Saturday, July 16, 2011

Venice Beach weekend!

Billy has had some work travel lately and the kids are finally to a point where we can have fun on some of these excursions so we've been tagging along. Last weekend he had an event in LA and had a room in venice beach overlooking the boardwalk. We had a blast! This is a photo from the famous rooftop bar at the Hotel Erwin where we stayed. Totally not appropriate for kids but of course they didn't mention this to me on either of the 2 phone calls I made when making a reservation for Saturday sunset. Very swanky place of course, we made the most of it and had a couple drinks anyways, just enough time to get the full experience and to allow Kai to flirt with every overdressed beautiful lady in the place. Daila on the other hand enjoyed looking out at the ocean on one side and the LA skyline on the other. She seemed to be soaking it all in and making notes that I'm sure someday with come into play when she takes over the world :)



Mama and kiddies!



Daddy and Kai Boy, always laughing and joking around. Kai definitly gets his disposition from Billy :)



LA Girl :)



kai trying to look tough for the ladies.



Raging on the balcony of our room. Of course this was an area of concern for me being on the 6th floor so in total paranoid mama mode I moved all of the patio furniture off of the balcony and into the room :)



Moments before their infamous room breakout. They've been telling the story all week to everyone. it may be one of the first "situations" they will be able to recall later in life. So as the story goes: I got up to slide the room service tray out into the hallway when we were done with it. During this moment kai snuck behind me and ran out into the hallway! After hearing me try to koax him back in Daila got up to see what was going on. next thing you know they are both running down the hallway in their jammies. i had to run after them letting go of the door I was holding open, of course I didn't have a khe ey with me. Once I caught up to them they were so confused as to why we were heading down to the elevator instead of back to the room. I explained that we didn't have a key to get in. Even though this is a swanky hotel the one flaw is there is only one elevator to service the whole hotel and it happens to have the best nightclub in all of Venice on the roof. Therefore we had to wait forever for it to come and then be jampacked in with a bunch of LA dressed to the nines clubbers. Too funny. Kai, being Mr. Social, took it upon himself to explain to everyone in the elevator what had happened. Then once we got down to the lobby he got to tell his story again to all of the desk attendants and lobby full of clubbers waiting to get in the next elevator. After it was all said and done they were rewarded with 2 shiny pinwheels and new buckets and sand shovels to take to the beach the next day. it was really nice of the hotel staff, but pretty much canceled out the point that they did something wrong. Sometimes you just can't win. Well, at least we got a good story out of it!



Kai standing at attention after telling Dada what happened AND having to tell him he also broke the camera the night before. Thankfully we got it to work again obviously, but only after bending the lense casing all up to get it to work :(



The next day on Venice beach. New sand buckets in action.



Kickin' it on the boardwalk.




The next day we met up with friends Annette and Woody who live nearby for lunch. We had a great weekend but by that time the kids were beat. Daila fell asleep in the booth at the restaurant and Kai was about to fall asleep under the table. Needless to say they slept well on the way home :)


Friday, July 8, 2011

Ohio!

The first day we got there it was my niece Ambers highschool graduation party. Kai and Daila were so excited to see their cousins and get to g to a party. They love parties and had been looking at the invitation we got in the mail for it a week before we left. They had a blast! Here they are with their cousins Taylor, Clayton and Joey.



Having cake inside in the AC with Taylor. It was so hot that day...



Kai thought it would be fun to go into the dogs cage and pretend to be a dog. Joey and Daila thought it was a great idea too and decided to join him!



We went to a few little league games while we were there. This was from Joeys wee-ball game. So cute seeing little 3 and 4 yr olds playing together!





Mimi and Daila went for a morning stroll down to the garden. Daila was very interested in all of the plants :)





We made a stop at the Mansfield Carousel again. Kai and Daila remembered doing this from the year before, this is going to have to be a stop we make now everytime we visit. They love it and even remembered which animals they wanted toride. We also went to Coney Island another Mansfield landmark. This restaurant has been in business since the 1940's and now they have 2 in downtown Mansfield. Papa use to go there when he was a kid! Kai and Daila had their first ever big kid hotdogs that day complete with a bun. It was a really big deal to them!





Kai riding "the Tiger" his favorite carousel animal.





Patiently waiting to get on!





The last night we were there we had a campfire down at the lake. So fun having all of the kids together to run around and play.



Daila, Sid, Joey, Clayton and Kai on the bridge.





Daila, Billy, Joey, Clayton, Kai and Sid in front of Papa's windmill. This is something else they vividly remembered from last years visit. Everytime we would ride up the hill on the golfcart as soon as they see it they yell "Papa's windmill! He built it all by himself!"





Mimi, Daila, myself and Caddy-Lou. Daila and kai chased her all over while we were there. Something tells me she resting much easier now :)