I forgot I had a blog...

It's true, we have been so busy since being back in Dallas that I literally forgot I had a blog. As you know, I used the blog to show family and friends what we were doing when we were living in California but since we've been back, most of our time has been spent w/ friends and family - and if we're with them, we don't need to blog what we did because they were there....now you understand why I forgot I had a blog!

But, I need to remember - I have family and friends that don't live in Dallas and see us on a regular basis and they may want to know what is going on in our life...maybe. :) Plus, I'd like to keep this going so we can all look back at it at some point and relive the memories. So, I'm really going to try and get back on that blog horse and keep it up-to-date.

Today, I'm having a very lazy day....and I'm loving it! As I type, Greg is showing the Maxima to somebody that is interested in buying it, Carson just went down for a nap and I'm propped up in our temperpedic adjustable bed on the laptop {deep sigh}....this feels good!

We are in the process of getting our cabinets and living room/kitchen/etc painted this week. The workers are prepping everything today so the house is still a complete mess but once it's done, it'll be well worth it. I'll make sure to post some before and after pictures.

Since I'm having such a lazy day, I think I'm going to lay back, watch some worthless tv and relax for a couple of hours (I don't know the last time I was able to do that).

Back in Texas

We've officially been back in Texas for a little over a month and let me tell you, we have not stopped going since the plane landed!

Here's a few things off the top of my head:

1. Wood floors installed in the house (and I must say, they look great! I just iced them!) However, this required a lot of moving furniture back and forth and constantly cleaning up dust.

2. Made a trip to Galveston with the Hodges. Greg, Trey and Justin did some bay fishing. They even caught some fish and we had a great dinner that evening! The bad news is, I found out that I'm allergic to any bites. I got two bites on my left foot and it swelled up to twice its normal size. Talk about ugly and painful.

3. We went to an OSU game in Stillwater! I took a long weekend off work so we were able to enjoy lunch with my college friend Kathy and her little one, Vivian in Edmond. Oh my goodness, she is a doll! Such a sweet little 3 month old beauty! We were also able to spend some time with Colton, Erica's little boy. He is too cute and such a chunky monkey! Carson didn't know what to think of Colton - definitely got jealous a few times! Granny and Gramps volunteered to babysit for us Saturday so we could go to the OSU game. How great it was to be back in Stillwater!!

Next week we are headed to Houston for Thanksgiving and then to Wichita Falls the following weekend for the Hodges Family Christmas party! I think after that we may actually be able to sleep in our own bed for an entire weekend!!

Trust me, I'm not complaining - I think back to our time in California when we didn't have family or friends around...I'm happy to be on the go and spending time with the ones we love.

It's time to go home

I cannot believe it's already been 2 years since we moved to California but it has...and we are moving home tomorrow!

What an adventure it's been too. I look back on when we made the decision to take this journey and I say to myself, what were we thinking??!! But, it's been a great experience on so many different levels.

Trying to recap this journey could go on forever but I think of it on 3 levels: Things we learned, things we'll miss and things we can't wait to leave behind. :)

Things we learned:

• I learned what an amazing man and father Greg is. I had a lot of work travel while out here and Greg was amazing at being the stay-at-home dad w/ no friends or family to rely on. I see such a special bond between him and Carson. It truly is amazing to see this between a father and his child.
• I learned that our marriage could become even stronger.We had to rely on each other, every single day - during good times, bad times, happy times and sad times.
• I learned that we can raise a child on our own! Carson was just 5 months old when we moved and now he's a non-stop, crazy, wild, talking, running everywhere 2 yr old!
• I learned how to cook. With no friends or family and a little one that goes to bed at 8pm, we found ourselves in the kitchen, experimenting with new recipes! Open a bottle of wine and thow on some good tunes - that's what many of our Friday and Saturday nights turned into...and it was so much fun!
• I learned we need to be outside more. Of course it's easier to do here w/ the great weather but we have sworn to do a better job of being outside....even if it's turning off the tv for the evening to sit on the patio and watching Carson play or walking to the grocery store for those few items versus driving less than a mile to get there.
• We learned to travel with a little one! Had we not made the trip out here, I just know we would have never gotten on a plane or taken a trip w/ Carson. This forced us to and I'm so glad we did...we can go anywhere now! Well, as long as it's within a few hours of a plane ride.
• I learned it's hard to work in an office with 2 people. I'm a social person and like being around a lot of people. I learned that you have to work twice as hard to stay in touch w/ your coworkers back in Dallas - believe it or not, they are not all sitting around hoping that I'm doing ok out here. I learned it's really hard to make cold calls for a year but when you do get that meeting booked or that new client, it's time to celebrate!

Things we'll miss:

• The thing I'm going to miss the most is our Saturday and Sunday walks to breakfast. We love going to The Yellow Vase to have breakfast on the patio - a vanilla latte for me, caramel latte for Greg and a waffle w/ whipped cream and strawberries for Carson! After breakfast, we head to the beach for a walk and either stop to play at the park or play in the sand on the beach for awhile.
• We'll miss the amazing weather. Average temps in the 70s, no humidity...yes please! Although, I do look forward to having 4 seasons again. Well...I could do without the 100+ degree temps during the Dallas summers.
• I will miss seeing the ocean everyday. On the flip side, I will also miss seeing the mountains too. What an amazing view we have from our house....to the left the ocean and to the right the mountains.

Things we can't wait to leave behind:

• Rude people. Don't get me wrong, not everyone out here is rude but there is definitely a large population of rudies (not sure if that's a word but I like it). For example, they don't say hi when you walk by them (doesn't matter where....hallway at work, on the street, in a coffee shop), they don't hold elevator doors, even when you make eye contact and ask them to hold it, they honk in less than half a second after the light turns green....I think you get the idea. It is definitely a "me me me" mentality. After awhile my theory was, if you can't beat 'em, join 'em. That's when Greg would refer to me as "LA Bonney"!
• No air condition in the house. Don't get me wrong, it's nice to have some fresh air blow through the house from time to time but on those rare days when it got in the upper 80s or 90s...holy cow. We would have given anything to turn on the AC.

As you can see, we had some really great times and some "what are we doing here" times! You know the saying "never say never"....it's true! We never thought we would leave Dallas, with a new baby...and I can gaurantee Greg never thought he would leave Texas...and for California??!! But, we did it, we survived and grew a lot - as individuals and as a family. We are finishing this chapter and ready to move onto the next....I can't wait to see what it has in store for us!

Disneyland!

Nothing like waiting until the last minute.....2 weeks before we move back to Dallas and we finally made it to Disneyland! I think I'm still recovering today (we went yesterday) but it was well worth it!

I will admit, it is not the easiest task to tackle Disneyland w/ a 2 yr old - or at least if that 2 yr old is Carson. Bless his sweet little energetic, independent, go-go-go self, but Greg and I were both worn out (physically and mentally) by the end of the day. I read a few things online regarding tips for going to Disneyland w/ a toddler, which we got some good ideas but nothing really earth-shattering. I do need to take a moment to comment about a blog I read about taking a 2 yr old to Disneyland. I have no idea who this person is but she has a blog and writes about her family (much like the idea of this blog - except she's a much better writer). She talked about how most people dread taking a little one to places like Disneyland but the trip she and her husband took w/ their 2 yr old girl was great! She went on about all of the things she did to make it easier like taking snacks, your own water, parking, rides, etc....the last thing she mentioned was also having her brother, parents and aunt and uncle w/ them as well. Of course that makes it easier.....you have 7 adults to help out w/ one child. That would make any trip easy! Ok, thanks for letting me get that off my chest....whew!

Don't get me wrong, we had a good time and the great thing is, it ended on a GREAT note w/ watching the parade just before we left! Carson LOVED the parade - I think it was his favorite part of the entire day!

So, let's get on w/ all of the fun we did have!

First thing we rode was the carousel. Carson loved it and cried so hard when the ride was over.. :(

 

 

 

Next was the Dumbo ride! He liked that too! We went really high in the air and could see all around!

 

 

Doesn't Greg look so good in a little teacup?! :) I'm glad we have this picture....most of the pictures are of Carson and/or me and Carson. This is proof that Greg was actually there! haha

 

 

 

Carson tried breaking into W. Rabbit's house from Alice in Wonderland. That door is the perfect size for him!



 I think one of my favorite parts about Disneyland is all of the characters that are walking around! We saw Goofy and had to get in line for a picture. We weren't sure how Carson was going to react but he loved it! Greg took a short video of him walking up to meet Goofy - it was so cute, he couldn't get up there fast enough!

We even got to see Mary Poppins and Bert! As a child I watched this movie over and over and over again. Mom can vouch for me on that. :) I remember her saying to me once, if you rewind that movie and watch it again, it's going in the trash! haha!

The next few pictures are from It's a Small World. It was so pretty...and, it was nice and cool (and relaxing) as we floated along in a boat!

 

Towards the end of the day, we finally got some Mickey ears for Carson. These were a must-have before we left the park. I just think he's so cute in his little ears! He even worn them during breakfast this morning!

We also bought a Mickey Mouse for him to take home. As we were walking out of the store, he leaned down and gave him a kiss!

As we were wrapping up the day, the parade was starting. We actually had a pretty good place to stand too. Me and Carson stood up front and enjoyed the parade while Greg stood back and took some video. Carson was so funny - he waved at every character that went by and even yelled "Hiii" to Mary Poppins. With his ears on and a huge grin, Carson was soaking it all in! This was the perfect way to end our visit to Disneyland!!

Dad and Arthetta's Visit

I feel like I'm always apologizing for being so behind in my blogging....so here I go again....sorry this post is so late.

I was finally able to talk Dad and Arthetta into making a trip to visit us in California before we moved and what better timing than dad's 70th birthday weekend (Sept 8th)!!!

We were on the go from the second their plane touched down in LA until the moment they took off but it was so much fun showing them around!

We started off the weekend by driving up to Malibu for some lunch and a little beach time. Carson had a blast letting the waves roll over his feet and I think dad was starting to work up the courage to get into the cold water (stay tuned for more on that)!

 

 

On our way home from Malibu, we stopped at Venice Beach for a bit. Dad said he wanted to see some weird LA people....well, Venice is the place for that. You never know what you'll see - good news, dad got what he asked for - a lot of weird LA people!

 



On Saturday we went into Hollywood. For those that have never been, in front of the Grauman's Chinese Theater, people are dressed up in different characters - sometimes Pirates of the Caribbean, Marilyn Monroe, Spiderman, etc. The first person we saw when we turned the corner was Charlie Chaplin. Charlie is one of dad's idols - it was like watching a kid in candy store. Dad walked right up to him, looking up and down from head to toe! Of course he took a picture with him (which of course wasn't free....come on, we're in Hollywood ;)) and we were on our way. Just a few steps down the road and we saw another idol....this time Carson's idol....E-L-M-O!! I think Carson was in complete shock to see a life-size Elmo!

To celebrate dad's birthday that evening, Arthetta baked her famous chocolate cake w/ cherry filling and chocolate icing. Oh...my...goodness! For those that know me well, I LOVE chocolate...it was so good! Apparently I'm not the only chocolate lover in the family - the next morning I noticed some pieces of cake were missing. Dad and Arthetta claimed the eggs were too "salty" so they had to eat some cake instead. That's a good one, I'll have to keep that one in my back pocket next time I want to eat cake for breakfast. :)

The last full day they were here, we took a trip out to Catalina. You may recall from a previous post that we LOVED Catalina so it was easy to talk us into going back out to the island. After a great lunch, the boys wanted to go swimming. And dad finally got in the water!

 

As usual, Carson pooped out on us again. I guess riding in a golf cart just does it for him!

 And here's a picture overlooking the boats....beautiful!

I think this picture pretty much sums up how much fun we had in Catalina...

Along with all of our site-seeing, were still had plenty of time to hang out in the backyard and relax. Here's a great picture of Carson telling Grandpa something really important...

 

 

Lastly, this video cracks me up....and apparently Carson too! He could not get enough of this and when Grandpa thought he could rest for a few minutes, Carson thought otherwise!

 



Thanks again to Dad and Arthetta for making the trip. I know I put a lot of pressure on you to visit. That's what us sweet little daughters are good at. :)



The dancing continues!

I cannot get enough of Carson and all of the dancing he does. It makes my heart feel so good seeing him enjoy music and just being free!

Greg always tells me to take a practice swing...

But I don't always listen. :)

Good thing Carson does. Funny thing is, his practice swing looks like my real swing! haha

Retirement

I know I know...it's too early to be thinking about retirement but we found the spot! The spot where we are going to lazily spend our days once we retire....Catalina Island! The only catch is, we will need to become millionaires to make this happen. So...I'm not going to hold my breath on this but a girl can dream, can't she?! :)

A few weekends ago (I'm so behind on blogging, sorry) we took a boat over to Catalina to check it out. It was a beautiful day! I must admit, I was nervous to be in the middle of the ocean on a boat where you cannot see ANY land. But, I survived. I was feeling a little queasy when we started....

 (Greg made me pose for this...I could not stop laughing long enough for him to take the picture)!


Once we got there, I realized we were in paradise! And, Greg was in paradise too! Have I mentioned before how much he LOVES boats?! I mean..L-O-V-E-S boats! Check out this view....

The further out the boat, the bigger it was. So, now you can see why we need to be millionaires...we can't have one of the little boats by the beach (which is still super nice), we need one of the really big boats further out! :)

We enjoyed a great seafood lunch and then decided to rent a golf cart to drive around the island. If you ever go, this is a must! Here are just a few pics we took on our adventures!

All aboard! Not sure why G looks like such an angry driver. haha!

Can't forget to get C in the pic too!

All of the driving around made him so sleepy, he crashed on us half way through the ride.

Umm, yes please!

I see you...

Carson found my goggles I had to wear after my lasik surgery last year. Looking good buddy!

Getting creative!

I thought this would be a fun video to share! Each quarter my company has a company-wide meeting. In July we had to take a 40 minute bus ride to our meeting location. So, of course we were bored and decided to have some fun on our trip!

Most of you have probably heard the song 'Call Me Maybe'....it's one of the hot pop songs this summer. There's a youtube video that's gone viral of the Stanford Baseball Team doing a dance to it in a van, so we decided to copy it! :)

What I love about this video is that not all of us are on the same team at ISN, in fact some are brand new to the company, and others live in Canada and London! It's amazing what some teamwork can do when you all work together!

Make sure to watch the entire thing...Enjoy!

Making Progress

Check me out!

He's getting the hang of it!

Carson took a big step forward yesterday in his swimming lessons! He jumped in and was able to turn himself over and start floating! Go Carson Go!!

Born to Rock!

Move over Tiger Woods!

We've been working on Carson's golf swing. He looks like a natural - holding the club right, eye on the ball and the follow through w/ the club. Maybe I should take some tips from him!

Wow...

Someone celebrated Mommy's birthday a little too hard!

Splashing around

We are in Dallas this week - work and house hunting! Carson and Sophia decided to go for a little swim tonight. I think he's having a good time!

Dinner on the patio

The weather was gorgeous this weekend so we decided to have dinner on the patio this evening. As you can see by Carson's dirty face, he had a good time playing outside too!

Dinner on the patio

The weather was gorgeous this weekend so we decided to have dinner on the patio this evening. As you can see by Carson's dirty face, he had a good time playing outside too!

He felt the need to DANCE!

Carson had his dancing shoes on last night! We were playing music and he couldn't stop dancing so being the good parents we are, we had to capture it on video! He'll enjoy this later in life! :)

And, we thought the song choice was appropriate since we live in California. It's 'Going Back to Cali' by LL Cool J.

Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Carson!

Happy Birthday Carson!! I can't believe our little boy is 2 today!

We are so proud of our little guy. He has such a shining personality, so loving, funny and curious! Each and every day there's something new and amazing he does.

Tonight for dinner we went to Stacked. This is a burger place where you order from an iPad and you can build your own burgers! We had some of Carson's favorites - french fries and milkshakes!

Of course we had some presents for him too! After each tear of the paper, he would take it to the trash. It took forever to get just one present open but we made it through!

I would say we had a successful 2nd birthday! Happy Birthday Carson - we love you so much!!!

Welcome Home!

Look who's been welcoming me home lately! He stands on the back of the couch and stares out the window! When I pull in, I can see him mouthing 'mama' - I absolutely love coming home to this after a long day at work!

A proper dinner w/ his cousin

For the last two weeks, we were in Dallas! It was great seeing everyone! We spent quite a bit of time over at Trey and Jen's - which was fun for all of us. Btw, thanks for feeding us. :)

Sophia and Carson sat down one evening for a proper dinner. I just love this picture. Carson has the best posture w/ his hands in his lap  and Sophia is chilling in her ballet outfit, complete w/ tutu!

Doggy Day at Gymboree

Yesterday was doggy day at Gymboree. Greg sent me this picture and said Carson's tail was the longest in the class! This just cracks me up, I love it!

Atlantis!

I am realllllllly late on this post, apologies!

One word for Atlantis....wow!

Greg and I took a trip (just the two of us) to Atlantis last month to celebrate our 5 yr wedding anniversary. Carson spent four nights w/ his Papa G and Kiki - I don't think he even realized we weren't around. He had a blast...and so did we!

Here are a few pictures of the resort.

For those that know Greg, you know that he LOVES boats...I mean, L-O-V-E-S boats! There was a yacht parking lot just across from the hotel apparently. Everyday we found our way back over there - he couldn't get enough. :) I wonder who in the world can afford these yachts....wow! Beautiful!

Look, it's our boat..BG! Ha, I wish. And, this was one of the smaller boats, hey I'd still take it!

My friend Katie told us about the lazy river that her and Trey loved when they were in Atlantis a few years ago. So, of course we had to find it check it out. Amazing! Katie, you were right. We could've stayed on that thing for hours - in fact I think we did. This picture doesn't show you much but basically you get a tube and float around. There are rapids and gushes of water to keep you moving and if you choose to, you can take the route that takes you up to water tubes that shoot down. You know the kind, when you were a kid and went racing down a tunnel w/ water gushing your through! The best part about it, you never have to get out of your tube. You get on a conveyor belt that pulls you to the top and then the water tunnel drops you at the bottom, back into the lazy river. Genius!!!

We also had our drink of choice for the trip. Mine was pina colada! Greg's was Sands Light, from Freeport, Bahamas!

We also found some time to go snorkeling. It was in a controlled environment by the hotel (versus taking a boat out into the ocean) but it was awesome! We swam with some huge fish, sharks and sting rays! I was so nervous in the beginning but once we got going I relaxed, a little bit. :)

We have an extremely funny story about our snorkeling adventures...it started before we even got into the water. Let's just say it has to do w/ wet suits that were too small, showing up late and being the center of attention from our snorkeling group for a few minutes. :)

We ate some great food along the way as well. We checked in w/ Papa G and Kiki on a daily basis and as we suspected, Carson was getting spoiled! He played outside, went to the park and Papa G even got him this super cool chair!

I could go on and on about our trip, but I'll stop here. I would definitely recommend Atlantis to everyone! I'm pretty sure we'll be making a return trip someday!