California Recap - Disney California Adventure

Okay, maybe we are bad parents, but we totally went to a Disney park without our kids and we have no intention of telling them we went!  It was so nice to ride what we wanted, when we wanted and move through the park at our own place. I felt a little guilty about being there without the kids - but only for about five minutes.

 

California Recap - Graduation Day

Thursday was the big day - the reason Duane and I flew to California - TARYN'S GRADUATION!!!!

Cheryl and Taryn told us to look for this giant donut on the way to the school. Which, of course, meant Duane and I had to stop and get a donut AT the giant donut on the way to the school

Beegee, Zack and Duane waiting for the ceremony to start

Check out the valedictorian

There's our girl!!!

Okay, the picture is from kind of far away, but that's Taryn giving a wonderful speech. It was sweet, contained Disney quotes and, she remembered to speak slowly and clearly, so we could all understand her despite the feedback/echo from the speaker system

Love that girl!

So proud!

Siblings

After the ceremony we headed down to Redondo Beach for a celebratory lunch. We ate at a cool and funky seafood market/restaurant called Captain Kidd's. It was delicious!

Pick your lunch

This one was trying to escape

After lunch we walked along the beach

Does this look like something out of the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movie? Because it should! They did some filming here

Can't keep the boys of all ages off the rocks

A sea lion hanging out

 

Then we headed back to Cheryl's place for delicious cake, to visit and to pet her cats. Hey, I'm a cat person. I was going through withdrawal!

California Recap - Santa Monica

Wednesday morning we left Ohio and headed out to California to visit with Cheryl and her family and celebrate Taryn's graduation.  We arrived in CA at 9:00 in the morning Pacific time, so Duane and I took the rental car and headed up the coast a bit to Santa Monica.

The Santa Monica Pier - the first ocean I've seen in nearly 8 years!

Cool dragon along the walkway

A bit of Muscle Beach with the pier in the background

We ate lunch at a fabulous Mexican restaurant called "Casa Martin" - this was the view back to the beach from the restaurant

Blindingly white feet in the ICY Pacific Ocean

Palisades Park

We also took in a farmer's market before heading to Torrance to our hotel. The produce at the market looked amazing and it took all my willpower not to buy buy buy!

We met Cheryl, Taryn, Zack and Beegee for some fast food sushi for dinner that night. Yes, I know fast food sushi may sound weird, but it was quite good - and the company was fabulous!

Not Me Monday

Welcome to Not Me! Monday! This blog carnival was created by MckMama.

I did not spend several minutes looking all over for my sunglasses, only to realize that I was wearing them. And I certainly didn't suddenly feel very old upon discovering their secret hiding place.

I did not bribe the boys with the promise of ice cream to get them to eat their dinner - but even if I did, I didn't make the bribe conditional on Ryan using one of his Easter "free ice cream" coupons so it wouldn't officially be my idea.

I did not see the neighbors dog lying in the street and immediately assume she was dead. And even if that was my assumption, I know I didn't jump out of my car (I had been coming home) and sprint over to her, only for her to wake up from sunbathing and yawn at me. And I certainly didn't scold the dog for darn near giving me a heart attack.

I did not make Ryan stay at school for the rest of the morning (and part of the afternoon) after his Kindergarten graduation instead of being a nice mom and signing him out early just because I had to go back to the school in the afternoon for Wesley's awards. 

I did not agree to an outing with our neighbors, only to remember after they left that the date in question would be while Duane and I are out of town. And I certainly wasn't so embarrassed about my mistake that I made Duane go over to reschedule instead of doing it myself. 

Graduations Galore!

Sometimes little things really bring home the fact that Duane and I were 30-something parents instead of 20-something parents. I wouldn't change a thing about my relationship with Duane unless it would be that we would have found each other earlier.  One thing that really brings that home is the fact so many of our friends/family who are our age having children graduating high school this year. We're celebrating the accomplishments of no less than 5 graduates that we know or are related to.

Yesterday we went to two graduation parties - one for the daughter of Duane's cousin and one for the son of some good friends. Despite the fact that we were gone from home from about 1:30 until about 8:00, the boys did really well and seemed to have a great time.

Seeing the boys at the two parties made me very aware of the differences in their personalities. At the first party, the boys didn't really know anyone well and there were no kids their age. Wesley sat a table most of the time and looked at his books. He did jump on the trampoline for about 2 minutes, but he was very content to be amongst the adults and keep himself busy. Ryan saw croquet and badminton and kickball and was perfectly content.  By the end of our time there, he was hanging out with a group of kids who were 5-8 years older than him and had made friends with the cats a the house.

Duane giving Ryan some croquet pointers

At the second party, there were a lot more kids close to the boys' age - and it was at a park. Wesley quickly made friends with a boy his age, but they kind of picked on Ryan a little. Ryan wound up hanging around the shelter house with one child in particular. Our friend (the dad of this family) is a scout leader, so he kept one of his sons and Ryan pretty busy with knots, chopping wood for the fire and stuff like that.

Our friend demonstrating a few knots to Ryan

Ryan was ready to try some of those knots on his own

"Knot" bad

Chopping some wood for the fire

Tending the fire - okay, really he was poking at the fire with a stick, but when you're five that totally counts as tending it.

Wesley got some camera pointers from Rusty and is well on his way to his photography beltloop

Ready to shoot

The graduation guy! 

Walrus Ryan

No parties on the docket today, but we do have a little surprise planned for the boys - with the help of Grandma and Grandpa P. I think they'll like it!