The back yard transformation

Our back yard transformation is (nearly) complete!  Just missing the door in the screened porch to our new patio.

Here is the before picture (which of course is the worst possible picture I could find of it...fallen tree and all):

Here's what we did (or had done for some things):
1. Had fallen tree removed from house
2. put up a fence
3. removed sticks, branches, vines, weeds from yard and natural area
4. had 4 trees removed
5. used wood chips from 4 trees and spread in natural area (removed some pine needles first)
6. painted inside and outside of screened porch
7. painted floor of screened porch
8. added a patio with seating wall
9. put in sod
10. planted a new crepe myrtle tree
11. planted a few new plants between house and patio

AND......(drum roll please).....

Looks a tad better, don't you think?

Back from Temecula

Well we made it back from our trip to Temecula (on Sunday).  Friday night was the wedding (Braden's best buddy from high school).  BEAUTIFUL wedding and beautiful location.

It was the first wedding I've ever been to where they served drinks BEFORE the ceremony (and afterwards of course).  The wedding was supposed to start at 4pm and people were still hanging around sipping wine at probably 10 after.  I guess that's how things are done in California?  Just that "we'll get around to it at some point" relaxed mentality.  Whatever.  Works for me.

The next day we were taking the red eye flight back and so our flight left at 10:30pm out of San Diego.  So, we needed to find something to do to fill our whole day.  I've already been to the San Diego zoo twice, but I had never been to Sea World (not any of the Sea World sites).  So Braden was a sport and took me to Sea World.  So weird being there with no kids.  In some ways good (no meltdowns, less potty breaks, no stroller, etc) but there were so many things we wished the kids could have seen.  So we took LOTS of video clips of the shows and sent some back home for the kids to see.  Then we showed them the rest when we got home.  Anyway, Sea World was awesome.  LOVED the Shamu shows and the Dolphin show.  Definitely would love to take the kids sometime.

Did not so much love the 10:30 red eye flight home.  But overall, was a really nice trip and so happy to have been able to spend some much needed alone time with my hubby.

Hot Air Balloon ride

So as I mentioned before, we did basically no planning on things to do for this trip.  Literally the day before we left I went on Google and searched for "things to do in Temecula".  Wine Tasting came up, which I already knew, and Hot Air Balloon rides.  So I thought that would be really cool.  Figured we would wait to get here and see what sort of deals there were.  I've always wanted to go up in a hot air balloon, so I was pretty excited about the possibility.

As soon as we got to the hotel on Wednesday, we found a place and made a reservation for this morning.  You have to meet there at 6:30am, which is no biggee since we are used to being 3 hours ahead and have not adjusted to west coast time.  The mornings here are cold, so we dressed in layers and met up at the winery where we needed to go.  From there, we got in a van and drove out to a launch site (a dirt field).  The guys there got the balloon laid out and filled it up.  We all climbed in (there were 10 people in our balloon plus the pilot) and just like that we started to float up.  It was spectacular!

They don't normally have low/thin clouds around here in the morning (usually no clouds...think desert).  But this morning they did and it was beautiful.  Sometimes we would go down really low (to the point where you could almost pick the grapefruits off the grapefruit trees) and sometimes we would go way up above the clouds (to about 2200 feet).  It was incredible how the wind would move the balloon in different directions depending on how high we were.  The balloon ride lasted about an hour and 20 minutes I think.  We had some issues trying to land near the other balloon in our group.  The winds changed after they landed and so we ended up on the other side of the street, but our pilot got us maneuvered up over the power lines and across the street.  Just takes experience and lots of patience I guess! 

Here are pics from our ride:

Wine Tasting

Probably the most popular thing to do in Temecula is wine tasting.  Temecula doesn't have any really big wineries, mostly "boutique" wineries, but good wine is good wine, right?  And coupons for 2-for-1 deals are sweet.  Temecula has 37 wineries (as opposed to over 600 in Napa) and we tried them all.  Okay, no not really.  We went to 3.

The favorite wine I had was at a small winery called Churon.  It was actually a Rose wine, which I normally don't like at all.  This one was called a "white merlot".  It tasted like there was no alcohol in it at all.  Could get in some big trouble with that one.  But since we brought carry-on luggage here, there was no wine bottle buying by us and Churon doesn't even sell in stores, so oh well.  We shared a tasting there (of 5 wines).  Braden's favorite there was the cabernet. 

Next up was a slightly bigger winery called Falkner.  We each got our own tasting there.  Falkner also had a restaurant, so we ate a really nice meal and lingered on the patio for a while.  The weather here is gorgeous!  Falkner also sits up high, so the views up there were pretty good.  Here is a pic of me standing near the patio of the restaurant.

With our tummies full of food to soak up the alcohol, we headed to another winery.  This time Thornton Winery.  At this one, the tastings are outside and you sit like at a restaurant.  We each got 4 with our tastings and each tasting pour was 3 ounces, so 12 ounces of wine later we were all tasted out.  Headed back to the hotel to relax....ahh.

To finish off the day, we headed to Pechanga Casino.  The place was GINORMOUS.  We played slots for a little while, but putting money into a machine that just takes it all away gets old after a while.  Braden was dying to play blackjack, but from what we could tell in all our searching, there were only two $5 minimum bid tables.  The rest were $10 or higher.  The $5 tables were full.  So just when we were about to leave, Braden decided to play the $10 tables and got chips for his $20.  He got up to $40 and cashed out.  So, we ended up winning at the casino and called it a night.

Made it to Temecula

Braden and I made it to Temecula, CA.  Only took us 22 hours to get here!  But you know, those were 22 kidless hours of travel, so wasn't bad at all.  We had to fly from Charlotte because we made the reservations before we knew we were moving and we are using miles, so we couldn't change it to Raleigh without paying like $700.  So we left Tuesday night and drove to my parents house, slept 5 or so hours, then got up early and drove the rest of the way to the Charlotte airport.  Unfortunately, we aren't using US Airways miles, but instead United, so had to fly to Chicago and then on to San Diego.  Rental car took FOREVER to rent (and instead of the compact car we had rented, they only had full sized cars....so, we are driving the hooptie mobile...a Grand Marquis).  Seriously, why does ANYBODY buy those cars?  It's like driving a boat.  San Diego is about an hour from Temecula, so drove the rest of the way and then got here around 2:45 in the after Pacific Time.  We were SO tired, so took a nap and then forced ourselves to wake up and go out to dinner. 

We headed over to an area called Old Town, which was pretty dead, I guess because it's a Wednesday.  We did find one of the few restaurants that appeared to be popular on a Wednesday night.  It was wonderful and the wine was delicious as well.  What was even more wonderful was that they were trying out a new menu that night for the first time and so all food was half off.  Cha Ching! 

So this has to be the only vacation I've ever been on where I had no plans on what to do while we are here (other than going to Braden's friend's wedding on Friday night).  So we will kind of be playing it by ear.  We'll try to take some pictures and post them when we do fun things.  For now, just relaxing...ahhh!

New links added

Just wanted to let you all know that I added 2 blog links in my blog list to the right.  One is Blythe's kindergarten class blog.  They just started this last week.  Hopefully they will blog a couple of times a week.  The other isn't a blog, but a link to Blythe's school artwork on Artsonia.  They scan it in and upload it to the Artsonia website so it all stays together in one place.  How awesome is that?  It is AMAZING how technology is helping even kindergartners at school.  They have this iPad looking thing (forgot what it's called) that they write on that gets projected at the front of the room.  So cool.  Anyway, enjoy!

NC State Fair

My sister has been staying with us all week.  I feel bad that I don't have time during the day to do fun things with her, so she's been pretty bored.  Except on Monday and today when I made her help me spread mulch.  Fun times!  Woohoo!  So anyway, our big plan all week was to head to the State Fair on Thursday evening.  It's right up the road from us and Thursday was the first day (it goes for 2 weeks).  Doug, Lynette, Ada, and Harper were going to go too.  But then they called for 80% chance of severe thunderstorms.  We decided to wait and see and then in the afternoon decided not to go (the percentage kept fluctuating between 30% and 80%).  Basically nobody had any freaking clue.  But my track record at amusement parks in the past several years has been pretty bad (rained every time).  So we decided not to go.  Then at about 4 or 4:30 the chance of thunderstorms went away.  By then Doug had already planned to stay at work, but I knew Laura really wanted to go, so Laura and I took the kids and then Braden met us there later.

In all my years growing up near Charlotte and then the 5 Octobers I spent in Raleigh while I was in college here, I never went to the State Fair.  I was pretty shocked at how big it is.  We probably saw maybe 20% of it.    And wow, you can spend money like water there.  Especially with 3 kids.  $6 on ice cream...gone.  $33 on ride tickets...gone.  $12 on admission tickets....gone (thank goodness kids 5 and under get in free).  $16 on games trying to win a REALLY crappy stuffed animal....gone. But everyone had a good time.  Blythe's favorite thing was the free fall ride.  No one would ride it with her, so we had to wait for Braden to get there because we knew he would ride it with Blythe.  Ethan said his favorite ride was the monster trucks.  Brynn rode the carousel and altered between kind of fun and deathly afraid.  In the end, she decided on deathly afraid.  Laura and Blythe rode a caterpillar roller coaster that they both loved.  What Brynn really did like though was the petting zoo.  The goats and the camels were very amusing to her.

The place really is gigantic though.  We didn't see any shows, rode only kiddie rides, and only ate 1 elephant ear and ice cream out of ALL the food there to offer (we opted against the fried oreos).  You could probably spend several days there, but then we would be broke.  So, especially since it's 1 mile from our house, we will opt for once per year.     \

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I think having 3 kids has fried my brain.

Everytime I think about blogging, I no longer can think of anything to blog about other than what we did over the weekend.  It's like my brain has left and gone on vacation.  I mean, I can't even come up with a blog title.  Maybe it's not just the 3 kids.  Maybe it's the moving and the unpacking and the painting and the hanging pictures and the gathering of estimates and the walking of the dogs and the working at my job and the homework I need to help Blythe with and the laundry and the grocery shopping.   Maybe there's just no more room in my head for real thoughts.

I'm hoping to slow things down a bit pretty soon.  In fact, next week Braden and I are taking a much needed mini-vacation just the 2 of us.  We haven't done that in 4 and a half years.  Maybe my brain is already vacationing in California and I can find it and bring it back with me.  Stay tuned...

NC State Swimming Alumni weekend

Last weekend was our NC State swimming and diving alumni weekend.  We had Emily and Sue and Richard and their daughter, Sadie, stay with us.  I'd say the weekend was a huge success, thanks to the hard work of some very dedicated swimming alums.  I had volunteered to help (since moving, unpacking, painting, working full time, and taking care of the 3 kids isn't time consuming enough), but fortunately I didn't have to do too much   beyond help with the planning.  

It is nice to have an event to give everyone a kick in the rear.  In my case, it was my motivation for getting most of the pictures hung, getting the screened porch painted (inside and out), getting the living room painted and curtains hung.  At the pool, it was the deadline for getting the new lobby finished and decorated and getting the bathrooms redone.  And I have to say, both our house and NC State's pool look pretty darn nice.  Although a little bit of grass at our house would go a long way.  Hopefully that will come sometime later this month.  For now, here is a picture of our living room:

Looks more orange in the photo than it actually is, but I'm very unskilled in taking photos.  Now that we have color on one wall in our entire house, I'm anxious to get some more walls painted.

Back to the weekend...Everyone got here on Friday afternoon.  We had a meeting at the pool at 4pm.  Thank goodness my parents were here on Friday night so I could make it to the meeting sans children.  They brought the kids to the pool later for the team intrasquad meet.  Though Brynn was sweating like crazy, I think they had a good time.  The team walkouts and logos they created were incredible!  And I think there were some pretty fast times as well.  My kids might have had more fun outside than inside (due to some amazingly beautiful weather).

After the meet, we came home briefly before heading to the University Club for dinner and drinks.  Blythe and Ethan also went because there was a kids room, FREE babysitters, and Mr. Wuf (the NC State mascot).  Too bad I suck at remembering to take photos.  I really have none from the rest of the weekend except a few we took playing with the cool glow in the dark glasses Emily brought.

Saturday was a big tailgate and a football game.  Thank goodness they actually won this one.  We took Blythe and Ethan (my sister babysat Brynn).  They were not as much fun as normal at the game which I suspect had something to do with being up until 11pm the night before.  By Saturday night everyone was EXHAUSTED!  We all went to bed early!  So happy to have gotten to see everyone and loved spending the weekend with my Wolfpack swimming/diving alum!

Family time

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that we now live so close to my brother, sister-in-law, and nieces. We've already done so many fun things together since we moved here and our kids are becoming so much closer. I can just see already that Brynn and Harper are going to be best buds. Okay, so right now Brynn just likes pushing Harper and trying to pull her hair. But they are love pushes and love hair pulling. The potential is there.

 This past weekend didn't fail in the fun with fam department. With Braden very busy with recruiting some nights and weekend mornings, I've depended on Doug and Lynette to help me keep my sanity. A week ago Saturday Doug and I took the 5 kids to a museum. Would I have tackled it by myself with my 3? NOOOOO. But add another adult and piece of cake (okay, still not THAT easy, but easier). Last Friday night, I met up with Lynette and her girls at their house while we waited out the rain (supposed to be 0% chance of rain...what the hell?). After the rain ended, we went to downtown Durham to meet up with Doug (he works right there) for an outdoor concert. Once the rain moved out, the weather was very nice and so we all had a good time. Brynn determines everyone's schedules these days, so once she had had enough, we left and went home.

 Saturday was a perfect day for tailgating and a Wolfpack football game (too bad the game was not so fun to watch). We made it until halftime with the kiddos (ALL the kids went to the game...it was Harper's first NC State game!). Then we came back to our house to watch the rest on TV (at that point we were only down by 1 touchdown). Quickly after we had to change the channel (it was too terrible to watch), so we watched Virginia Tech and Clemson game until that one got too terrible to watch. The kids were probably happy that football wasn't going our way because then we had a dance party. So fun!

 The next morning, we met Doug, Lynette, Ada, and Harper out at Hill Ridge Farms, a "pumpkin patch" north of Raleigh. It's not a real pumpkin patch, but is super fun with all sorts of fun things for the kids to do. And you do get to ride a tractor out to a field with a bunch of pumpkins and come home with your very own pumpkin, so it's every kids dream come true. We got some good pics of the kids there (mostly Lynette's photos) and everyone had a blast!