Beach Vacay!

I will be calling this weekends adventure a vacation. If you know us even just a tiny bit, you know Josh works EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. pretty much. So 2 days down by the beach just enjoying being a family was absolutely a vacation.



We started off the vacay spending the night at Nanas and waking up and hanging out with her Sunday morning. I, for some reason, thought it was Saturday. idk. That's completely irrelevant to this blog, but anyhow. After Mr. Handsome got a morning nap in we headed out to Newport to dine at the fine Perry's Pizza. It took us 45 minutes to find parking. the kids were champs. After driving around for 40 minutes, Josh had to go stalk people leaving to try and get their spot. Low and behold we found someone and he stood in the spot til I could get over there. Victory!


We were pretty starved at this point and headed straigh to Perry's. A-mazing. Newport itself was a little ghetto. Just sayin'. The girls had a blast playing with Daddy, but Hansome wasnt havin' any of that. He didn't like getting sunblock on, he detested the sand and the water. No sun hat for him. So after an hour we went on our own little excursion of the shops. Came across a super cute swimmy shop. $200 swimmy's? I wonder if they finance? We left. We got us some yogurt, they only took cash, totally our kind of place, haha! We shared us some yummy original tart with kiwis.
When we headed back the girls were pretty sand and watered out so we packed up showered off and headed to the Crowne Plaza to check in. We paid a ludicrously cheap price of $54 for this uber-nice hotel. Thank you, Hotwire! We showered up and rested for a little bit then headed to Main St. Huntington to eat dinner at 'Beachfront 301'

Ew. Ew. Ew. Do. Not. Eat. There. Me being meticulous and organized had planned our mini-vacay to the detail so we budgeted just right. I got a $25 gift certificate for said restaurant off Restaurant.com for a mere $2. I figure "ok, it's survived being on Main St. they must have decent food and service" Wrong, I sould have read the reviews on Yelp first. We go in and seat ourselves and sit for an agonizing 15-20 minutes. Agonizing because all 3 kids fell asleep in the car and we had to wake them when we got there and Madison was howling because she said her ear hurt. Vacay Mayday! We figured we would just eat and get outta there, but after we ordered it was still taking 96 years to get our food out and Madison was just miserable and Haylie follows suit just because, she is miserable by default and Handsome, well, he hates reataurants as it is. Basically, Josh and I are hating life at this moment in time. They finally brought a soup for Haylie and my wedge salad. I think most people reading will agree that a salad is best chilled. I took a bite into this warm salad with blue cheese crumbles that looked like oversided parmesan bits and thought "thats it!" Im not going to lose my sanity when the food is not even edible! Josh hunted down the manager and I said "My daughter is sick, we are 86 years older than when we first walked in the door and my salad is warm. We are leaving. Sorry. Bye" and with that we left. We hustled to Albertsons to get pain reliever that worked super quick and Madison was fine, but we dropped her at Nana's when we went to attempt dinner again at Souplantation. Love that place, never disappoints! After we grabbed Madison went back to the hotel and hit the sack. Madison's earache never came back. Praise the Lord!

Unfortunately I started feeling sick in the middle of the night and didnt get to enjoy the delectable breakfast buffet with an omelet bar like I was so ecstatic to do! Oh well, I spared myself some colories I guess. After breakfast we checked out and headed to HB and just hung out for a few hours until we headed to nanas to shower and dress and head to a bbq at my dads.

I forgot about vacation. I forgot how awesome it is to just be you and your best friend and these little people we created. It was amazing. It was simple and relaxing even amidst chaos, there was peace in my head and my heart to just be with them. I can't wait to plan our next one.

Two Things to Toot on Tuesday

Eeek. It's hard to pick just 2 things to toot about. I know what I wanna one of them to be, but the 2nd I'm up in the air. I guess I'll start with what I got.

1. Is it time for Josh to leave his day job? Here's the facts: We have a little bit in savings and we were already contemplating putting off buying a house until next year for other reasons. (we'll qualify for more house bc we can use our business income next year and we'd like to aim to stay in corona) We are now officially bringing in more doing windows than we are at his current job. It's frustraitng that we can rarely get ahold of the people who make the decisions for window cleaning contracts bc we dont have the time to visit businesses during the day. I feel ready, motivated, secure. This is such a scary decision, but extremely exciting all at the same time. We are stretched to the limit right now. He mostly works 7 days a week and sometimes during the week it's 12-14 hour days. It's hard, we miss him. Josh can earn as much as he makes in a week on one Saturday!! Imagine if we could just do that 2 more days a week! I'm just gonna pray that the Lord gives us the green light bc I need to KNOW this is the right decision for us.

2. For the sake of picking a lighter subject: The Bachelorette. That episode was SOOO AWKWARD. The intros, the leaf in her hair, "shooter"??? SERIOUSLY?? GROSS!!Some of those guys need to CHILL. They get more attached then some of the girls on the Bachelor. Looks like there will be some good dramz to see but I hope the coming episodes arent as painful to watch as last nights. I wasn't a huge Ali fan to begin with so we'll see.

Hope everyone elses Tues is tootin along =D

Savings Account Scramble & Mondayness

Idiot. Pretty much setup a transfer to our online savings account on the wrong day and it has made the past few days VERY stressful. If you are familiar with ING Direct, you know it takes 800 years to put your money in and get your money out, which has pros and cons. Pro's - You can't access the money for 2-3 days. No impulse buys. Cons - You can't access the money for 2-3 days. Would be nice in such boneheaded instances. Were slowly patching up this little whoopsie, but good golly I hate when I do annoying stuff like that! Sure has made us work our tails off for new leads though and it's paying off! Our business continues to grow in this sluggish economy and I'm overwhelmed with gratitude.

As much as I like to keep this life moving on and up, I try to focus on the daily little blessings and milestones. Levi is still not saying much but I'm happy to report that one of the two words he does say is becoming more clear, "cracker". LOL Madison and Haylie have been working on learning sight words and it's going pretty well. Madison can recognize 'mom, stop, mouse' and a few others I can't recall right now, but it was pretty exciting.

On another exciting note: Laundry is swiftly moving along this Monday. I just love having a closet full of options so I can look my best for my 4 employers 24/7. For example, today's suit of choice: pink & grey american eagle pants, white sports bra and a teal tank top. I look sharp. ;)

A night to remember

It all started out as a simple facebook invite from a boy who is crushing on my sister to no end. Truly, I wish he would go eat dirt, but for some reason he keeps pursuing her. Although good looking and sometimes charming, he's not the one for her. Anyhow, he invites her to come see his band play at 'the Vibe' off University in Riverside. As any girl does she rounds up her female posse; Big Pris, Q-Lin & Er-hair and we head out looking cute for the occasion thinking were heading to a quaint place near the Mission Inn. Ok, maybe not quaint, but decent at the very minimum. Of course, none of brainy beauties thought to look up the joint ahead of time, we just put in our google maps and away we went, unbeknown to us, to ghetto ghetto land. When we arrive, a gentlemen proceeds to wave us into the parking lot with his hips. Hmmm...I guess there might be a few weirdos in the bunch right? Wrong, there were many. We enter this epitome of classiness and a band is setting up. We find my sister's not-so-prince charming milling around. He was very polite and greeted our entire posse. He informed us his band would not be gracing us with their musical talents until 11:30. Lovely, just what a mom of 3 wants to be out all night doing. It was roughly 9:30 since H-dizzle insisted we be early. We wanted to be first in the mosh pit, ya know? We decided to leave and go find somewhere to eat and just come back long enough to see Princey perform. We found a fine sushi joint and had a good time. We even got free Edamame **highlight of the evening** We then headed back to the original destination and went inside ::sigh:: We couldn't find Princey anywhere so we found a spot behind most of the crowd watch a band perform one talentless, screaming song after another. One nice gentlemen kindly shoved us into a hall before one of us was almost injured due to a mosh breaking out.. We then decided we were going to find Princey and see what the deal was. When we went outside, we asked a young man, who I'm sure had the potential to be the next Einstein, where Nick Sanchez was. His reply "In my pants". Einstein and his equally intelligent counterparts broke into girlish hysterical laughter. I, too, was amused. I'm sure for different reasons. We ended up finding Princey on our own and also met his pal, we'll call him Peewee. I'm sure Peewee didn't stand more than 4 ft, by the looks of his habits it wasn't hard to tell what had stunted his growth or his brain cells. Princey said he was still setting up and that they were about to go on. We went back inside for all of 10-15 minutes and then we unanimously decided to leave, call this a laughable learning experience and that we can't wait until it's a distant memory. We head out that back to see Princey just chillin' as we were sitting in that vulgar joint not knowing anyone (for which I'm honestly thankful) Let me tell you all the questions that are now bouncing around in my heads like pinball machine on steroids: Why didn't he bother to invite us to just hang out outside until they went on, knowing we were uncomfortable inside? Why did he even invite my sister if he was just going to act like she didn't even exist? Why did he invite her HERE? What is WRONG with guys' these days, don't they a know good lady is worth putting some serious effort in to? Why am I here?

Clearly the look upon my face showed utter disdain and irritation so Sick Nanchez dumbfoundedly(new word alert) asked me "What is your problem with me, Priscilla? I never did anything to you."

Well, I couldn't keep the kid in suspense! So I let him know exactly what my problem with him was, of course. So not like me to keep secrets, ya know. I told him that I couldn't believe he even invited my sister to such a trash hole and then sat around outside while she was fending for her life from mosh pits inside. I told him I was sick of him messin her around and that he is not a classy person, at all. He had no retort. We left. And then hoo-rahed H-dizzle for leaving and coming to the conclusion to never give that jerk another moment or thought.

We truly will laugh about this. There were some honestly hilarious moments that we will forever treasure. H-dizzle trying to stalk Er-hair in the restroom, showing off my "free" edamame skills, dicovering Lindsey's true name: Lin. thinking a man stole my bracelets from home to only realize those were his own plugs for his EARS?!?! We had many "Dear Heavens?!?!" moments and for that we are truly grateful.

Manic Monday & no home sweet home

I really dont feel like spellin out all the drama with JJ Sweet, again. Check out my FB for the deets. I have never been treated so horribly by a business in my 24 years on this planet. By the time it was all said and done I wanted to cry from how upset I was. It blows me away at how much business they are willing to lose over $30. I'm just flat out disgusted.

I feel like I have hit the pinnacle of stress today. I'm not sure about our fast approaching future living situation. We have yet to hear anything on our 2 offers into the bank. ::sigh:: I just need to trust that God has his hand in it and is going to have us where he wants us. We can't live with my parents forever and I really miss having our own little homey place so much. Makes me sad to think about how much I miss it. My parents have been awesome and ridiculously generous with what they have been blessed with. I really thought we'd at least be opening escrow somewhere but nope. The thought of moving the kids back into a small apartment overwhelms me and makes me feel anxious "Our stuff is packed in 4 different locations; we gave away most of our furniture; no backyard; lots of loneliness when Josh is working 13, 14 hour days" So many things are going though my head. We've been able to make really good progress in our savings account considering all the financial hurdles that have come our way. I pray God continues to bless our business and we can keep on this pace. We're supposed to meet with my parents tonight and talk about where we stand. I've got all my financial duckies in a row and ready to go :)

Jesus vs Santa: round 1

I felt very convicted at church on Sunday that I haven't been faithful about doing morning devotions with the girls. They are like sponges at this age and it's so important that they know how much God loves them what his word says. So as of yesterday I have made it a a priority that the first thing we do when Mr. Handsome goes down for his morning nap is we stop playing to spend time in prayer and do our morning devotion. The girls actually love doing it. It's so sweet to hear them pray. Of course not everyday can be rainbows and sunshine, thunderclouds rolled in about halfway thru and Haylie had a minor meltdown, but we stopped and prayed that Jesus would help her behave and she asked for forgiveness. Clouds rolled out and we were back to our perky morning and sunny time with the Lord. I decided I'm going to make the verse we go over on Monday our verse for the week and have them learn to read it and memorize it. So far so good and it's only Tuesday. Our verse this week is "The grass dies, the flowers fall, but the word of Our God is forever" - Isaiah 40:8 I love how such a simple verse can have such great meaning & really put things into perspective. Today we talked about how God is our shepherd. Yesterday our lesson is pretty much summed up in the verse I just shared. Now a story that will probably make you gasp. When Madison was asking me about things that are not forever {flowers, grass, we tried to keep it simple) versus what is forever (I brought up 'Heaven-where God has a house for us' and somehow it got interpreted as "Kevin's House", so one day we'll all be together in Kevin's house with the Lord...alrighty). Anyhow, she happended to bring up Santa and him being forever. (Brace yourself) I swiftly told her Santa is not real, but Jesus is and He is forever. NOW, she may not even remember this convo by the time Christmas rolls around and if she so chooses to envelope herself in the magical wonderness of there being a Santa I will not rip that from her. HOWEVER, when it comes to Santa versus Jesus, I am not going to fight tooth and nail for her to believe in a fictitious being (ps I will explain the story of the real St. Nick at one point) the same I will strive for her to recognize Jesus as her Lord and Savior who will bless her beyond any gift Santa could ever bestow upon her if she gives her heart to him.

I am really enjoying this time with them and times like these make me want to homeschool even more which I have started looking into, seeking out information and opinions of those who do it or have done it. If you have little ones I would highly recommend doing devotions with them, even if it's not daily, when you can. We only take 10-15 minutes to do it. It's good for them and it's equally wonderful for you!

For the Love of Blogs...

I had no idea how many interesting people were blogging or maybe it's just interesting because we are curious beings by nature...hmmm...either way I think it's fantastical! I just LOVE reading your guys' blogs! The family updates, the dating horror stories, the top 10 whatevers, recipes, the weekend recaps - you name it, I'm a fan! After reading so many, I'm beginning to think mine might be a little blah so I'm gonna start sprucing it up a bit to feel up to par with the rest of the well-written, fascinating blogs, a mish mash of some of the above categories. No dating horror stories though...it's been awhile since I've experienced any of those, they will be replaced by the psychotic episodes of toddler children category.

Sidenote: today is Mother's Day! Kinda cool, a day for us Mommy's. The message at church today was such a great reminder of how important our role is as a mother. How all the small things we do that go unappreciated are STILL important. Our greatest ministry is our children. I feel so blessed to have my 3 little ones, they bring me so much joy, at least the times they aren't acting beastly towards me or each other. HA! It does happen, they cant be angels allll the time. Their big snoopy card they gave me with their presh little names written is priceless! Mother's Day is pretty awesome, indeed.