"If you're lucky enough to be at the beach...then you're lucky enough!"

Almost every time I asked Carmen what she wanted to do for the day, she would almost always say go to the beach! So we've been to the beach quite a few times the past two weeks. We've had a lot of fun too! Sometimes we just go and sit and play in the sand and get our feet wet and other times we go full on in! It's a bit cold at first but you get used to it and then it's just fun! So here's some pics from our adventures at the beach!

These ones are at the beaches near the base.

Sometimes the beach just wears her out

Me and Carmen playin' in the waves!

This was the first time we went to the beach, it was cold!

These are from Venice Beach. Carmen wanted to go to one "famous" beach and this is the one she picked.

Me and my baby!

Evelyn LOVES the beach. All's she wants to do is crawl around! It's SO funny! She has her hat on so it's a bit hard for her to see (I couldn't find her smaller hat, this one is a bit too big), so she just plows ahead not really looking where she's going, but she loves it!

This is Evelyn yelling at me to take the stupid hat off :)

Too adorable!

Crawlin' away! Literally...away...

Carmen playin' in the waves with her new friends! :) I love her face in this one

This is before she met her new "friends", she wanted to play in the water so bad but I couldn't go out far with her cuz of Evelyn so I kept telling her just to go out or make some friends and she did...finally! :)

Half the people in Hollywood are dying to be discovered and the other half are afraid they will be.

This last Saturday Carmen, Evelyn, and I took a short trip over to the Hollywood area to sightsee. Carmen has been wanting to go since before she came, mainly cuz she wanted to see a celebrity, which I told her would be very unlikely. But I was wrong and we did! But you'll have to wait to later in the post to here about it :)

So first we went to Hollywood Blvd and walked the ENTIRE Hollywood Walk of Fame, which is 18 blocks long, which I did NOT know beforehand....holy cow is that a lot of stars! It was fun though. I liked seeing the hand/foot prints by the Grauman Chinese Theatre better though, which we should have done earlier in the day cuz it was hard to see them with all the people around! I got my favs though so all is well :) Carmen's goal for the day was to find Miley Cyrus' star and Justin Bieber's but she didn't...how sad! :) Although I still don't believe her that Justin Bieber has one.

Grauman's Chinese Theatre

Does anyone besides Sierra and Carmen notice anything funny about this pic? :) :) :)

My favorite actress ever!

These two (above and below) are for Daddy!

The day before we came or the day of, I don't really know, was the anniversary of Michael Jackson's death so there was LOTS of people around his star

Another fave!

And this one is for Momma! I got Jimmy Stewarts star too but didn't put it on here but she loves him too.

After walking the Walk of Fame we headed over to Rodeo drive, which we didn't stay long but long enough to say we've been there! Holy cow are those stores expensive!!! And we saw some expensive cars too.

We saw this Rolls Royce but didn't take this pic. I found it online but it's the same exact one, apparently it's always in this spot or something. It's so cool though!

Next we drove up to the Griffith Observatory, which was really cool. You could see all of L.A. and supposedly the Hollywood sign. Unfortunately we didn't get to see that cuz the parking was RIDICULOUS. All's we got to do was drive up to the observatory parking lot and then drive back down the hill. it was still pretty though so it wasn't completely a waste of time.

(This is the observatory)

The last thing we did was go to the Universal Studio's City Walk to have dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. We were gonna have lunch there at the one on Hollywood Blvd but it was under construction so they gave us a discount ticket for the one at the City Walk so we went over there (just a couple miles away), walked around a bit, looked at the stores, and then ate dinner. We've both never been to a Hard Rock Cafe and both of us were just ok with it. It wasn't too amazing to me but not horrible.

Anywho, so after we were done eating, we walked outside and in the big plaza right outside it there was a HUGE group of people dancing, choreographed so they were all doing the same thing, which was pretty dang cool. But we were like, what the heck are they dancing for? Then after they were done some guy on the balcony of the Hard Rock started talking to them and we realized it was one of the Backstreet Boys!

He was on top of this balcony, but we took this before we ate.

They were doing a concert there that night and I guess this group did this dance for him/them or something. We don't really know though why they were dancing but do know we saw a Backstreet Boy and are 99% sure it was Howie. :) So there's our celebrity appearance! Unfortunately he sat down too quick for us to take a pic and before we realized who he was :(

So that's pretty much the whole of our adventure. It was a nice fun day, just us girls!

Carmen was really excited about this! This is Bella's truck from the Twilight movie Saga, which we're going to go see the third movie, Eclipse, on Friday!

More flags, more fun!!!

The first day back with Carmen, last Saturday, was so awesome! We went to Six Flags Magic Mountain and had the greatest day! We met up with Michael and Terrie (who brought one of her sons and his friends so they went off and did their own thing). Terrie would sit out and play with Evelyn and the rest of us would go ride the coasters! Unfortunately I found out when we were leaving that Terrie loves roller coasters so I felt so bad! We woulda switched out so she could ride some too but she wanted to play with Evelyn and had a fun time even though she didn't ride the rides with us so I guess it's all ok. :)

Anywho...this is by far the best Six Flags I've been too and I would go again and again if we lived here! It's barely an hour away so we got up and got there when it opened and as soon as we met up with everyone else we went straight to the rides! The first 5 or so we didn't have hardly any wait, just waited for the next car and got on it and off we went! Then after lunch we had to wait longer but they were all worth it!

Some of the rides were different, as in different in the way you sat/rode the coaster. On one we stood up (I didn't like that one), one it tilted you so you were flying like superman, and another one, the seats rotated a complete 360 degrees throughout the ride. This was the X2 and was the last ride Carmen and I went on and was our favorite! It was SO crazy! Mark sat out cuz he was a bit worn out and ready to quit so it was just us two and man oh man was it awesome! I so want to go back and ride it again. In total we rode 12 rides, out of the 16 or 17 or whatever were there so we did pretty good I thought!

Here's some pics from the day. We didn't really get much from the rides, of course, but we took these right when we got there and right when we left :)

Batman's the best!

(Carmen only wanted one thing from the park to eat, a funnel cake! Sad for us though since she couldn't finish it and we had too :)

"A family isn't about whose blood you have, it's about who you care about."

The next city we hit was Santa Rosa! We went up Monday afternoon and it was such a lovely drive! It took less than two hours (thank goodness cuz this time I was by myself!) and I just loved it! After we got out of San Fran we started passing more and more vineyards and rolling hills and it was just so pretty! Some hills were just covered in vineyards, looked just like a postcard!

Then as we got closer and closer to Santa Rosa I started recognizing things and started to get more and more excited. I think that's the best part of traveling, when you start to get to where you're going, especially if it's going home! And to me, this felt a bit like coming home, even though we don't live there anymore. It was our home at one time (the first home I remember) and I have some great memories from Santa Rosa!

Unfortunately my memory isn't the greatest but coming back did help jog a few little things. We went right to my Aunt Pat's because that's where my sister Katherine is living at the moment and I wanted to see Aunt Pat and my cousin Megan (she left last week to move to Brooklyn so I caught her just in time!). Then my birth mom, Terry, and her husband Mitch came over. They were ALL so excited to see Evelyn, as everyone is. She was a bit weary at first but warmed up to everybody before we left. She loved all the attention too! Lots of people to watch and to play with...I think she's getting a bit sick of me :)

So my Aunt Pat lives right across the street from the house I lived in here (which one of my uncles lives in now so I went over and said hi :) So it's an area I remember quite well. I lived across the street from lots of cousins, two just my age (Megan and Joey) and we had so much fun playing together! I remember playing freeze tag in Aunt Pat's yard, melting crayons in our wagons at Auntie Kim's, jumping on the trampoline at my house, playing in the little cottage my uncle built for my cousins. Which is still in their backyard! How cute is this?

Unfortunately our fun times had to end when I was seven and my fam moved across the US to Missouri. My cousins and I were so upset! We kept making plans to hide me so I wouldn't have to go, which were all pretty ridiculous but our little minds/imaginations believe they'd work! :) I was very sad to move away from them and am still sad that I missed growing up through high school with them and wasn't able to keep that closeness we had when we were little.

I remember going back to visit and Megan and Joey would be talking about school and friends and stuff they'd done and I was just so sad that I wasn't part of it! But that's life I suppose. I hated moving at first but in the long run am SO glad we moved to Missouri! I know, I know, some of you are thinking I'm crazy for actually liking Missouri but I do! It's my home and such a HUGE part of my life/growing up/learning/etc. I've got the greatest friends there and wouldn't trade any of my experiences growing up there for anything!

Anywho.........back to my visit! :) Evelyn and I stayed with Nonni Barbara (Annie's mother-in-law) because Annie and Andy were arriving in CA on Wednesday, which was great! She's such an awesome lady. Her backyard has a nice big pool and behind that a vineyard! I always loved that about her house.

So Tuesday we spent some time at Nonni's before heading over to the hospital so visit Grandma Fredrick. She's been at this particular hospital for quite awhile which is good for all the fam since it's really close and all her daughters, my grandpa, and her sister Mary can get their easily to see her. It was hard to see her there though and very sad! She wasn't awake very much when we were there but when she was she smiled at us and held Evelyn's hand and seemed very happy we were there. So I'm very, very glad that she got to meet Evelyn and that I got to come visit her!

After visiting Grandma, Evelyn and I met up with Terry, Mitch, Marcus, and Katherine for lunch and went back over to Aunt Pat's to visit. We actually saw them all pretty much every day we were there, which was wonderful! Wednesday was pretty chill, Evelyn and I just went around the area checking things out. Then we went to the Wednesday Night Market downtown to say goodbye to Megan and Aunt Pat. Then we went back to Nonni's where the Bidia fam FINALLY got there :) So I got to spend a little time with Annie and her fam before Carmen and I headed back down to SoCal.

Thursday I spent some time with Carmen and Natalia shopping and then we went to visit Grandma so Carmen could see her before we left. Then we went back to Nonni's and went swimming and had a yummy dinner with the Bidia's and some friends. It was so great! Dinner at Nonni's is always delicious and wonderful and loud, so feels just like home! :) Unfortunately our visit had to end and Carmen, Evelyn, and I packed up and left EARLY Friday morning.

We had a long drive ahead of us so I decided to leave early so we could get as much driving done as we could while Evelyn was sleeping and it worked pretty well! We had a lovely drive down on the 101, drove over the Golden Gate almost at sunrise, saw more vineyards and beaches and hills...so pretty! Carmen entertained me while I drove and helped with Evelyn when she was awake and we got back at lunchtime so we could just enjoy the rest of the day and relax! We've been having a grand ol' time since but that'll have to be saved for another post cuz this one's already way too long!

(Evelyn had a little taste of hummus at Aunt Pat's and LOVED it! It was so funny)

(I couldn't help taking this pic! How sweet is this? :)

"Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city."

Lucky for me I have large groups of family in many different cities/towns and I love visiting all of them! This past week and a half was just full of family visits and Evelyn and I had a wonderful time! And lucky for you I have oodles to blog about!

First off, last Wednesday, as in two Wednesdays ago, my Grandma Rose came down on the train to see us from San Jose. We spent a couple of days down here just showing Gma Rose around the area and playing with Evelyn! She got to meet the "wonderful Mark", as she calls him, and decided that he really is as great a guy as I told her :)

Saturday we packed up the car and headed up to NorCal to San Ramon to visit Aunt Denise and her fam. It was a pretty long drive but luckily we didn't hit any traffic and it went by pretty fast. We stopped in San Jose to have dinner with Grandpa Dan which was great. He was so excited to see her! Although I think Grandma Rose was a lot more excited.


So we finally got up to Denise's and had a wonderful couple days there. Sydney and Raven (who are 6 and 4) just LOVED Evelyn, especially Raven. She just wanted to play all day with her and Evelyn was all for that! Whenever Evelyn took a nap Raven would want to go wake her up so she could play. It was very cute to see them together.

While the girls were playing I had a wonderful time visiting with Denise and Grandma Rose. I really need to stop taking such big breaks between visiting people! Last time I saw these guys Raven was barely two and oh so cute and she just loved playin' with me! She's still cute but now she's too busy playin' with Evelyn. Although she did have to fight over Evelyn with her Momma! Denise was just LOVING Evelyn, but seriously, who could help it? The girl is just tooooo adorable!

Grandma Rose loved playin' with the girls!

See? Adorable!

Evelyn learned how to climb stairs at Denise's...uh oh! Good thing we don't have any!

We didn't get to spend a whole lot of time at Denise's but we'll see them in July at Disneyland! I'm SOOOO excited! I've never been and can't wait! I just wish Evelyn was a little older so she'd remember but oh well! I'll just have to take her when she is old enough! :)