Flower Girl Show

On Friday, September 14th, we celebrated the marriage of my cousin Eric to his beautiful Jessie. This event was otherwise known to Bella and Jilli as "The Flower Girl Show." The two of them were quite cute and did a great job scattering petals before a breathtaking Jessie came down the aisle.

The wedding concluded our trip to PA, and now we are all partied out and back home. The kids made it through the plane trip (again) without too much havoc, and now we all are recovering from the time zone change!

It's like we left in the summer and came back to fall, and it's awesome - considering this is my favorite time of year.

I love the smell in the air (moreso in PA, but there's a bit of "fall smell" mixed in with the ocean air here, too) - I love hitting the trails and not sweating like a pig, I love mums, and I love football!!!

Go Steelers!

Hooray for Kennywood!!

Kennywood was no let down for Bella, Luca, Noah and Jilli! This was the first time there for our two, and they really had a good time. Despite the 99% humidity and tiny little rain shower, my Mom, Dad, Jaime, Jason, Keith and I had fun, too!
Of course, Bella's favorite ride was the Jackrabbit... she rode it 3 times. (For anyone who's never been to Kennywood in Pittsburgh, its a great old amusement park with TONS of rides and real rollercoasters. The Jackrabbit is a rollercoaster that opened in 1921, and is such a blast!) I rode it, too for the first time in about 10 years, and laughed until tears streamed down my face! It was nice to be there again, considering I have so many childhood memories from there. Much of the time was spent reminiscing and telling stories about "Kennywood Days" from the past.
Keith rode LOTS - even in Kiddieland, as you can see. It was his first time riding the Phantom's Revenge and the Thunderbolt, which shook him up a bit.
Who could leave out the food? MY favorite part was getting Potato Patch fries and strawberries & cream!
All in all it was a hot, humid, but great day for all of us... especially Bella.

Oh, scroll to the bottom of the blog page and check out this awesome video ~

1st Day of School - again

Today was the first day of preschool for Fort Byrd Preschool here in Brownsville, and Bella was in attendance with Jilli!

Since we wanted to keep her in the routine, we decided to enroll her here, too. Now she'll be able to go when we're visiting, and spend more time with her best friend.

It was an adjustment for her because it was quite different from her 5 hour school day in Encinitas, but she warmed up to the 2.5 hours of singing, play and lessons after the first 2 days!

So Happy Together

You know you're in Fayette county when -- you've owned your own ATV since you were 2!

Well, we're back east, and Bella and Luca couldn't be happier to be back together with their cousins! So far they've spent most of their time in the pool - Bella has been practicing "without her swimmies," and she's been making good progress. It helps that Jilli has already mastered the feat, and it gives her some motivation.

Tomorrow, we look forward to taking them to Kennywood for the first time - Keith's first time, too! Since she had such a blast at Legoland, we figured she'd really get a kick out of all of the roller coasters here.

I'll post more after tomorrow... we're just hoping it doesn't rain!

1st Day of School

Today, Bella went to her first day of preschool at Santa Fe Christian Academy. She is in the Bear Cub class (3-4 year olds), and her teacher is Miss Sujey!

As expected, I was a bit of a wreck, but Bella did great! She gave me a hug and headed straight for the kids on the playground. Holding it together was harder than I though it would be, but it was comforting to know that Bella was so excited. She will be going 2 half days a week, which I know will be good for her.

Luca also, will get the benefits of having Mommy all to himself - something that he hasn't had until now!

I will have more time to post to the blog now - the house seems so quiet with just Luca here!

I'll make sure to give an update after I pick her up today!

Beach Bums

For living so close, we actually don't go to the beach very often, but we decided to give Luca a test run a few weeks ago. I wasn't sure if he would like it - the last time he had been there he was 4 months old!
As it turned out, he loved it! So now we're making it something we do whenever we get the chance. The weather here has been HOT (82 degree-ish) and sunny, and the beach gives us a nice breeze. The water is nice and warm, too (for here - about 70 degrees).
Bella and Luca both love to chase waves and then run from them! It's really a lot of fun to watch. I won't ever be able to get used to watching Luca eat sand, though! Yuck! What is it with this child? His favorite snacks are snails, dirt and sand. I guess you could say that he's definitely all boy!

Whee!

It's been quite a while since I've posted anything, and that's due in part to the fact that we lost our camera! We broke down and bought a new one, because Nonna and Pappy were in town and we didn't want to miss anything!
This is a picture of Bella on her very first roller coaster ride. It was the Coastersaurus at Legoland, and obviously, she LOVED it! Of all the attractions at the park that day, this was her favorite, so we waited in the long line for her to ride it again before we left.
We had a great time watching her have so much fun. No, she may not remember this in 15 years, but we will!