Monday morning started out with us trying out a free trial class at an almost-opened language school super close to us - Karis Academy. It was a Mommy and Me class for 18 month-3 year olds and I figured it wouldn't hurt to try it out. Tyler happily sat on the side playing on the iPad while Katelyn and I learned some Chinese. There were so many different props that the teacher took out for the kids! Totally coincidental, but the director of the program - Wendy Lee - and I actually knew each other from a playdate years ago when Tyler was only 4 months! She's friends with our old neighbor Roger. I don't remember how the playdate went but it must not have been that great if we never hung out again afterward, haha! Besides, how does a 4 month old even really enjoy a playdate?
Video of KK fan dancing:
Afterward we headed over to Stowe Park in Woodbury to meet up with some of Tyler's friends. Jordan lives down the street so they walked over and Janet came with Lucas/Mason as well. Christine was running late with her kids so the kids enjoyed the park for a bit first. Katelyn even helped with a wagon ride around the park!
Tyler and Jordan always have fun whenever they play together - which is a lot!
When Christine got there, we got down to business. We all brought some filled eggs (even though Easter had already passed) and spread them out on the open lawn next to the park. There was very little hiding going on. The kids were very excited!
And they're off!
My kids hadn't had much of an Easter Egg hunt this year since 1) Woodbury East's hunt was lame since there weren't enough eggs put out and 2) we were too lazy to take them to an actual one. So when Bonnie had this idea for our playdate I was totally on board. Katelyn was TOTALLY into it.
Video of the post-Easter egg hunt:
Janet had to leave after a bit but then we headed over to Bonnie's house when Katelyn adamantly announced she needed to pee. Worked out perfectly where the kids got to get out some last minute energy, and I picked up Bonnie's Legoland passes to borrow. We also brought home Jordan's beta fish Pujols to fish-sit while they were in New York later on that week.
Tuesday - Legoland! We originally were going with Tyler's friend Kobi but his little sister got sick and they had to cancel. Awww. Linda (Kobi's mom) had invited another one of their friends to go with us as well (Nevan) but they were tentative since his mom Susy is really busy with work. Didn't know for sure until that morning that they would be able to join us! They have season passes though, so it wasn't too big a deal for them. I haven't took Tyler since he turned 5 last Summer! The ride down was nice and easy and no traffic, and Susy and I got to chat and get to know each other. She cracks me up and loves to drink. Perfect combination! Tyler was stoked that Nevan was coming too. Weirdly, they weren't interested in going on too many rides. The few that we went on I almost felt like we had to twist their arm! Tyler wasn't tall enough to ride on this airplane one himself and the attendant wouldn't let Nevan be his 'adult' so I had to ride. Didn't mind!
Next was the Lego boats - the boys got to ride together this time and Susy and I watched and chatted on the side. They are so silly. Nevan is almost a whole year older than Tyler - he'll be turning 7 in September while Tyler just turns 6 in July. They're both in the same kindergarten class.
Next: the Dragon mini rollercoaster! Had to really twist Tyler's arm to get him to go on this. It wasn't even very fast at all!
The boys rode this plane ride and Tyler wasn't too happy about sitting in the back. Awww. I should have realized that since Nevan drove the boat that Tyler should have had a chance to do this. Oops. Then they played forever in the ball shooting pit and we waited in a long line for their Indiana-Jones-like shooting ride.
I think they spent the majority of their time that day playing Kinect (skiing and rowing a boat?) and playing with Hero Factory figures. Hey, whatever they want to do is fine with us!
Lastly we watched a 4D Lego Chima show. Very entertaining! Was excited that there was a big Chima guy to take photos with. We hit the road a little after 2pm and were home by 3pm - smooth easy traffic! I was pretty exhausted and wasn't in the mood to take Tyler to Kumon so he totally got the day off. Lucky him!
Wednesday morning I took the kids to a different park for a playdate with my friend Janet and her son Lucas. We had gone to a birthday party here a few weeks ago and it was a nice change of pace from the usual playdates at Cypress Village. Having Katelyn there sure was a handful - she can be so demanding!
Afterward, instead of my planned Costco run, I took the kids to Spectrum to run some errands and we enjoyed a yummy dim sum lunch at Capitol Seafood. They love the dimsum here!
Thursday morning I dropped off Katelyn at ICDC and then took Tyler to Cypress Village park (again!) for a playdate with some of his school friends. One of the moms we had bumped into the week before at the same park (one of Tyler's school friends' mom) got a bunch of us together that weren't traveling for Spring Break for this playdate. It was Tyler, Nevan, Kobi and Joshua. As luck would have it, we bumped into another group of moms at the park that morning too! I knew a couple of the moms a little bit - Patti's son Ethan was on the same soccer team as Tyler last season. We chatted a bit with them but then kind of separated into our own little group and their little group a couple tables down. The kids all played together great though. I realized how much easier it was to NOT have Katelyn there, especially while I watched Kobi's little sister Tiffany totally monopolize Linda's time. I was so happy that Katelyn was at ICDC that morning, haha!
The playdate naturally ended around 1:10pm (we met at 10:30am) and instead of doing a Costco run (again!), I headed over with Tyler back to Karis Academy. They had a free trial class of their Kindergarten Chinese class (ages 4-6) at 1:15pm. How perfect timing was that? Especially since the school is right across the street from the park we were just at? Tyler was NOT happy about it. Bumped into an old high school acquaintance Emily who's son Enzo was trying out the class too. Small world!
By the time the class ended and I hit up Costco (finally!) I was too tired to even think about taking Katelyn to her weekly ballet class. Especially since all 3 of her friends in that class were out of town and wouldn't be there. They had an Easter Egg hunt that day at ICDC (they're behind too!) and Katelyn came home with another bag of filled Easter eggs. Her teacher told me that they had hidden one golden egg among all the eggs and told the kids about it. When it came time to search for eggs, apparently (according to her teacher Tiffany) Katelyn was focused and only wanted to find the golden egg. And she did! She loves that egg. Which reminds me, Tyler had gotten a really fancy plastic egg at the hunt on Monday - it was plastic but looked kind of like it was crystallized? Really large and yellow. He has been treating that egg like a little baby and told me that it needed to take a bath once a week and even wrapped it up in a blanket to sleep next to him at night. Odd...? Here's Katelyn proudly showing me her golden egg.
Friday morning we headed over to Heritage Park library for their toddler storytime at 10am. Super cute! I met up with my new friend Debbie who has a son Matt who was in Katelyn's Chinese preschool. She's 29 and seems to be exactly 3 years behind of me. She has a little almost 1 year old girl at home! Super sweet, but lives in Turtle Ridge which is SUPER far. The little kids enjoyed storytime and then we walked around the lake and headed to the playground. The kids played a good while before we headed home for naps.
Friday night I met up with some of the Woodbury moms for dinner and drinks at BJs that night. It was with Susy, Lena, Carol and Saranya. No picture, gasp! Had a great time. We were there from 7pm to almost midnight. No idea how we chatted and drank for that long. Totally kept the drinking in check though, since I drove myself and Susy. Next time we'll really have to let loose, haha!
Saturday morning, tired, feeling the effects of staying out late the night before. I took Katelyn to a preschool (3-5 years) free trial Chinese class at Karis Academy. They're free, I can't help it! She wasn't feeling it as much I think, and didn't like to have to share. Katelyn had a couple of kids in there with her that I knew the moms of: Grayson (mom is Anne, went to ICDC with Katelyn but recently switched schools), Ben (mom is Theresa, who's older daughter Celia was in preschool with Tyler) and Kenzie (mom is Emily, the high school acquaintance I had just bumped into earlier in the week).
It was also the Grand Opening for the school and there were lots of crafts / food / and balloons. Katelyn hung out with Grayson and also got a butterfly hand painting.
We left around noon and met up with Will and Tyler at a nearby driving range - Oak Creek golf club. Super cute to see Tyler hitting some balls (missing most of them though) with his new little golf glove. Need to encourage this more for Will and Tyler. Good daddy-son bonding time!
Katelyn even got in a few strokes. Just kidding. She's even holding the putter the wrong way.
We wanted to go to our favorite Chinese place (101 Noodle Express) that night for dinner but they were closed! As a result we went next door where the food wasn't bad - just different. The waitress actually recognized me from my gym. I thought she looked familiar but couldn't place her.
Knowing there were a lot of fun activities planned in the upcoming days/week, Tyler happily did his Kumon. Amazing!
That evening my friend Jen, and Mariam / Vince came over for game night. With drinking. I usually can go drink for drink with Mariam no problem but something that day was off. Totally overdid it, but somehow still managed to win the card game we were playing (go figure!).
Can't believe how late we were up - til almost 3am! Ahhh, to be young and childless and have this energy! Will and I really paid for it the next day when we were super groggy and tired. But by 1030am we were at the Garners again, ready to help them set up for Kaden's 6th birthday party. It was SO cute and well decorated when we got there - carnival theme - super fun!
The Garners are such close friends of ours that I happily volunteered to make a banner for the party. Not bad for my second ever banner, eh?
The kids were very excited about the rented popcorn and cotton candy machine. Even I ate a lot of freshly popped popcorn!
The Garner and Chang kids - friends for life!
The backyard was set up with a row of carnival games. So many different fun easy games, with a parent manning each one for the kids. There was even a bucket of small prizes at each station for the kids to win. The kids LOVED IT.
Video of KK playing the carnival game:
Lunch time!
Cake time! Tyler was excited to see his friend Sutton, who went to preschool with the boys but doesn't live in Irvine so they don't get to see him too much anymore.
Video of the birthday boy and his buddies:
Katelyn was all about the cake. Gives cake-pop a whole new meaning.
The moms! Our original drama free group of friends. :)
The boys were caught playing some sort of cops and robbers game. Here Tyler is the police officer and had caught Sutton. They put fake handcuffs on him and lead him to jail upstairs.
All the kids were inside playing but Katelyn was still outside enjoying the carnival games. The kids all brought home TONS of little prizes.
Hanging with her favorite uncle Stacy. She was getting tired by now and wanted a comfy place to relax.
Drums anyone? So loud. We will never have one of these at our home - I'd go crazy!
Whew! What a party! We had plans later that afternoon so I had wanted to get the kids home to nap earlier. Didn't happen. We left around 2:30pm and I was really worried since Katelyn was SO tired and we were supposed to be at a friend's place at 4pm. The kids both knocked out quick in the car and we let them nap there until 4pm. Katelyn wasn't too happy about being woken up and took some time warming up. We had dinner at my friend Connie's place. She has a boy and girl that are Tyler and Katelyn's age. Also there were their good friends that we kind of knew too, and some other people too. The kids all played happily together and the adults enjoyed hanging out and drinking. My kind of get together! :)
Headed home around 9pm and by then we were ALL exhausted and tired. Crazy weekend but super fun. Makes me thankful of all the wonderful friends we have in our lives. And also reminds me that we don't need to be friends with those that are annoying, tacky, gawdy, etc. Sorry, had to add that in - there's a mom acquaintance that has been really driving me nuts lately. Can't stand people who look down on others just because they don't spend money frivolously!
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