College friends and girls night

One of Brian's good friends from college came into town for the weekend a couple weeks ago.  He has a son named Logan that is only a couple months younger than Colin.

They had never met before, but about 2 minutes into their meeting for the first time, they were best buds!  They played really well together and had so much fun hanging out. 

The dad's did, too, of course :)

Colin and Logan spent the majority of their time digging in the dirt or playing with legos.

All the boys went to a Royals game on Saturday night and had a blast!

They looked so cute in their Royals gear before the game.

Logan kept doing a thumbs-up in all the pictures...

So of course Colin did, too...

Which meant Brian had to, as well.

My boys in blue!

And all of them together right before they left for the game

Brian sent me some pics of the boys at the game throughout the night

They had their fill of nachos, pretzels, frozen lemonades, etc

Such a cute pic of the guys with their rally caps on.

The Royals didn't win the game, but the little guys lasted almost the entire game before they crashed on the way home.

Meanwhile, Maggie and I had a "girls night", which consisted of going to church, followed by Chipotle, and then ice cream.  We had a blast as well! 

Mags and I are pretty good buddies, I love spending one on one time with her.

She insisted on making a Tortilla face!

Then she wanted to act like a chicken

She also got a free bag of chips from the gal at the register because she found a dime on the floor and turned it in to her.  I think she got the chips because the lady commented on how cute she was.

Whatever works!!!

We hit the little yogurt shop and since the weather was gorgeous, Maggie wanted to run outside and play on the fountains out front.  Luckily, they weren't turned on yet! :)

Maggie refused to eat her ice cream (darn it, I had to eat 2!), but she insisted on getting her picture taken.  

Such a fun weekend, but we ended up with some super tired kids on Sunday.

They need to learn the skill of sleeping in on the weekends! :)

2015 Corporate Challenge kickoff party

Just cleaning some pictures off my phone the other day,

here's one of my favorites...

Colin brought this paper home from school a few weeks ago,

I absolutely LOVE how he spelled his middle name (joseph)! :)

Moose is really growing on me lately - it seems like ever since we had to board him while we went on our trip to San Diego, he has been a VERY good dog.  Maybe he really missed us!

Anyway, he's doing a great job with his potty training and hasn't try to run outside his electric fence in a very long time.  Makes my anxiety and worry level go down a ton.

Now if we could only get his shedding problem to resolve...

;)

My company had their annual Corporate Challenge kick-off party at the stadiums a few weeks ago.
We try to take the kids every year because it is so much fun and very family friendly.

Once again, the star wars characters were there.

Maggie refused, even though the character pictured on the left was a girl!

They had face painting this year, too, which was a lot of fun.

We got there early enough that there wasn't a line (even better!)

Colin picked a tiger

Maggie and I just got colorful, glittery designs

Colin's finished product

They also had obstacle courses and food!

Colin rode a HUGE bike, and he did great

After we got home, the kids were pretty bummed they had to wipe off their face paint.

Colin wanted to take a few more pictures...

Another fun Corporate Challenge kick-off party!

They never seem to disappoint!

Conference in San Diego

I had a conference a couple weeks ago in San Diego.  Brian was able to tag along for a few days and it was a blast.  The kids stayed with Grammie and Granddad and were super excited to be on a little vacation themselves!

We did a TON of walking while we were there, right along the bay.

Lots of cool things to see and places to eat - we had so much fun just the 2 of us -of course, while missing the kids, but knowing they were having fun, too.

There were so many cool ships that we saw while walking around - pretty amazing!

We even happened to stumble upon a bunch of museum ships that were having free admission all weekend for Earth day on the Bay!

It was really neat to go through the ships and hear about the history

Captain Brian!

Standing in front of a submarine ship.  We went inside to tour this one too, but I only made it a little ways before I got pretty claustrophobic and had to make a chicken exit.

Didn't realize it bothered me that much, but I guess it does.  

I could never make it on one of those ships for months at a time - guess I had better stick with working at the hospital :)

There was a really cool whale statue (the signs say "do not climb on the whale")

We hit up a brewery tour that was right by the Petco park baseball stadium.  

Brian got to drink twice as much - lucky him!

We took a ferry over to Coronado Island to check out the beach, shops, and famous hotel.

Once again, tons of walking, but really cool to see!

The hotel on Coronado Island.  It was pretty much like a huge resort.  Tons of famous people have stayed there.  We just walked around and did some sight-seeing.

On Coronado Island beach - one of the top 5 public beaches in the U.S.

The water was pretty chilly, but lots of kids were playing in it.

Brian on the beach

We went to another brewery on the island.  This was probably my favorite - we got a sampler and I had a sip or two of the 5 we picked.  I liked them all (minus the coffee stout, yuck!)

A huge Navy ship we saw while on the island.  These things are massive!

We also hit up a barbecue restaurant right across the street from our hotel - guess what it's name was - KC Barbeque!

They were made famous because apparently there were a couple of scenes shot there for the movie Top Gun back in 1985.  The restaurant was a total dump and the food was not good.  But I guess it gets a lot of tourists, so good for them!

My evaluation of the KC Barbeque spot in San Diego - thumbs down!

After the BBQ dinner - we made it to a Padres baseball game

They ended up losing the game, but we got to see Shields pitch and sat beside some really nice San Diego residents.  Everyone was very friendly there.

So even though I didn't get any pictures, I did have a poster to present at the conference and that went really well.  I had ton of people asking questions and a lot of interest in the subject.

I will return, once more, to San Diego in a few weeks for another conference.  Now I will know my way around - and to bring an extra pair of tennis shoes for all the walking!

Maggie's early birthday present

Maggie has been asking to get her ears pierced for quite some time (many, many months).

We always told her, maybe when she's 4.

Well, she turns four in a couple weeks, so I guess we had to come through with our promises...

 Maggie LOVED looking through all the earrings while we were waiting our turn

 We picked out the earrings she wanted (totally wasn't excited about the $55 price tag, but I guess it's worth getting a good earring that won't be as likely to get infected)

 She wanted to sit on my lap - which I didn't really want cause I was pretty sure she would get upset

 Colin did his best to bring some comic relief to the rather stressful situation for Maggie

She was so brave - she told me later that it didn't really hurt all that bad, she was just scared.

Little bit sad - but we are so proud of her, she was such a big girl!

Within about 1 minute - she was looking around the store picking out some hair accessories that she liked.

 And after bath tonight  - she loves looking at herself in the mirror and can't wait to show everyone at school and for her birthday party next weekend.

She'll have these earrings in for 6 weeks, she can't wait to try on some other earrings.

Teson movie time

The whole family went to see a movie in the theatre a few weekends ago.

It was so much fun, and the movie was cute, too! (we saw "home")

Maggie did a great job of sitting through the movie, other than getting up about 3 times to go to the bathroom.

I only cried twice, which is pretty good for me (those dang Disney movies get me every time) :)

A cute pic of the kiddos before we left

Silly pic

Another silly pic

Before we went into the theatre - Maggie was so excited!

Colin already prepped her on what to expect - "it will be dark, really loud, and have lots of other people there!"

Of course, we snuck in some treats

She was so focused

Afterwards, we made it home and played outside with our neighbor friends