Too much fun!

I am so lucky.


First of all, I have a job.  Second, I like my job (often love, but this year's a little...different).  And third, my job give me some great vacation time.  Like the three weeks I just finished off...bliss!


The first two weeks felt as if they were already filled with the flurry of Christmas preparations, the late night wrapping, the ripping of paper, the clean up of paper, followed by the frenzy of family, and finally the reality of the clean up.


But after all was said and done, we still had a good amount of time left, and we wanted to have some fun. Though neither of us is thrilled that Chase is still out of work, we like to make the best of things.

We had a gorgeous day spent at Irvine Park and the OC Zoo, which is such a fantastic little zoo! At the petting zoo, the kids were brushing goats.  All three of them brought their cameras along, so we were stopping rather frequently for pictures of everything.

We packed the camping bbq and had some hotdogs for our "snick nic" as Sarah dubbed the picnic.  The sun was shining, we played some catch (Caleb went easy on me) and rode on the swings.

The next day we visited Anaheim Stadium for a behind-the-scenes tour. The most exciting part for the kids was that Sarah got to go potty in the visiting team's shower room, in which only the players are allowed (when you're a potty training two-year old, they bend the rules a bit!)  Afterwards, we rode some rides at Knott's.

Wednesday we went ice skating, Caleb, Emma, and me, which was not so easy. Sarah wanted to so bad, so we got her all ready.  Two steps onto the ice and she was done. Thank goodness we had help! The kids had a hard time, but they were troopers and never complained or quit.

By then, I felt like I needed a vacation from my vacation! Emma and I had taken a trip to the library and found some good books, and I must say, I can't remember the last time I indulged in just reading for as long as I wanted! It was wonderful.

But, all good things must come to an end (or else we wouldn't savor them quite so sweetly). And so I've resumed my role at work.  And I'm okay with that (but man, oh, man, that alarm clock sure does go off early!)