Happy To Be Home

{Rewinding back to mid June ... right after we got back from our road trip.}


No one realizes how beautiful it is to travel until he comes home and rests his head on his old, familiar pillow. -Lin Yutang

It felt so good to be back home after a 14 day road trip. Although fun, it is always nice to come back to your own haven. I finished putting away all of my clothes and Riley's clothes too. I figured I'd better bet this done a.s.a.p. before I get lazy. I can't stand seeing things out of place.
It was a cloudy day ... so refreshing given how hot and humid it was back in San Diego. A cool 59 degree day with a cloudy sky was so welcomed plus it even rained. Yes!

This girl missed me. Cats have the funniest personalities and the most hilarious expressions. I sure love cats. I really want like four cats but I read that a litter box is needed per cat. I wouldn't want to deal with that. Sophie's funny. She loves to cuddle but she hates to BE cuddled. Like she doesn't mind if I rest my hand or foot on her but if I try to hold her she'll wiggle herself out of my arms. And she's strong and heavy too, so I just let her drop.

It was Jacob's Saturday to work right after we got back. Ugh! SO, I took my mom and sister to the farmer's market. I hadn't been to it yet and I was craving the chicken nachos so I figured I should take them. This was their last day with us. I'm sure they were also anxious to get back home.

Riley loves to hang out with my sister, Tia Claudia but he calls her Fo Cuaya. Don't know how he got that since it doesn't sound anything like Tia Claudia, lol!

Glad there's always a pizza truck at the farmer's market because I know for sure that Riley will eat that. I had the chicken nachos with lots of salsa and sour cream. It was so good. My mom and sister ate some and they both liked it. Just bummed that they don't have a restaurant that we can go to for whenever we're craving them.

We walked along the marina. Saw some people crabbing. I really really need to get one of those crabbing cages since I like to eat crab so much.

I took my mom and sister to the airport. I am so thankful and grateful for their selfless act of not minding to stay with Sydna and Nathan while we went on our road trip. Especially about cooking for them and hanging out together. Riley sure didn't want them to leave. Felt a bit sad because he didn't get to spend enough time with them since he traveled along with us.


The one thing that Riley missed the most when we were gone was not having his toys and being in his familiar surroundings. After about the third day on our trip he would tell us he wanted to go home so I know he was so happy to also be home and able to play with his toys and watch his shows.

Once a day, Sophie will give each of us kisses, well it's more like a nose kiss. If we try to do it more than once she wont kiss. Lol. Can't believe she remembers. What a brat!

Well the cloudy weather didn't last long once we got back. It began to warm up fast by the following week. The Monday after we got back was 85 degrees.

We took Riley to a park we had not been before. Here he is not wanting me to take his picture.

The park itself was nice. Sits right next to a lake and there's even a concession stand. Saw some kids swimming even. It was pretty big too. Although Riley enjoyed himself both Jacob and I didn't like the atmosphere. So I'm thinking we're not visiting again, lol.

Riley continues with his silly ways. He just comes up with some funny stuff all on his own. I believe my sister took this picture.

And this one too. She also bought him this stuffed Leonardo. He's so cute!

Trying to remember things from mid June is a bit hard especially since I was dealing with my pregnancy. Many days passed without me taking any pictures. We spent a lot of time at home, me just resting. Not much else happened.

Summer Activities

Mid summer already and we hadn't been to the farmer's market yet ... until a couple of weeks ago.

We got there a bit earlier than noon because this place attracts quite a bit of people.

Saw this monster of a dog. I think great danes are very cool but I would be a bit scared to own one because they are so enormous ... and having to walk this type of dog could most definitely be a disaster.

There are several flower stands and I happened to spot this pretty bouquet but we continued to walk. I thought, surely they will still be there after we ate.

This is what I was looking for during our visit. I've had their chicken nachos before and I loved them. I had been craving them for months since the only place I can get them at is here. This business doesn't have a restaurant, they just make their business at this farmers market. I wonder if they maybe go around different farmers market around the Seattle area throughout the year. Hmm, I should go back sometime soon and ask them because it would sure be nice to have loaded chicken nachos every now and then.

Delicious! and their lemonade is very refreshing.

Sydna got what I got. Jacob got a salmon po'boy and Nathan got this yummy looking pizza. Oh man, it took everything I had not to ask him for a slice ... cause you all know that pizza is my favorite food in the world!

Riley made friends with a little girl and they were running in circles around the tree but you see that low limb there? Well, the little girl was having such a good time that she failed to duck and she ended up hitting her head and running to her momma. Poor thing. That was the end of that.

After we were done eating, we walked around the stands again and I stopped at the flower one I had spotted those pretty bouquets at but they were all gone. Gasp! Horrible. So, we asked the guy if he could make me my own personal bouquet and he agreed. I chose red/orange dahlia's and white hydrangeas. He kept wanting to throw in some pink flowers and I kept saying no.

Isn't it pretty?!

Thank you so much husband. Love you!

There were several guys crab fishing and Jacob had spotted some in the water and was showing Riley. We saw one guy throw a crab back in the water and Jacob asked him why. He said that soft shell crabs are illegal to catch. ... Oh! We didn't know that.

After the farmer's market we drove to Tacoma.

We had been wanting to go to the Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium since we moved here and we finally did. We had decided earlier this year that once our membership to the other zoo {Woodland Park zoo} had expired that we would purchase the membership at Point Defiance. Jacob had the idea of buying tickets then if we liked it we would buy the membership.
The view was so pretty, so I thought surely the zoo would be awesome.

It was windy. I loved that but it was a very warm day so we walked over to the aquarium thinking that it would be cool in there. It was not. I couldn't believe it. I was dying in there. Sweating like crazy so I began searching for the exit sign and went outside where it was at least windy and cool if you stood in the shade.

The shark tank was pretty cool though.

There was an area where we thought it looped but when we got to the end of the trail we were devastated to realize that it was a dead end. Boy! I told Jacob that I almost collapsed from heat exhaustion and from despair. It was a hot day and this zoo was on a hill so you can imagine how tiring it was walking here on such a hot day. I was so discouraged.

At one point Jacob said, "there's supposed to be animals at the zoo right. Where are the animals?" Seriously, it felt like we had to walk a good distance in between animal exhibits. We compared this zoo to the Dallas Zoo. Aesthetically they are pleasing to the eye but when it comes to how many animals a zoo houses well, these two zoo's are at the bottom of our list. Even the Tucson zoo is better than these two.

Before we left we let Riley play in the children's section. After he was done climbing this rope web we were done.

Not buying membership at this zoo before we went inside was the smartest thing. We would have regretted it. Although we didn't care for it, Riley had a good time. That was the only thing that made it worthwhile. Seeing him having a good time on this warm day was worth every drop of sweat.
Needless to say, we wont be coming back. We will be buying the Woodland Park Zoo membership again. That zoo is nice and has a decent amount of animals plus, it's close to several parks and lots of restaurants.

Once we got home I immediately went upstairs to my bedroom to shower. Cannot stand being sweaty. After we've all had freshened up we enjoyed some cinnabon and watched my favorite show, A Haunting Of ....

It was such a nice ending to a long day.

Libby is a long hair cat. Since she's gotten older she really has lacked on giving herself a good grooming so the fur on her belly has become matted. I felt bad for her and I'm sure that couldn't feel good. The knots were probably pulling on her skin so I asked Jacob if he could shave her all over her belly and the backs of her hind legs. She had several big knots.
She didn't fuss or meowed. She didn't fight me as I held her. We kept talking to her, telling her sweet things. It wasn't until the end when Jacob was shaving behind her hind legs that she got impatient and began to freak out a little. She began to meow and squirm and as soon as Jacob was done with that last big knot we let her go.

I'm allergic to cats and because of the fur that was flying around I immediately began to sneeze and got a runny nose. I didn't dare touch my eyes because that would have been devastating. Even after I washed my hands and arms and rinsed my face and changed my top I still couldn't stop sneezing. My nose was all stuffy. I don't have any allergy pills because in all reality I don't ever get this bad. It wasn't until I was dozing off at night that I noticed my sneezing had stopped. Thankfully I woke up the next morning with no symptoms.


Lord,
Thankful for all that we get to enjoy and for continuing to be a strong knit family. May we always seek each other's company. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.

Recently

I've been a little tired.
For the last couple of days I've been waking up at 2:30 am. I don't know why the heck that's been happening. The worst part is that I can't fall back to sleep. Last night I was awake for 3.5 hours. So frustrating.

Riley has been sleeping in his room since we moved into the house. He's woken up several times in the middle of the night but has gotten a lot better ... and there are times when I do bring him into our bed but if he wakes up crying around midnight {which is too early} I just go to his room, comfort him and tell him to go back to sleep. He'll cry for a little bit but goes back to sleep fairly quickly. Last night he whined once but that was it. But he still naps during the day and that is a blessing. I treasure those 2-3 hours he's asleep.

The weather was in the mid to high 70's for all of last week.

Since Riley was born I've washed his clothes with ALL for baby. I still do but it wasn't until three weeks ago when I began adding a tiny bit of softener to his clothes and last week he began breaking out in hives. At first we didn't know what it was but we immediately ruled out a food allergy because given he's so picky he's got a very limited menu and he's eaten these foods since he began eating solids. So then we thought it was from being outside but thought it couldn't of been that because it would have happened before. So I kept thinking and thinking ... what could be causing these hives. I had mentioned this to my mother-in-law and she asked if it could be the new carpet or new detergent and that's when I realized that it had to be the softener. So I washed all the clothes that I had washed the last two times and used only the ALL baby detergent. Two days passed and sure enough no hives. Ah, what a relief!! It sucks that he's allergic to softener but it really is not that bad. I'm thankful that he doesn't have a food allergy where it could have been harmful.

This was during one of the times he broke out in hives. To relieve the itching and discomfort I would let him take long cool baths. That helped a lot and by the time I got him out of the water the hives would be gone. His silly face is proof he was feeling better.

He's a picky eater but this little boy LOVES oatmeal and oatmeal is good and good for you.

He was making me laugh on this one because he would look at me and still be coloring. It's funny when kids know when they are being cute.

I think it was Wednesday when we went on a walk around the neighborhood and park and it was such a warm cloudless day. I got hot and began sweating, ew! Time to go back to the house. Surprisingly I didn't get a headache.

Found one of the kids goggles. Riley wanted to try them on.

I unpacked more boxes and rearranged the garage. It looks a lot better now and more spacious. One of the boxes I unpacked had my old wine glasses inside. Boy, I can't believe I bought these. I no longer liked them. And look at the date on the newspaper, lol. These were packed for a long time. I'm surprised they didn't break from all the moves. I gave these away along with three full bags and a box to the Salvation Army.

I had been craving chinese food for a long time. Happy we found a chinese food restaurant we like and were I can go eat whenever I crave it. It's only mere minutes away. Riley ate a bean sprout and he immediately took it out of his mouth. He no longer wanted to eat his noodles. This kid.

Even though we limit his playtime it is still so annoying to me to see him engulfed playing his iPad.

Went to Ikea. Riley helped daddy load some boxes.

And hitched a ride on the cart.

We went back to the farmers market on Saturday afternoon. It was a gorgeous summer day. Partly cloudy and breezy.

I got chicken nachos with a berry lemonade again. Very tasty! The lemonade was super tasty and fresh.

Riley enjoying an orange,cream,mango hawaiian ice.
There was also a car show and a band playing. We love the atmosphere here and it's very enjoyable. Happy time.

Just wondering why there's not a beer garden at the farmers market. It would have been a much more relaxing experience.

Upon looking through boxes I also found several family pictures. This is Jacob's parents, my in-laws. The day they got married. The picture is quite faded. I love my MIL's dress. So pretty!

Jacob made me oatmeal, cranberry with white chocolate cookies. Jacob and the kids don't like them so he made a dozen chocolate chip cookies for them. The good thing is that my cookies will last more than a day.

We still watch Hotel Transylvania about every day. It's hard for me to picture Adam Sandler rapping. Too funny!

Libby is so annoying. We have a baby gate upstairs set up. At night this cat likes to go downstairs. She doesn't have a problem jumping over it to go downstairs but she can't climb it to come back up. So what she does is meow that low ugly annoying meow until someone gets up and opens the gate for her when she wants to stay upstairs.

On Sunday after church Jacob, me and Riley went to the mall and on our way there we saw smoke coming from the side of the road. Brush was burning. Good thing the firetruck was already there and putting it out.

I cannot believe August is almost over and we're a few weeks away from the 1st day of Fall. Summer flew by.
Living in WA has made me not hate summer anymore but as I've known all my life, summer continues to be my least favorite season.