Semester Vacay

Our area has two different school districts which equals different breaks. Josh does not have Fall Break like Zach and Ben do, but we pulled him out for our Washington trip. At the end of every January.

Josh has 2 days out of school, which happens to be during a time no one else is off, Last year we went up to Brian Head for a ski/snowboard trip for those two days he had off. This year we decided to do The Great Wolf Lodge since it's been on my bucket list for several years now because my brother and his family go there in Washington where they live and because I LOVE water parks!! We decided this would be a great local semester break vacation and save us some money on a big trip. In December we booked it when we saw a great sale. However, it's still pricey! I called the day before to ask if we could have an upgraded room that had a kid's room "log cabin" with bunk beds after Zach saw it on google images as he searched the Internet, I didn't want to disappoint him, and luckily I was given the room upgrade and didn't have to!!

My boys were so excited and I'm sure Faith was bummed she had to work and couldn't go with us to the Great 

Because it was semester break, there were 2 other families we knew there. Ben enjoyed playing with his buddy Jack who lives on our street while Josh hung out with his older brother.

We "adulted" and went on some water slides with our neighbors. Did I mention I LOVE water parks?

We had a blast the first day and then Zach got hurt...

When Sean took Zach to the Urgent Care, I took Josh and Ben to walk around the hotel and we ran into the mascot!

The toilet paper is how kids doctor a cut, and the butterfly is how the medic at the hotel doctored it. Zach was so freaked out about getting stitches, but we had to take him to the urgent care with how deep it was. Luckily they only, after seeing how upset Zach was and with Sean's asking, only steri-stripped it. No stitches, but sadly he could no longer go in the water....there went our vacation. But we still enjoyed the family time and the kids loved the cabin with bunk beds in our room. It really was a cute set up. And no matter what, family time really is the best time!

Girls Trip to Napa

One of my closest cancer friends from down in San Diego moved up to Napa for work, I know...rough place to move....

I knew her boyfriend was going back to his parents to quit smoking and get his act together, so I went up to visit her to ease the stress of that first weekend apart.

When I arrived on Friday morning we went grocery store shopping to cook and drink as much as possible at her house in order for us both to save a few Benjamins! Then we went out and spent them on lunch and wine at a cute little restaurant in downtown Napa called Noodles. We had to do the obligatory cheers/toast and selfie as soon as we got our drinks!

Hannah lived in walking distance to downtown which was great as we were able to walk places, although we chilled at her house a great deal. Look how cute her street is. The homes are from the early 1900's and absolutely adorable.

This is Hannah's house and it was so adorable!

Not much better on a girls weekend than sipping mimosas at home for breakfast while watching Dirty Dancing, one of my favorite movies on Saturday morning!!

Since Saturday was our wine tasting day, I ordered a beer at lunch. I'm not the biggest fan of wine (or alcohol in general), but I knew we'd get our share of wine this day, so beer it was!

And then onto Beringer, which I think was my mom's favorite when I was a kid. The grounds were beautiful and the best part was that since Hannah was a Napa resident, we each got one glass of wine to bring with us as we walked around their grounds.

Many selfies were take this weekend, how could we not when we were having a girls weekend!

Hannah and I together in front of Beringer before we left, to head a couple blocks away to Mumm.

Hannah has a membership to Mumm, so we got to taste for free (I believe it was a $33 value or so), and we ended up having way more than what was on the tasting menu (only 3 samples each) as Hannah knew to ask for the Carlos Santana samples, which gave us 2 extra glasses and then I over heard our waiter talking about a different wine that was on a different tasting menu, so I asked to try it. He brought it out and said we would not be able to get anymore as we had more than what was allowed!! SCORE, lol!!

Our view at Mumm, from our window seats. It was too cold that day to sit outside.

Our first 3 drinks from their "tasting menu"

I am definitely a lover of the sunset at the beach, but the Napa sunset was just as beautiful, only minus the water.

Saturday night Hannah and I walked to the local bar where we both had drink. The had something boring on the TV, so the bartender gave us the remote so we could find a better program! This town had such a small town feel, I loved it.

Sunday, game day...Hannah and I found ourselves back at Noodles to watch the game during their unlimited mimosa brunch! 

We took a group photo with some strangers we met at the bar while watching the Falcons and Patriots play. (All of us cheering for the patriots to lose, which sadly they didn't)!!

Flying home on Sunday night with great memories and a missed plane (too many mimosas at Brunch and I lost track of time), luckily Southwest let me catch the later flight which was only 40 minutes later! And then back to my beautiful family, but longing for another trip up to Napa, with either my girlfriends or my husband!

Fall Break Vacay

My children (now only the younger 2) get 2 weeks off for Fall Break which is usually the last week of October and first week of November. We decided in early August that since I would be finished with radiation in early October that we would take a Disney Cruise with our family and pull Josh out of school for that week and Faith off of her job to spend that time together celebrating and relaxing.

However, things did not go as planned. My insurance company felt that the life saving radiation I was prescribed to receive was not needed and was denied multiple times all of which we fought as hard as we could with my radiation oncologist. When I was finally approved for radiation we knew that I would finish too late to go on the cruise. So with saddened hearts we let our kids know that the cruise was not possible, but we still wanted them to do something fun. Sean found cheap flights up to Washington where my brother lives, so we decided to spend a few days with him. On November 1st, at 6am we flew out of Los Angeles. Now this was the day after Halloween and we had to leave our house at 2am in order to make it to the airport in time...which is why we got our tickets for so cheap. Only $70 per person for a round trip ticket on Spirit Airlines. Once we landed my brother Tyler picked us up and the fast, fun trip started!!

Since my brother and I are both bald right now, the first thing we did was a bald selfie together!! I must admit, my brother is seriously my best friend. There is no one who knows me better and I think it's because of our childhood as we both experienced the same things growing up,

First stop off the plane was Starbucks and not just any old Starbucks, but the first one ever built!!

 It was fairly crowded and many came to take photos. There was another one in view from this one if you wanted to get in and out, but this was something on our bucket list, so we did it!

They said they don't have room for all the fancy new machines, so they still make it the old fashioned way by hand, which was really cool to watch.

Two boys excited for hot chocolate. When Josh started Middle School, I took him to starbucks a few times to get real coffee, so that's what he had. Although he doesn't care for the taste of coffee, the sweetened blended drinks are what he gets.

 Watching them make coffee the old fashioned way. It was really neat.

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Had to take pictures of all the signs outside and inside!!

After Starbucks we walked to Pike's Market to see "fish fly, " which we did, but I didn't get a photo of that!

My kids enjoyed it, but not so much the smell. They were more excited to have their cousins join them!!

Fish and crab...everything seafood was at this market, but we didn't buy any of it!

My brother, Tyler, and I at the landmark pig at one entrance of Pike's Place and then the cousins took a photo there, just my 4 and then my family. Lots of photos and wild kids, so we moved onto something we thought they'd enjoy.....

 

we moved onto the underground gum wall. It was artsy and nasty all at the same time. We had to say don't touch several times, in fact!!

Faith had gum, so she put her's on the wall and marked in with a K for our last name!!

The gum wall didn't last long, so we moved onto the The Great Wheel of Seattle. I love Ferris Wheels (and Bridges), so this was awesome for me and something we didn't do the past few times in Seattle (because of the cost).

We could only have 8 in one car and there were 10 of us total, so my hubby and I got a very peaceful ride together. 

So I got several photos of them, a few selfies and the view!

The view was amazing!!

And then we were off to see another site, but this was only us girls. The men and kids went home. And we wanted to see the very first Nordstrom's, but it was impossible to park, so we drove around several times and I hopped out to get some close up photos, hoping one would say the original, but none did. I did do a little quick googling and saw that an Swedish immigrant opened it with a local Seattle shoemaker. It's a great story if you ever want to Google it.

 Seattle is such a fun town and we enjoyed seeing an actual season with colored leaves, as we don't get that much here in San Diego. And the last photo on this page sums up what I think of Seattle in a cute hippie flowered car with colorful fall leaves on the ground around it!