7Yr 10Mo! & More Stitches

CET are 7 years and 10 months old!

Our CA adventure started in Oceanside CA where we rented a
house that was walking distance to the beach! 

A full day at the beach proved to be relaxing and fun! They were getting an unlikely current from Mexico which made the water unusually warm. It was wonderful not to come out of the water shivering as we normally would, ha!

On another day we tackled Legoland!

We also discovered the boys love of roller coasters, uh oh! If you know me you also know that I despise those contraptions. They certainly didn't inherit this from me, ha!

Made a day trip to Tijuana, Mexico!

The kidos in Mexico : )

We met up with my cousin who has a business in TJ and he took us to a local seafood restaurant. Our group of 10 ate like kings with drinks and all. The bill came out to a measily $66!!! If you wanted to eat like that in the states you'd have to add another zero to the end of that amount. I'll be dreaming of those shrimp tacos and octopus cocktail for years!

We only spent one day in Davis on the way home but of course
we had to see mama Sue and papa Ed : )

One last treat before we went home was stopping at Wildlife Safari in Oregon.

Lots of interesting creatures, and many that I'd never seen before or knew that existed. It's really neat, feels like you are driving through Jurassic Park only it's animals that still exist, ha! If anyone is traveling along I-5 through Oregon I totally recommend this place. Affordable family fun is what I'm talking about (she says after footing the bill for Legoland, at least it wasn't Disneyland prices haha!).

I'll explain Caleb's chin down below, ha!

Thomas

Eli

Oh Caleb not again! Remember last summer around this exact same time he cut the back of his head being a wild monkey at mom's that resulted in 3 staples.
This boy is going to be the death of me!

On our way home, we stopped just South of Roseburg (about 3.5 hrs from Portland) so that we could camp for the night. We were surprising the boys the next day with the Wildlife Sarafi park. We were 5 minutes into unloading the car when Caleb goes down this steep hill with his scooter. Well he claims he forgot how to brake because he got going too fast and lost control. He got the wind knocked out of him and he must have hit a sharp rock because there was a huge gaping hole in his chin! Which oddly enough took a long time before it started bleeding, super creepy! I instantly knew we had to leave for the closest urgent care. We packed up the car and drove 30 minutes to the Roseburg urgent care. The boy got 8 stitches! Caleb was as cool as a cucumber the whole time and that really impressed the doc. Five days later (lower left pic) he went in to get his stitches out. And two weeks later (lower right pic) is how it looks like now. It's amazing how fast it has healed. I'm doing all I can to avoid a noticeable scar. We kept it completely covered with Neosporin for the first 10 days, keeping it moist while it heals is very important. The docs both advised to always have sunscreen on if he's outside and to rub vitamin E on it once it has completely healed. It looks as if Caleb has taken over Thomas' clumsy title, only Thomas has never hurt himself this bad, not to mention twice! : (

The Walking Pneumonia (7yr 9mo!)

CET are only 3 months away from turning 8, yikes!
How is it possible that I started this blog over 8 years ago and I'm still going!?!

The Walking Dead Pneumonia

On the Saturday before the last day of school the boys all came down with low grade fevers and were complaining that they didn't feel good. Over the next couple of days I treated them with tylenol or the like. They didn't seem too bad so come Monday morning, off to school they went. They were a little lack luster and slightly coughing but would always perk right up after getting some medicine. I thought is was just a cold (which is kind of ridiculous since it was mid June!). On Tuesday while at work I got an email from the teacher stating that 3 kids in their class had been diagnosed with walking pneumonia and if your kids were exhibiting it's symptoms to please not send them to school! I quickly googled this scary sounding sickness and all the symptoms matched up perfectly with the boys, uh oh! On the bright side if there is a pneumonia to get its walking pneumonia you want, it's the least of the evils and you can still function more or less (this is why they call it "walking" pneumonia). Long story short more than half the class got it and the boys hacked and coughed for over 3 weeks. Phil and I thought we were in the clear when after two weeks into the boys sickness and we still had not come down with anything. Well we spoke too soon because we both got to experience walking pneumonia. Let me let you, it's no regular cold! Now I understood what Eli meant when he'd tell me his chest would sting and why the boys even after two weeks still only wanted to lie around and not go out and play. My poor babies certainly felt worse than they looked : (

Everyone would randomly fall asleep during the sickening.

On the last day of school not looking too great since they were about 1 week into WP. 

I felt compelled to document this experience because it encapsulates just how quickly kids grow up. One day they're playing with toys and the next day they're not. Eli had been wanting some dumbbells which I had not taken seriously. He'd recently come into some money from doing chores and a generous $20 from tio C. We were going to search for curtains at Ross and since I know the kids love to ogle the toys there I told them to bring their money in case they saw something they wanted. Eli goes straight to the dumbbells with his brothers in tow and picks out what he wants. His brothers look on enviously because they don't really have much money to buy anything. 

As we wait in line I ask him "you didn't even want to look at the toys?" And his reply was "no, this is the only thing I want." Such a big kid purchase!

Mama Elda came!
After a week in Portland we drove them to Cali to stay at grandma's house for the next two weeks. 

Granny cam captured the boys anticipating the next Mexico game in the Worldcup!

As promised, here are before and after pics of our living room
(this is the listing picture so this is not our stuff, ha!)

The kitchen before with laminate floor that look like wood, ugh!
Ironically, the kitchen had fake wood and the rest of the house had real wood that was all covered up, haha!

The oak floors refinished and now look brand new, they are absolutely gorgeous. Until now I never appreciated how beautiful oak is, look at all that beautiful grain variation!

Our new kitchen tile floor!

The living room after!
All the natural light is wonderful but makes it very tricky to photograph. 

The other end of our living room and you can also see the new floors in our kitchen. I'll refrain on posting any pics of our kitchen. We've done so much (floors, school house light fixtures and painting) but it still needs a lot of work. New counters, tile back splash, cabinet refinishing, and gas stove will hopefully start happening within a years time.

They always look so sweet when they're asleep : )