothing and camping), and the hardware store all stuck together.  It’s kind of like a Super Walmart (or whatever those are called) only the three stores are separated by walls having access through doors through the whole thing.  So this would be where Bella shops for groceries and Newton’s store all in one.  You can see MIke’s Suburban in the first shot.  He must have been working that day. What luck!

Now we have Forks high school and guess what?  Mike followed us and pulled in to the student parking lot!  Can you totally see Tyler and his van careening towards Bella, Edward stepping in just in time?

We didn’t exactly find Bella’s house but we found a house on a lot that could be hers.  It’s the top picture with the forest encroaching on the yard.  There weren’t too many two story houses at all in Forks so we couldn’t find the exact thing.  Plus this house only has one access road into it and Bella’s has to have two since Edward is always driving off before Charlie comes around the corner.  Or at least that’s how I picture it.  The bottom pictures are on the way to the Cullen’s.  The river that runs past it and the dense forest surrounding it and the road leading to it.  Can you believe how dark it is?  We didn’t find the Cullen’s house, but I definitely think someone should build one.  I’d go back and visit if you do!

So I have one more picture to show you and it is so much fun.  I’ll post it tomorrow hopefully.

First Beach was tricky to find. We found it at the end of the day after finally asking how to get to it. We didn’t even end up finding the main access where all the people (way in the background on the left) were playing on the beach and if you can believe it, surfing. It was so cold and the wind would not stop, I think they definitely were werewolves out there in the water. If you look in the background on the second picture you can imagine what the cliffs would have looked like that Bella jumped off of.

Access to First Beach doesn’t go through the trees, but since we spend most of our day at Second Beach (because it was clearly marked and easy to find) I thought I’d share it with you. It’s about a mile hike in to the beach up and over some hilly areas; they’re were some killer stairs at one point. It was an absolutely beautiful walk with lots of mud on the ground even though it wasn’t raining. You’ll see in the next pictures what I mean by, once we got to the beach, but once we did Julianne and I found a huge tree to climb up in to. This has nothing to do with the book, but it was fun.

Once we got to the beach we were met by a surprise. The entrance to the beach is covered by trees that have washed up in to piles (First Beach was the same way). We had to pick our way over and through the massive trees to get to the beach. Second Beach was much smaller than First Beach; a small crescent. The pictures on the top are a sort of panoramic view from the beach. On Second Beach we were protected from the wind, but when we got to First it let loose with a fury.

La Push was absolutely gorgeous, with the living situations being as simple as you might imagine on a reservation. They are building on to their resort though so hopefully it will bring more business in for them. I could definitely imagine Jacob and the pack running through the forest and swimming in the freezing water and protecting the reservation.

I don’t have too many pictures from La Push and I’m not sure why this is. We spent most of our time at the beach and did visit the store there in town where Jacob buys all his warm soda he has lying around in brown paper bags.  What a fun trip!

Forks tomorrow if I can get it together.