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Ok. So I messed up on Cameron’s summer camp schedule this week–we went to IAD expecting Kitty Camp to commence, but instead, the owner said, “Oh, is this Cameron’s new hip hop outfit?” and then it suddenly dawned on me–as I noted that big girls were in one dance studio and Teacher Melissa (the hip hop teacher) was in the other…and no sign of Briget’s car outside–that perhaps there was no kitty camp this week. Oh, and we also saw another mom we knew (to add to my embarrassment).

While processing my observations and connecting the dots, I asked, “Is…there…uh…kitty camp today?” and, of course, the answer was no!

Debra, the mom we know, helpfully said maybe Cameron could join the hip hop class with her daughter, but Cameron is 2 years younger than the minimum age for the group, so while the owner and Debra chatted, we quietly slunk away!

Well, I felt just awful. Poor Cameron was really looking forward to camp, not school (and, luckily, school has space for her for all but one day this week), so I decided I’d pick her up early today (Tuesday) so that we could join Dylan and Heather and her kids at the skating rink.

I tried to leave work early enough so that I could get Cameron before Chloe woke up from her nap, but alas, Chloe’s naps are already getting shorter and, when I walked in, she and Cameron were playing and holding hands with Julia.

I had to take them both! Not so bad, really, on the spending time with kids thing, but I knew it would be tough to skate (and I still have a pulled hamstring to boot) with both girls. How was I going to avoid dog-piling with them?

Heather is always a gigantic help, though, so while I marched along on tightened wheels with Chloe, Heather gamely took Cameron around. But, Cameron also attempted skating on her own!

And, fortunately, no more unlucky bone fractures for Dylan!

I didn’t have my camera — the lighting is terrible anyway — so these cameraphone pics are all I’ve got.

This hip hop camp was one of the cutest things ever. It ended last Thursday, but Cameron is still practicing her tripods (balancing her knees on bent elbows!), cartwheels, and her other hip hop dance moves!

The teacher was fantastic. She had the kids moving for pretty much 2-3 hours a day (with breaks for snack and lunch). Cameron said she sweat a lot, but she thought it was so much fun! Here’s her final dance performance plus some short clips of some of the things they learned in class.

Practice/rehearsal:


Intro:


Dance!

This year is Dylan’s first time joining SC Parks and Rec’s Camp Spot and he got to do it with Taliana! The best field trip in this session was sailing aboard the O’Neill Sea Odyssey where he learned lots about the ocean and got to captain the ship for a spell! He came home from camp with this picture in his folder! Such a nice surprise!

Well, we’re now at the end of Week 4 of summer and the big kids have been busy with their respective summer camps. Cameron has done 4 dance camps now, 3 ballet (Cinderella, Little Mermaid, and Swan Lake) as well as a Hip Hop one and she has absolutely loved them all!

Dylan started out his first week at an Lego’s Engineering camp where they motorized all sorts of really cool creations (robots, cars, helicopters) and learned a bit about physics, gears, gear ratios, thrust and torque and other things related to moving objects!

After that first week, he went to a 2-week session of Camp Spot where, among other things, he got to go on a boat called the O’Neill Sea Odyssey! Now he’s in a camp with K. called M is for Magical. I know very little of this camp, except that they seem to be making plenty of interesting art, since it is only 2 hours a day and Heather is kindly taking Dylan to and from camp. Dylan seems to be enjoying it, though!

In addition to camp, the kids are continuing with swimming. Dylan and Cameron made great gains this year. Dylan is advancing to Competition and Cameron is moving into Little Strokes (a couple of levels below Comp).

Chloe finished out her Music Together session a couple of weeks back, but we started her at Studio Sprout, a local art studio for little kids (Dylan and Cameron also used to do art there). She totally loves it! And because she copies everything her big sibs do, she’s a pro at many of the projects they’ve done so far: bubble art (she successfully blew through the straw to make the paint bubbly instead of sucking the paint/soap mixture in!); painting (of course), and using a glue stick. I know that last one sounds weird. And, admittedly, I was a bit surprised that some of the other little ones (the class ranges from 18 mos – 3 years) had trouble using their glue sticks. Chloe just went to town though! She also loves seeing the chickens in Rebecca’s garden! Since she watched some eggs hatch in the incubator at school, she now feels chickens are her favorite animal!

We are looking to start her in gymnastics starting next week. I’m really looking forward to this since I don’t really see her much. Since Cameron’s dance is on my way to work, I take her (and sometimes Dylan) while Tom takes Chloe to school. Cameron’s dance starts at 9am, so there is very little time in the morning to hang out and not much time after school/work either! And, our poor littlest one is away from us for the longest period of time. She is at school between 8:30 and 9 and there until close to 5:30 on most days!

I can tell she misses our Friday mornings together…I get amazing but clingy hugs in the mornings and evenings and requests to come with me when it’s time for Cameron and I to leave. I’ll look forward to spending a couple of mornings with her again!

So, the kids, of course, have not ceased to grow! Dylan just lost his first front tooth (top) last night and Chloe did a huge pee pee in her potty first thing in the morning (after waking me up at 4am with a request to go pee–she had already gone pee in her diaper, but this woke her up and she told me she needed to sit on the potty–and subsequently waking up dry later on!)

Anyway, there are many many pictures (huge backlog === hugely long post! Sorry!)! (Also, you can click on an image thumbnail to see the larger view and then navigate through the pictures using the arrow keys below the picture).

Got to spend ~4 days in Cabo San Lucas and got a wonderful taste of what I wish our retirement could look like! I’m super ready to spend significant amounts of time lounging by a pool with the kids (and margaritas and pina coladas). It was full-service, too.

We got the all-inclusive deal because we got a discount for being vegetarian(woot!) and we figured it would be worth it to be able to use the gym (which Tom did just about everyday) and have internet access (which I didn’t actually use much, but I think Tom made use of it playing his iPad games) and to not have to worry about preparing our own meals in the kitchen.

It was wellllll worth it! Everything was seriously over-priced, but since we were camping out at the resort and doing absolutely nothing of educational/cultural value, we would have spent way more if we paid as we went, and it was nice not to have to worry about nickel and diming everything. Kids enjoyed “no-booze” (as Dylan would say) margaritas — strawberry and mango — and I, especially, enjoyed plenty of margaritas and pina coladas.

I’d contacted the concierge before signing up for the deal, so the restaurants were aware we were vegan and made absolutely delicious custom dishes for us at every meal.

We spent most of the post-breakfast time at the pool where we thoroughly enjoyed ordering plenty of avocado sushi rolls (and other snacks) for lunch! After swim time, we cleaned up and got ready for evening festivities with the family.

The evening activities often had the kids sleeping late (and sleeping in a tiny bit the next morning), leaving some time for both Tom and I to squeeze a workout in before they woke up. He headed to the gym and I attempted to run around the resort and along the beach (it was still pretty hot even at 7am, so one morning, I opted to run on a treadmill in the air-conditioned comfort of the resort’s gym).

Anyway, some pictures…!

We had a ground-floor unit facing the ocean. This was fantastic!! As soon as Chloe woke up, she’d ask if we could go to the beach, take a walk or play in the sand (or all of the above!). Taking her for a walk out to the ocean and then around the resort became our daily ritual together!

Since Tom and I were both sacking out with the kids at night, we were both waking up pretty early. I loved opening up the curtains and watching the waves break while the sun rose. It was so peaceful and so amazing to have that time while the kids were still snoozing….

Chloe wanted to see this fountain every time we returned to the resort! The kids also loved seeing the koi and the turtles.

They were very loving when they were in a good mood!

All of the kids totally loved spending hours in the pool. This was Chloe’s first experience in the pool and she absolutely loved it! She will be ready for real swim lessons soon!

Behind these girls is the swim-up bar. Ok, miraculously, I lost weight on this trip! I attribute this to swimming to and from the swim-up bar (I also ran in-place in the pool while the kids swam around me).

Here’s Dylan, always the inventor, in his improvised pool lounger!

Full sun on my dear son’s face!! Surprisingly, no kids got sunburnt!

The pools were not heated!! So, the kids got pretty chilly, even with all of that aerobic activity swimming back and forth to the swim-up bar! So, we ate lunch by the deserted hot tub (there was another one lower down) and splashed around in there for a bit.

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On our second evening there, Dre and Christina had a hosted welcome reception at the Grand Solmar (sister resort right next door). But before we enjoyed some seriously boozed up drinks, we went to the wedding site and had the kids rehearse….Cameron was actually late because she was throwing a fit, but we talked Dylan through it and followed Chloe around.

Dylan was the ringbearer but because the coordinator was very confusing, he ended up missing his opportunity to walk down the aisle! Poor guy was so disappointed.

Auntie Christina and her friends are party animals. No joke. Booze flowed freely at the reception.

About 70 friends and family came for the ceremony.

We normally don’t let our kids drink so much crap, but this was vacation and a special occasion, so they sucked that stuff down while they could. Yeesh.

One Cameron and Tom found us and the kids had some drinks, we took Cameron over to the wedding site to explain her flower girl duties.

She had been totally looking forward to this for months, so she was ready. She did a great job, too! Chloe, on the other hand, refused to march. I had to swing her down the aisle.

Every morning, we met my parents for breakfast.

There were three main pools at the resort and we tried them all! This was the third one and the least populated.

The day before the ceremony, Cindy and her family finally arrived! Our kids were super excited to see their cousins!

The next group activity (the day before the ceremony) was a dinner cruise. Of course, Tom and I thought this would be a quiet and pleasant little jaunt out to the famous Cabo Arches and back. We were foolish because, of course, Cabo is a total party place! The boat had a bar, a DJ and a bunch of singing and dancing serving crew! It was fun for a bit, but Dylan’s ear started hurting, Cameron fell asleep and Chloe was way overwhelmed by the noise. Luckily, we stayed downstairs. Up above us, all sorts of grown-up partying was happening which (as videos from Christina’s friends attested to) were definitely not so kid-friendly!

This is indeed pretty. I’m proud to say Santa Cruz has some natural bridges (errr, ok, only one is left!) of its own!

Yes, Dylan can swim without a floatie–he’s currently working on butterfly stroke in swim class–but he still has fun playing in a floaty and racing Cameron.

Kids loved being all fancy for the ceremony!

The gentleman on the left side of the frame, by the way, is Dre’s twin brother, Anthony!

We got our hair and make-up done for the wedding. I chose french braids because I thought Cameron would get a kick out of it. My mom had other plans for my head, but when she heard Cameron’s name, she managed to squeeze an appointment in for her. I had to run down to the pool to grab her and bring her back. Luckily, I was still in fairly good running shape. I made it back in 5 minutes and didn’t even break a sweat (despite 90+F heat and humidity and the uphill journey).

Cameron enjoyed it so much, she asked me if we could go to the salon right after she woke up the next morning (where’d I get this girly-girl??).

Before we left for home, we stopped by Cindy’s amazing suite (the Presidential Suite at the Grand Solmar). It was amazing–3 bathrooms, 2 bedrooms, with a kitchen and TV that were bigger than our’s back in Santa Cruz!.

They paid for part of the room on trade (from MMagazine), but still, this thing must have cost a pretty penny!

We left for the airport right after leaving Cindy’s room! The journey back was pretty exhausting. We actually had to grab our bags from baggage claim and re-check them once we arrived at LAX. Then, our flight, which was already going to get us into SJ at 9:20pm on a school night, was delayed about an hour!! The plane also had only 2-seats on each side of the aisle and while we were able to get 3 seats together for me and the girls, Cameron refused to sit next to the very nice lady (who kept trying to smile reassuringly at her) in the seat across from the aisle from me. Chloe refused to sit in her own seat and buckle up, so luckily, the flight attendant allowed Chloe to sit on my lap–two problems solved; Cameron could sit next to me and Chloe could sit in my lap.

Of course, since we were leaving at 10:30 at night, the kids were tired. Cameron and Chloe both sacked out–I spent the entire flight trying to figure out how we were going to get our bags and our car.

Dylan really stepped up to the plate, though! He knew he would have to walk out of the plane (Tom briefed him) so he rested, but actually stayed awake! Once we landed, he helped with the hand-carry, I carried Chloe and Tom carried Cameron.

Tom helped me pull luggage off the carousel and then my mom helped me plop them just outside the door before she and Mike left for their shuttle. While I waited with Chloe, Tom carried Cameron and took Dylan to get the car in long-term parking. Luckily, Tom was able to find a spot near where Chloe and I waited (where I inched our luggage closer and closer to the curb!). It was a very long night. We let Dylan sleep in the next morning and took him into school late. Now, we’re back to business as usual with fond memories of a pretty swank vacay. Will probably be a very long time before the next trip like this!!

This li’l one spends a lot of time waiting for one sibling or another! This time (Saturday), she was waiting for Cameron to finish her dance class! Note that she, too, had to don a tutu!!

The girl love her flip flops these days (and the new sandals Lola got for her).

We also went to story time that day. This one was at the Garfield Park branch which is in an old home and the story time room is teeeeeeeny tiny. There was no room for me to fit, so I asked Chloe if she wanted to sit with Cameron (affirmative), and there they say, arms around each other!