"Dear California Driver"

I received this letter in the mail from the DMV's office. Yes, I admit, I have received 2 traffic violations within 4 months. Both of which were violations that were very specific to the neighborhood I was in, and not ones you see everywhere. Unless you live/drive there all the time, you really wouldn't know they existed. I know, I know, excuses, excuses. But still. In addition to over $300 in fines, they feel compelled to additionally reprimand me with this condescending letter? I felt as if I needed to go hide in a closet to read it, it was almost that humiliating. Good grief California. This soap box is one I'd rather not pay for in postage with my tax dollars. Go preach to someone else!

My absolute favorite quotes from this letter are:

1) "We understand that you may believe you are a good driver" TRANSLATION: You are the worst driver on the planet and don't even know it.

2) "You can choose to prevent further action from DMV by avoiding additional traffic convictions and by not causing any crashes." In my defense, I did not cause ANY crashes in my apparent "lapse in driving judgment". I made a wrong left turn out of a freaking Home Depot parking lot and I switched lanes on an empty roadway when I wasn't supposed to. These are apparently CRASH CAUSING offenses. Who knew.

3) "If you choose to continue your unsafe driving..." Am I 16 years old?

4) "We hope that you will decide to change, but the choice is yours."

I am awaiting my "12 step program for bad drivers" letter from the DMV next. Because I can only imagine that such program exists, and that they would forcefully recommend it, for horrible drivers like myself.

Geez. Enjoy.

"Dear California Driver,

Drivers with crashes and traffic convictions on their records are at a greater risk of causing future crashes. Your recent record of bad driving places you at increased risk of causing crashes, injury, and death. We do not want you to suffer those consequences and want to help you avoid them.

We understand that you may believe you are a good driver, and yet your driving record is much worse than the average California driver. While you may be a good and safe driver most of the time, your record reflects at least momentary lapses in driving judgment. At highway speeds, a moment of carelessness can become a tragedy. Good, caring people who make careless decisions while driving can cause injury or death.

In our effort to urge you to drive more safely, we are offering you a choice. You can choose to prevent further action from DMV by avoiding additional traffic convictions and by not causing any crashes. However, if you choose to continue your unsafe driving, the penalties will increase and eventually lead to probation, suspension, or revocation of your driving privilege.

We believe you are capable of making a change to become a safer driver, but it is up to you to do so. If you do not want to change, your driving will continue to present a risk to yourself and other road users. If you want to change and become a safer, more responsible driver, you can. We hope that you will decide to change, but the choice is yours.

If there is a discrepancy in your driving record, you may contact the Sacramento Department of Motor Vehicles.

This action is independent of any other action taken by the court or this department.

Department of Motor Vehicles"

A Fun Lemos Day

When Mark is out of town, I jump at every playdate opportunity -- any opportunity really -- to get out of the house and do something fun. My friends told me about a different playgroup, the "4's Summer Activity Group" and they were headed to Lemos Farm on Thursday morning. Sign me up! I've never been to Lemos during the off season when it isn't packed so I was pleasantly surprised when we were really the only ones there! We got to enjoy the train, hay ride, pony ride, and more all to ourselves. I stayed way past Maddie's nap time because we were having so much fun and for once, I didn't even care to keep on schedule!

My favorite picture of the day. Thank you Millie for taking it! I have very few good pics of me and Maddie, mostly because I'm usually the photographer. So I treasure this one. :)



Maddie on her first pony ride!!





Millie and Emma on the train with us



Jake and Emma -- I also loved that they got to hang out so much. When we are with the larger group, Jacob is usually running around crazy with the boys so it was fun to see him and Emma hang out one on one.



When I took Maddie around on the pony, I told Jacob to take some pictures of us. I love this one he took of Millie!



Jacob took this picture too -- Marcia was walking Warner on the pony next to us.



I was floored when I saw this picture of Marcia and Warner. Jacob took it! And it's fantastic!



In the bouncy house -- it's not the best picture but my goodness, could they look MORE alike?!



I definitely plan on hitting up Lemos Farm more when it's not the crazy season. We had such a great time and the kids can't wait to go again!

Another blog-worthy story

3 years ago (three years!) I blogged about my fear of Jacob pooping in a public swimming pool. That's when I learned that when a child has an accident in the pool, they literally evacuate the whole darn thing and have to disinfect the pool immediately as a safety precaution. The disinfection process is not small either. The pool is closed for hours -- usually for the day. My fear subsided when he was potty trained, but recently, in Hawaii, they had to evacuate the entire pool (and it's a big pool folks) because a child had let a little turd escape. My anxiety returned.

Fast forward to today.

It was a regular day in Belmont. Jacob had camp at The Little Gym and Nicole watched Maddie while I worked. No sign of any illness here since we are all finally on the mend after 3 weeks of virus and fever filled days. We show up for Jacob's new (I repeat, NEW) swim class at the YMCA and he jumps right in the pool. I drop Maddie off at the childcare center at the gym and then park myself on the elliptical machine right outside the pool window so I can get glimpses of Jacob in his class. All was going swimmingly (ha, sorry, had to), when I started wondering why I hadn't seen him through the window in a while. In fact, I hadn't seen any of the kids pass by the window in the pool. I pause my machine, jump off and look through the window only to see people milling about, and some men pouring stuff into the pool. "huh", I think, "that's strange". But I jump back on my machine. A couple of minutes pass when I see people coming into the gym, from the pool and it's clear that nobody is going back in. My heart starts pounding and I immediately think "Oh dear god, please tell me Jacob didn't crap in the pool. Surely he didn't crap in the pool. It was some other kid that crapped in the pool." I sprint into the pool area and see Jacob and 2 other kids sitting on the side with their teacher. I run over and say "WHAT happened?!" The teacher looks at me and says "Jacob VOMITED in the pool."

Well hell. I didn't see THAT coming.

Shocked, I immediately ask how it happened and she said she told Jacob to let go of the side with one hand, but instead he let go with 2 hands and went under and gulped a lot of water. When he came up, he just threw everything up. He looks at me and says "Mommy, I 'frew' up in the pool." Just so you know, in public pool sanitary standards, they consider vomiting as bad as pooping. Who knew. So, out came everyone -- the adults, the kids, the seniors enjoying their laps. Everyone was immediately evacuated. And my poor kid was sitting there with vomit all over himself.

Needless to say, I got him cleaned up and dressed ASAP and we high-tailed it out of there. I felt so badly for him that I decided we should go have some fun where our friends were having a playdate at Warner's house. Oh, and I had to share the story, of course. :)

Rest assured that Jacob is just fine. The vomiting was a direct result of the pool water consumption and nothing else. But to think...I was worried about poop all this time...

The Days of Summer

It's finally starting to feel like Summer around here. After a long stint of cold and rainy weather, we are welcoming the heat!! I'd like to think we brought a little bit of Maui back to Belmont. :)

You've probably noticed the blog changes. After a while, I get bored of looking at the same background and like to spice things up a bit. And it motivates me to get a new picture of the kids up. While these colors aren't my favorites, they reminded me of Summer.

Cheers to Summer.

The ultimate play space! Pool, water table, climber, picnic table and a place for mommy to lounge (either on the patio furniture or on the towel!) It was almost like being on vacation :) Dare I say even better since the kids are now healthy?



Add in a couple of popsicles and you somehow immediately win "mommy of the year" award





Good gracious she is so stinking cute.



Top off the day with bubbles and the kids could barely stand it!





She KILLS me. Never in my life did I think I'd have a blond haired, blue eyed little PRINCESS.



Speaking of the little princess, she's been singing her ABCs for a little while now but it was never easy to get her to do it for the camera. Today, I bribed her with candy which I'm certain is why she continued on to sing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star".



It's crazy to me that she can sing these songs at 20 months. She knows a handful of them now and sings them unprompted. I remember Jacob first singing his ABCs when we visited Dallas and looked at homes before we moved there. He was 2 1/2. Maddie can also count to ten (or more) and is talking in sentences all the time. Some of my favorites are "I see you!", "hold this please", "I like it" (or conversely "no like it"), "What's this?", "Hi Jacob, how are you?" (I heard her say this yesterday when he woke up in the morning -- I nearly fell over!), "Kiss Minnie head", "Kiss minnie ear", "Kiss minnie toe", etc. (I had to kiss her little minnie mouse doll tonight before bedtime. Maddie is also great at giving commands). There are also many times where she's stringing tons of words together but I have no idea what the heck she is saying. But she certainly does. She's just growing up too fast...

p.s. I just found these photos from the Fair. Looks like we did take a couple of pictures with the camera before the battery died!

Corporate Perks

The germs are apparently still widespread in this house. Jacob came down with the same virus Maddie had on Wednesday and has been running a 101/102 fever ever since. Needless to say when I started feeling bad on Thursday, I was NOT a happy camper. But, I was thankful for one thing -- at least we weren't ALL sick in Hawaii. I'm practicing being the "half glass full" girl which is not easy for me to do!

On Saturday, Marks' company, Genentech, hosted their annual "Genentech gives back" party and we had been planning on going for a couple of weeks. Since half of us were ill, we debated whether or not it was a good idea but since it was free, we decided to give it a shot anyway. Man am I glad we didn't miss it! Genentech rented out the Giants stadium and had ALL the concessions open so we could take our pick of any food, any beer, as much as we wanted. FOR FREE. They had activities for the kids and the best part...a concert consisting of Daughtry (of American Idol fame), Sheryl Crow and Maroon Five. Seriously. What other company out there does this kind of thing?!?! The kids did great and loved the never ending snacks...popcorn, cotton candy, long licorice sticks, ice cream, etc. It definitely was not our healthiest day ever but ended up being fantastic!

So, thank you Genentech for putting on such an awesome party. The words "why would you ever leave this company?!" actually did come out of my mouth while we were there! I'm sure that's exactly what they hope for.

We waited on line for this slide for literally 45 minutes. For a 20 second slide. But Jacob did love it. :)



Some pics of the stadium







A nice man offered to take a family photo



But when I checked my phone to see what pictures he took, this one took me by surprise. And nearly sent me to the floor in laughter. I love this woman so much because she has provided me with so many giggles this weekend...



Jacob practicing for his baseball career



And Maddie, well, if it's a phone, she HAS to have it.







On Sunday, we celebrated Father's Day by going to the San Mateo County Fair. Unfortunately, our nice camera died and the other pictures taken from my iphone just didn't make the cut. But, this one was a keeper.



Happy Father's Day to the most awesome fathers in my life -- My own Daddy, Papa, and of course Mark, who happens to epitomize the perfect parent and should be the role model for all Daddies out there. Love you all!!

Hawaii 2011

If you know me at all, I'm a pretty transparent person. You can probably tell how I'm feeling by taking one look at my face because I am that cliche of a girl that "wears her heart on her sleeve". So, I do know that I tend to be too honest when I write which might offend a child or two 20 years from now, but I would pay a million dollars to go back and read the thoughts of my parents oh, say, when we all happened to have been sick with the chicken pox at one time. Or, when I happened to get lost on Corpus Christi beach for a half hour when I was about 6 years old. What I would give to have a true glimpse into my parents hearts the day each of us were born -- those immediate thoughts and fears and the "oh my GOD what have we done!" moments. Because it's real. Because it's life. And because 34 years later, their daughter would appreciate, now more than ever, those little quips that might have escaped me 5 years ago before motherhood.

I say all this because we just returned from our vacation to Hawaii with my parents and my friends keep asking me "How was the trip?! Did you have so much fun?!" I let out a long breath and try to casually say "it was good" when I want to scream "It was rough! We were cheated! I want a DO-OVER!" I really do hate whining because we were in HAWAII for Pete's sake but on day 2 of our trip, Maddie came down with a 102 fever that lasted until the day we left. Two trips to the doctor later, she was diagnosed with strep throat and she was the most irritable child you've ever seen. We couldn't exactly take her outside in the heat everyday due to the fever so one of us was stuck in the room and she was up multiple times each night. When you look forward to something so badly for a year, it can be quite a disappointment when it turns out to be an ill-fated week. On top of it all, I hated that we didn't get to spend much fun time with my parents (so sorry Mom and Dad!) when they were the ones that invited us to come again this year.

As I downloaded our pictures today, I was pleasantly surprised at the smiles (especially from Maddie) caught on camera. It reminded me that experiences like these are filled with "moments" -- good ones and bad ones and I am treasuring these photos as they reminded me of some great times on our trip. And there were some really great ones -- Jacob finding the courage to ride his first "big kid" waterslide all by himself, the way Maddie's face LIT up going underneath the waterfalls, the mudslides....(the beverage, not the act of nature). Thank goodness for cameras and the ability for me to look back fondly on this vacation! Thanks Mom and Dad for inviting us along and for your endless patience with your grumpy baby (ME, not Maddie!) LOVE YOU BOTH!

P.S. I always like to compare pictures year over year to see the changes in the kids. Click here to see how much they've grown since last year's Hawaii trip!

Jacob after conquering his fears of the "big kid" waterslide



The view from the top



























Tattoos from the pirates!







Making his wind chime at the craft center



We spotted a family of ducks on the upper deck of the parking structure. I went down to shuffle them down to the first floor -- I was afraid they were stuck up there!





At the aquarium