Happy St. Patrick's Day

Being a little bit Irish has always been fun around St. Patrick's Day. My mom always gets the kids some extra Irish bling to wear. Since she had just visited, this year was no exception. The kids were very excited to get all dolled up. The day was filled with fun activities, classroom treats, and even an award assembly. Grace received her accelerated reading award. We are very happy for her! She has worked hard. Another successful St. Patrick's Day!

Fun times with Grandma

My kids had a long weekend with a couple of days off of school. What better way to spend the time than to have Grandma fly down for a visit? They were so excited to see her (...and all of the goodies that she brought)!
Our first day together was dry and nice so we all went mini golfing. We arrived just after opening and pretty much had the place to ourselves. It was a lot of fun! Claire even got a hole in one. She was really proud. Chris, however, beat us all.

After golfing, we had some credits left over so we hit up the indoor arcade. We played all kinds of games, but the kids especially liked this crazy pirate game.

We hit up In N Out for lunch and then played games at home. That night after dinner the kids were able to hang out with Grandma while Chris and I hit up a movie. We hadn't been to a movie together in ages. So we took advantage of our time. Over the weekend we saw 3 movies! It was fabulous.

The next day was really rainy. Seriously, it didn't rain at all in February here, and then as soon as my mom comes we get a really wet weekend. Oh well. It didn't stop us. We took the kids to see Zootopia. Everyone liked it, except Grace got pretty scared. That night we hit up Chili's for dinner since it is one of my mom's favorite places. We played some games, and then it was off to the movies again. :)

Unfortunately, our Saturday softball games were both rained out so we had to come up with something else to do on the fly. We decided to go check out old town Sacramento. It was a really neat little place. We arrived just in time for their St. Patrick's Day Parade. It was fun to see all of the floats and participants. I wish I had known about it so that we could have dressed up. Maybe next time. After the parade we walked to the California State Railroad Museum. It was a really neat place. It reminded me a lot of the fun museums in DC. They had tons of locomotives on display. You could walk through many of them. We all had a fun time!

On our way home from Sacramento we stopped at a Ghirradelhi Outlet for a tasty ice cream sundae. Delish!

Our last day was mostly uneventful. We all slept in after the long day we had the day before along with the time change. We made a pancake breakfast and played games. Grandma played with the kids while we saw our 3rd movie. Then we all went to a fun restaurant in downtown Livermore.  Before we knew it, it was time for Grandma to go. The kids were all sad to say goodbye. We had a really fun weekend together.

Thank you Grandma for coming to see us. Hopefully next time won't be so rainy. Love you lots!

Play Ball!

In the last couple of weeks we had opening day for softball as well as for baseball. It was two very long Saturdays out on the fields. Thankfully, the weather was beautiful on both days. Actually the whole month of February was dry and in the 70's. It doesn't get much better.

The girls were up first. Everyone was excited to pass out their hair ribbons and meet up with their teams for a small parade. Each team was introduced, there was a speech (given by Grace's coach), the National Anthem was sung, and a first pitch was thrown. There were several vendors passing out freebies. The kids had a great time spinning wheels for prizes. It was pretty fun to see all of the teams out on the field together. Such a great rainbow of team colors and fantastic team names. The girls each had their first game that afternoon as well. It was a fun way to kick off the season. Go Sky High Hitters and Go Pink Panthers!!

The very next weekend looked very much the same, although this time it was for Neil. Little League out here seems like a very big deal! There were 66 teams that participated in the parade. Each team takes the name of a MLB team. We are the Rockies. It took forever to get all those kids introduced. The little guys were last too. So by the time Neil's team came out, we were all ready to leave. Luckily, we had a break in the day to go home before heading back to the field for pictures and the girls' games. Go Rockies! These little t-ballers are so adorable! I can't wait to watch them in a game.

And so it begins...