Stage Mama (Part 1)

This past weekend was quite eventful. No I didn't have the pleasure of going to Comic Con...but, I did get to do other fun stuff!

After 12+ years, I got to go to a concert! I had purchased my ticket back in May for my Mother's Day gift. I went with a previous co-worker, shout-out to Crystal...



We first met up for dinner at Oggi's Pizza. It was happy hour in the bar, and everything was super cheap! :0) We had a couple of drinks...



And a couple of appetizers for dinner...



And then we headed to the concert. Gavin Degraw (I had no clue who he was) opened the show...



And then after an approximate 30 minute intermission, Maroon 5 came on stage. My friend and I had both been expecting Train to come out before Maroon 5, so I was a bit bummed. I had spent the next 10 minutes wondering if Train had not shown up. But then Marron 5 made reference to Train being in the house, so it was all good. My friend is a Maroon 5 FREAK, and so she was WAY more excited to see them. And while I am not passionate about any band at this point in my life, generally speaking, I was more looking forward to Train. But being there at the concert, I totally got wrapped up in the moment, and it truly was neat to be standing so close to the actual people that sing the songs on your radio. :0) We had GREAT seats! There were only about 15 rows of people in front of us. This is our view in front of us...



And this was the view behind us...



Maroon 5 played for over an hour, and then they came back out and did 3 more encore songs...



We then waited for another 30 minutes while Train set up their stage. By this point, I was so excited and anxious. I had been having such a great time, and I was thrilled that they had saved the best (in my opinion) for last. Fiiiiiinally, we heard the train whistle blowing, and the band started up. So.darn.thrilling.



Train was awesome. They played all of the songs I knew, they say for close to 2 hours, and they got the crowd involved on so many different occasions...



I have cool video of almost all of their songs, and it was super neat for me to be able to play it back for the kids in the morning.

It was a great night. It will probably be another 12 years before I go to a concert again, but it was fun to temporarily step outside of my "normal."



And theeeeeen, after having such a fun Friday night, I woke up on Saturday morning, and had a banana bread date with my Bea at Starbucks...



And even more exciting, is after that, Wyatt and I headed up to the O.C. to watch Marry Poppins on Broadway with my mom, my aunt, and my cousin...





Marry Poppins has been Wyatt's favorite Disney movie for quite some time. He loves music and dancing, and this performance was totally up his alley!



There were a few changes to the script...a few of the film songs were removed...a few theater songs were added...but generally speaking, the storyline remained the same. The character of "Bert" was INCREDIBLE, and the performance of the song, "Step in Time" was out of this world! The entire show captured Wyatt's attention from start to finish. He clapped after every song, and was beaming at the curtain call!

Souvenirs were definitely in order! I got a super cute pink "Practically Perfect" t-shirt, and Wyatt got...



After the show we all went out for dinner to Buca Di Beppo...



We enjoyed some fried calamari, a salad, delicious lasagna, and eggplant parmesan. For dessert, we had a GIGANTIC brownie sundae...





It was a supercalifragalistic weekend!

Ups and Downs

What a week! Just like my bathroom scale, this week had many ups and downs.

On Monday we did our standard routine, and I kept things pretty chill after the eventful weekend we had just had. I ran my standard 3 miles in the morning with the kids, we went swimming with Rick after that, and finally I am excited to report that I ran an additional 8 miles in the evening. That is my farthest post-marathon run. My friend Katie has re-joined her running club and last week she was telling me that they were going for a 10 mile run on Saturday. I was unexpectedly 100% genuinely jealous. I wanted to go for a long run. I had only completed a solo 6 mile run since the marathon, and the thought of running 10 miles seemed exciting. I haven't felt that long-run-runner's high in ages! I kept thinking about how I am never going to be able to do that again anytime soon. Now that I am not training for the marathon, I feel selfish asking peeps to watch the kids so I can go spend a couple of hours running. It seemed sad. But then I remembered that every-other Monday night I don't have Bible study, and every-other Monday night, instead of taking a class at the YMCA, I usually do independent exercises at the gym. So instead of doing my usual routine, I had the brilliant idea to hop on a treadmill and just see how long I could run. The childcare only lasts for 90 minutes now, and by the time you actually drop off your kids and pick them up, I really only have about 1 hour and 20 minutes of exercise time. But in that time, I was able to punch out just over 8 miles! It felt AMAZING! Just like "the old days" the first couple of miles were a bear to get through, but once I reached that groove I felt so strong. I definitely could have gone farther. And that was a good feeling to have! :0)

But Tuesday, my body was surely telling me that I hadn't done a long run in long time. My hips were bugging a bit, and my knees were chatting with me too. It was all very manageable, and it only lasted the one day, but I still found it interesting. I went back to the gym on Tuesday morning, and after the gym we were supposed to go visit my friend 2-B at her campsite in Jamul. But the roads were blocked off for a Border Patrol Agent's funeral. The kids were so bummed. :0( So instead, Rick and I took the littles to Chuck-E-Cheese. It was a great time, and God's plan was way better than the one I had! :0) Later that night a friend watched the kiddos, and I met up with my "Happy Hour" crew. My "Happy Hour" group consists of my mom and her 2 friends...and then the daughters of those 3 women. There are 3 older moms, and then 7 of us daughters. But unfortunately, 3 of the "daughters" live out of town, and rarely get to make it to "Happy Hour" gatherings. Prior to the daughters having kids of our own, we used to gather about every-other-month...but with every child we seemed to have, our gatherings came fewer and farther between. Now we get together about twice a year. :0( Anyhow, we had a great time on Tuesday night. My mom decided to put on a cooking class for us. She showed us how to make beautiful and TASTY bruchetta...





We learned how to make homemade Ricotta Cheese...



And then we built delicious salads for dinner...



Just the "Moms"...



Just the "daughters"...



Tuesday was a great day. :0)

Wednesday was another story. This was the day my daughter made me cry, lol. We played things very low key this day, and hung out at the house for the most part. But my Beatrice was just awful. She threw fit after fit after fit. I remained calm the entire day, and I followed up on discipline with each and every tantrum. But you know, it still gets to you. By the end of the evening I went in to the room where my husband was and I just burst into to tears. My daughter had defeated me. My husband was very sweet, and attempted to lift my spirits. I packed the kids up and then we headed to the gym. I have spin class on Wednesdays, and I had arrived at the gym a half hour early. I needed the break from my daughter. I put the kids in childcare and then I hopped on the exercise bike and gave minimal effort to fitness while I read my Bible. After 30 minutes of that, I went down to my spin class and ROCKED IT! I honestly don't think I have EVER sweat so much in my life. Seriously. I felt like a new woman. I picked the kids up from the childcare and we all had much better attitudes...just in time for bed time, LOL! :0)

On Thursday, I had to get started on my baking orders I had for Friday. And after that, we went to visit 2-B at her campsite. This time, our adventure was a success! They stay at Pio Pico campground, and it is SOOO much fun! They have all kinds of games to play...shuffle board, ping pong, basketball, horseshoes, volleyball, miniature golf, etc. They also have a couple of swimming pools, arcade/play room, organized craft sessions for the kids, and random boardgames, puzzles, and books you can checkout while you stay there. It's amazing. You can tent camp, RV camp, or you can even stay in one of their cabins. Very neat. I'm a huge fan...in case you couldn't tell. :0) After we spent a couple of hours there, we went over to my moms for a playdate with my sister and her littles. My sister had been given a bunch of cupcakes from a bakery, and she had requested that we get together to try them all. We sampled the cupcakes...







And the kids tested out Grammy's new slip-n-slide...





2 besties in a tub...





3 boys with bats, what could possibly go wrong!?...



On Friday, I finished up my baking orders. I had one order of lady bug cake pops for a 3 year old's birthday party...





And an order of 2 dozen cookies for a "tween's" birthday party...







After the baking was done...ironically, we jetted off to the dentist. :0) The kids and I had standard check-ups and it was Beatrice's first experience.









No cavities for this family! :0)

Miss Louisiana

Saturday was the night of our Beauty Pageant Murder Mystery Party. It was an incredibly good time! The game worked that we were all Beauty Pageant contestants (and a few of us were judges) fighting for the Miss America crown. In the story of the game, the actual Miss America competition would take place the next day, but we were all invited to a pre-pageant-dinner. At this dinner one of us would be the victim of murder, and one of us would be the murder. We got our roles well in advance, but no one was told who was going to be the victim or the criminal (including the victim and the criminal) until the crime took place. We had certain topics of conversation that we had to discuss with other pageant contestants, and we had (fake) money to bribe/blackmail others with. Some of the girls were fantastic actresses, and it was super neat to see everything unravel.

In the weeks leading up to the event I had borrowed a few dresses from friends for this occasion. I had put off trying the dresses on for a few days. But one morning I was feeling especially slim, and so I took the plunge and tried on all of the dresses. One friend loaned me two dresses...and they both fit great. However, when I went to take off the 2nd dress the zipper would NOT come undone! It was 6 o'clock in the morning and my husband would not be home for 2-1/2 more hours!!! I tried and tried and tried to take it off myself, but to no avail. My only other option was Wyatt. Yeah, that was pointless. :0( I began to panic. I mean REALLY panic. I was sweating, I was breathing funky, I just needed to get out of this dress! I finally gave in, and called who else, but my MOM! Mom to the rescue! That is the joy of having your mom live only 10 minutes away. She came right over and helped a sister (ahem, a daughter) out! She too tried everything...EV-RY-THING! We put Vaseline on the zipper, and KY on the zipper (LOL), but nothing would budge this zipper! Eventually I told her that we just needed to find a way to pull it up over my head. And as any girl would know, dresses that have a zipper in the back, are not supposed to be pulled up over your head! Luckily the dress wasn't tight on me, so there was a TAD bit of wiggle room. I was able to completely smoosh my lady parts and have my mom yank that dress up and over my body....FREEEEEEEDOM! I felt like Mel Gibson in the final moments of "Braveheart."

That incident had narrowed my options down to 3 viable dresses. However, of those 3, 1 of them was too small and I couldn't get it zipped up. I was NOT going to force it! Sigh. But I considered it a viable option becuase it was my very favorite, and I saw the potential that it maybe could fit in the near future if I stayed focused in the gym and on my diet. Except that didn't really happen. I worked out as usual, but this party was coming on the heals of "fun mommy" week...and "fun mommy" ate some fun treats.

But on the morning of the party, I decided to take a chance, and I had my husband help me into the dress, and much to my surprise, IT ZIPPED UP! It was TIGHT, but it zipped! This is one of those situations that I totally don't understand how, but in this case it worked in my favor, so I was just going to say "Thank you Lord" instead of questioning how I was able to get into it.

Because the dress was tight, and becuase I had a lot of things to do that day so I was not going to have time to exercise, I knew that I was going to have to be a real beauty pageant contestant for the rest of the day...a.k.a. starve myself, LOL! Up until the party all I had was a generic Target brand Slim Fast shake and a few carrot sticks. My efforts paid off and the dress still fit by the end of the day. :0)

Here are the girls all decked out...



Miss Louisiana in the house...



Miss Alaska, Miss California, and Miss Louisiana...



My sister Jenni had hosted a murder mystery party for us all a couple of years ago, and she was kind enough to provide all of the food, drinks, and everything else that went in to this event. This year however, she still put on an AMAZING party, but the food was more of a potluck style.

The appetizers were incredible. Someone brought fresh fruit with a delicious dip, Miss New Mexico brought an out-of-this-world corn/avocado/bean salsa with some pita chips, Miss New York had brought bite size pieces of rye bread with fresh ranch dip to dunk the bread into, and Miss Alaska had brought a yummy sea food salad to spread on crackers. Everything was SOOOO good! (Especially since all I had eaten all day was a Slim Fast shake and a few carrots, LOL)



Dinner was a mish-mash of all kinds of food! Miss Texas had brought some delicious BBQ ribs, Miss California had brought some pizzas, Miss Kentucky had brought some scalloped potatoes, Miss Louisiana had brought some chicken enchiladas and spanish rice, Miss Mississippi had brought an amazing brocoli salad, and there was even so much MORE! This picture does nothing for our eats, but none-the-less its the only photo I have...



Dessert was incredible! One of the judges had brought pink champagne cupcakes, Miss Idaho had brought an evil chocolate peanut butter brownie cake, and another judge had brought some mini eclairs and cream puffs...my fave!







And at the after, AFTER party when only 6 former beauty queens remained, Katie took a trip to the "famous" Peterson's donut shop, and brought back their huge donuts!





Fortunately for my scale, I was able to resist those!