Congratulations Priya

I met Priya through Pam, who was one of her college roommates. And I lived with Priya in San Diego and remember sometimes when it felt like the three of us were inseparable. Priya and I spent a crazy fun and memorable 4th of July together in 2014 that we still reminisce over. She is a very impressive person. After getting a bioengineering degree and working in the field for years, she felt unsure and never confident in the area of finance, so she went to business school in Chicago and now works in investment banking. And, she is a selfless and kind person, and her generosity is truly unmatched.

(I swear going into the photo archives is sometimes so painful, but it's all in the name of memories! And the majority of these are from Vegas haha!)

Vegas Strip

Bar Basic!

Strawberry Fields, NYC

New York, New York hotel (Vegas)

Paris Hotel, Vegas

Central Park, NYC

Chicago (with Pam & Pearo)

Albatross, San Diego

Chicago

San Diego

 It was such an honor to go celebrate her this past weekend up in Silicon Valley for her wedding. Plus, it was a chance to see so many people again and all in one place, since so many of them live up there and AJ and I still haven't exactly made it up to the Bay Area in all these years.

Welcome dinner night

We stayed up until 4am!!! Part of that
was due to Jacqueline and some Estonian
girl. But here I am around 3am with Rob's
bowtie on

It was our first time both away from Sophie overnight so that was weird, but the entire turnaround time of the weekend was so quick, it flew by anyway.

My Second Mother's Day

I got to experience my second Mother's Day yesterday and it was lovely. I got two beautiful bouquets of flowers, massage credit and gifts, and we had a great time at the Santa Ana Zoo and then dinner at North Italia where Sophie was 98% very well behaved and entertained! Poor baby did catch something pretty spicy and stuck her tongue out crying with her eyes watering. It was funny although sad, and sad although funny. It was more entertaining than her with a lemon. She was begging for the lemon slice on Debbie's plate so we finally gave it to her and decided to film it since we figured she'd have a great reaction but the joke was on us, she literally did not care and didn't make any face and just kept sucking on it lololol I guess she really is my daughter (I love lemons!)

Her face LOL

Sophie was getting way more into the zoo this time around which was fun... although perhaps a bit of a liability the way she now wants to climb up the posts and stick her hands through the gates. But she always voluntarily put on her sunglasses which was cute and always a win.

Oh we also went to a birthday party on Saturday. It was a good time and lots of kids for Sophie to play with (even though it's still mostly solo and parallel play) and spent most of the time in the pool so we didn't get many pictures, but this little sequence is cute to me!

And and and, last Thursday at French class during the craft time, Sophie gave herself half a Glasgow smile with the marker LOL

I love that she is my baby and I get to be her mother.

Big Bear and Disneyland

We had a crazy active weekend that has seriously left me and AJ incapacitated today, although we knew we were asking for us and couldn't say no to either plan. We had been planning for over a month to go to Disneyland to celebrate Luca's birthday yesterday, and when we had friends invite us to their cabin in Big Bear for the weekend, we couldn't say no. I had voted we leave late Saturday night but AJ insisted we could leave early Sunday morning and make it work. And we did... but we are dying inside today LOL.

Our friends's family had just bought a beautiful cabin in Big Bear and invited a group of us up to sorta break it in, and of course just get together. It was so beautiful, and so much fun. There were 4 families, and 2 of those families had just one kid, and the other two families each had three. That made for a grand total of 8 children... and only 1 boy! The cabin was 4 stories, we had so much space, every family had their own little suite, there was a hot tub and a huge game room, and a bonus room with a treadmill and air hockey and foosball tables and a sauna. The main dining room and living room had beautiful floor to ceiling windows with sweeping views of the mountains and a balcony slash deck the length of the back of the house.

It sure was a different experience doing this all with families... tag teaming watching the kids and taking turns getting a break, focusing on kid activities and getting so excited about bedtimes haha. While we sat out the visit to the Alpine Zoo since it fell in Sophie's bedtime, the three of us did venture down to the lake and the city for a little outing. (We visited the park that we always took Anana too in the winter... the memories were still all there and it definitely hurt a little). 

Watching all the kids get comfortable with each other and play together was so cute and heartwarming, one of the best parts of the trip.

We left early Sunday morning for Disneyland and I had been dreading that drive for awhile since it wasn't due to be Sophie's nap time or anything and we had a long drive down the mountain, but she did really well and ended up sleeping for a good chunk of it too.

Disneyland was such a good time with everyone, and Sophie was much more aware and interactive this time than last when we took her on her birthday in November. But... she was also more aware and interactive which made it pretty challenging. Disneyland isn't exactly the place where she gets to just go run around wherever she feels like. But, once we got onto the rides, she sure did seem to have a good time. She was very enthralled by everything that we were on and watched transfixed (even if occasionally she would tell us that she was "all done" in the middle of the ride). Her favorite, once again, was probably the Casey Jr. Train, assuming that didn't take second place to the slide in the Redwood Peak playground at California Adventure.

The day went by too fast, but AJ and I have been in tatters today, exhausted with sore legs and aching feet. We're getting too old!