Day 5

Day 5 came and went and It was the best of them all. We are all ready to move here in our heads.. Colorado is such a magical  place.. I have so many cool pictures and stories to share with you about yesterday. The scary hotel and the horses.. I did have a one of those moments that I felt like this everything was perfect. My kids and I found ourselves running up and down a river bed. It was lovely. I felt full content and very happy. I am really grateful that I was able to enjoy this trip with my kids. I know it wont be the last. It was just to much fun and way to good but not perfect. I will return soon with more stories for now I have an 18 hour drive ahead of me so have a safe Saturday...
Happy Travels
G

Day Four

Day four..
Isabella spends the nights painting on paper bags. Here she painted the house our our old house. 
We definitely got of to late start but we are vacation so I just have to remind myself that its OK not to be out the door with three kids by 8am. We had breakfast in our room and then went for a really nice hike. We sat at the park and just talked and I think my favorite part of our trip is becoming listening to my kids talk to each other. They are all getting along. Paola and Christopher joke and then they explain to Isa what they are talking about. Its entertaining.

Our first stop for Lunch was Mountain Sun. We played the game Apple witch is easy to play with kids and it goes fast so I recommend it for sure. The kids had burgers and they are so yummy. I had a steak salad and they have this wonderful berry tea that I is also really good. Mountain Sun is a brewery but we skipped the beer .

Here we are .. 

 Here we are..

We went to our friends house to have dinner last night .Tammy made this amazing dinner for us .. I met Tammy when I first moved her 2001. Tammy and I hit it off right away and she has 4 kids and I liked hanging out with her and her family. I have not seen her in about 4 years so I was excited to sit and chat with her. Our kids hit it off again and when it was time to go all I heard was can we please stay here longer..love that. We will be leaving tomorrow :( but the great thing is I know we will be back soon.

Day 3 ..in Boulder Co

Today was spent looking around the sweet town of Boulder.It truly is beautiful here and the weather is warm. Sorry about all the pictures but I love looking back...

I love the Boulder book store..A couple places you need to visit if you come to Boulder are the Book Store at the Pearl street mall..You have to go to Lucille's for breakfast on 14th street and get the beignets you won't be sorry.. the Rio for dinner and if you love Macaroni and Cheese The Foundry. Today we are going to this funky tea house I will share pictures. The place that makes me happy is the book store paper store..Its just yummy.

Our traveling tradition is a new book on every trip..

Beautiful Store ..

Love the store Free Religion and there decorations.

Ben and Jerry's phish Ice Cream..

When you read this I should be hiking this mountain..

Here we are..I feel really blessed to be able to have trips like this with my kids. I hope to be 70 and hopefully being able to still take trips with them. I can not think of anything better...
Have a wonderful day.

Day two and we have arrived

I am feeling a little bit like a Rock Star in this picture. So far so good. I still like my kids they still like me and everyone is happy.  The fancy hotel (not) we stayed at was great. The beds where super comfy and it was clean all good things. I tried to get us of to an early start and I was a little successful. 

Early on we made to Utah and I really do love Utah. My first Art Retreat was in Utah and I was so impressed at how sweet all the woman treated each other and me. I also ran the St. George Marathon my fastest ever. The people just went out of there way to make that race so special. I will never forget how much fun my kids had.. The race was amazing the land is just so colorful and beautiful. I just fell in love with this state.

The kids got pretty hungry and they all wanted Panda Express.. So we stopped and had lunch there..Bella loved her fortune cookie. Look mama its really coming true.

you know what they say the best fortunes come from Panda Express..along with 300 grams of sodium.

Here we are..
Christopher is 11
Bella is 10
Paola 18
mom 40

Its a little weird when your daughter is as tall as you..  I have to say that I was happy surprised when Paola decided to join us. I really was not sure she would want to be with us this long but she did and she is here. You know when your 18 your friends are very important and I truly remember being 18 so I was happy she chose to hang 5 days w her mom and her little brother and sister. She also brought all her music so between the both of us we sang our hearts out.. 

Even though you drive for hours I still am just amazed at how beautiful they sky is and the land is. The color is so blue and I just love the feeling of driving with my babes talking and laughing looking out the window and feeling the fresh air in my hair. ( I think thats a song)

I was happy to be able to say we are almost there..It took me about 22 hours after stopping many times for many things. 

We made it to Boulder Colorado. I am letting them sleep in until 10 am. Then we are of to hike the mountains..

Road Trip Day 1

Here we are me and little crew right before we set of on the road. Notice everyones excitement and happiness.. JK Everyone was happy to be going to colorado. We all have great memories of Colorado. Christopher was born there and thats where I discovered running and hiking and my love for the outdoors. 

One of my favorite things about this road trip is spending lots of uninterrupted time with my kiddos. I am learning about there friends in school and there favorite colors ..They change every month. 

Our first lunch stop was Big Boy. I used to go to Bob's Big boy when I was little . I think this is the closest thing to that here. The food was good just not healthy at all. Oh well sometimes we have to sacrifice and have fried food.

After driving for about 6 hours I stopped and had my first coffee. I have to tell you something about myself I am not proud of but its true. I kinda drive like an old lady. I am super safe and I do not speed. Thank God my kids do not drive yet because they cant tell there mom is 40 but secretly drives like she is 70. So Starbucks helps me pretend I am like Mario Andrade behind the wheel.

My kids loved looking at all the lights in Vegas. We drove through the strip and stopped about an two hours north of there..It was a successful day 1. No fighting no arguing and get this I did not buy any junk food to have in the car no sodas either. ( except for our stop at Big Boys) I think thats pretty good since in the past my car would be full of chips by now. So day 1 is gone and we are on to see new things..Have a good Tuesday..

Welcoming April with a road trip

Good Morning and Happy April !!
How was your Easter Sunday ? I had pretty much a great Sunday of course there where some small incidents that made it very real and not so perfect but life is not perfect after all but it was for the most part a great Easter. I have been planning a road trip for about a month. I am what I would call a last minute planner that means I plan a little bit at a time and I just hope it all works out. My kids and I will be driving to Boulder Colorado in about an hour. I am just letting them sleep in because I do not mind not leaving super early. I hope to document our one week Road Trip and I am thinking that most of it will be here . The thing I am the most worried about is getting lost. So when God was handing out the navigation gift he skipped me. With that in mind I am doing my best to plan the driving part out so I do not get lost. I packed very light and so did my kids. We have pillows and healthy snacks and yes...Everyone in the car has there electronic gadget with them. You can only fight it so much with three kids all over 10 I feel the best way to control the whole tech situation is by having rules or expectations of how much time and whats allowed to be played on these things.. My kids are totally into drawing so we have our coloring stuff and our journals... This Spring Break will be spent with mom driving from San Diego to our final destination Boulder Colorado..
I have crazy excited vibes inside of me..
Wish me Luck.

Easter

Hi Guys..
Whats going on ?
I hope you are getting ready to have a great Easter Sunday. Do you have plans for today or are you taking this Sunday off to just relax and enjoy ..Ether way hopefully you are having nice weather and you get wear dress. I am going to brunch with my immediate peeps and then driving to my moms for an Easter egg hunt. There we will have lots of yummy Mexican food to celebrate. I missed blogging last week but I had an off week.. I am wishing you lots of Peace on this Sunday and sending you a big hug..
Hoppy Easter.

Weekend in pictures

Welcome to pictures from my weekend. It started of sad but shopping at Ikea and lots of sleep helped.. I also got some walking in and breakfast with a good girl friend. I took the picture above in a little town called Ramona thats about 45 minutes from my house. I watching TV and I saw this show I think it was called Diners drive-ins and Dives .. They showed this diner in Ramona that they said they had the best fried chicken..
I love fried Chicken..
So after a little convincing we drove up. I was really let down. Can you believe it when they say you can not believe everything you see on TV. You can't..seriously false advertising.  

I did my walking ,I also got new shoes..
I love Shoes
 I hope you had a good weekend and may this week be better than last. Talk to you soon..

Listening to Frank

This is what I have been listening too lately.

 In my past life (When I was married) we had a big living room and it had hard wood floors and I used to play this Frank really loud and my little family would run to the living room and we would pretend to ball room dance. I used to take dancing lessons and my mom used to dance professionally so I could pretend well..

There is something about Frank Sinatra's voice that is so beautiful and elegant. I was sitting with my aunt yesterday and she was telling me about how life has so many ups and downs and how this ride we call life is like a roller coaster..Honey she said you are riding along and everything looks good and next thing you know you are dropping straight down and before you know what happened you are going up again. I totally agree.

 Looking back on my story I often feel like holy cow I have been on the Matterhorn.. That crazy roller coaster. Looking back I would not change a thing or experience. I totally get that everything we go though makes us who we are and I like myself.. 

I do often feel insecure about my number.What I mean by that is I have been married twice and divorced once. My dad tells me that because my first husband Roger whom I loved with my entire being went to heaven that I should not think about that one..I feel I want to think about that one and count it and never forget my first marriage.. I got married in Vegas and I wore the cutest mini skirt white silk dress. I was so quite back then. He wore a grey shirt and black pants. We got married at the Chapel of harmony.(how fancy hu )  Somehow while Roger was in chemo therapy I got pregnant. I was so happy but he was crazy happy. I knew Paola was a blessing because how many people do you know that get pregnant while there husband is in chemo..mot many..Roger told me when Paola was born that he never knew he was capable of loving anyone as much as he loved her..I felt so good about being able to give him such a great life experience that allowed him to experience loving your child . The last thing I remember about when he was alive was the way he looked at Paola and I. I was 24 when he went to heaven and Paola was 2. That was a great life experience. Its funny how I feel insecure about sharing my story..I think I feel afraid that someone will criticize me..When really as long as I am good with God and I like myself and I am good mom I am good...

why do I even have those dumb insecure thoughts.. probably because I am a girl.. I used to label post like these ramblings from my brain.. I think I will label them Little pieces from My Life Story..I hope you are having a lovely weekend. I am sitting in my bed with my knew blanket sharing listening to Frank..Have a wonderful Day..

Gotta try this..

Yesterday I had a sweet surprise I went to Starbucks and the wait outside was crazy long so I parked my car and ran inside...as I was waiting in line I heard one of the baristas talking to someone about there favorite drink.
Iced Hazelnut Macchiato Upside Down
so I ordered one. I tried not to mess up the name but I did..
Finally the cashier figured out what I wanted .. My coffee drink was  really strong. It was also sweet and a bit sour. I loved it. So here I am sharing.. Let me know what you think I hope you like it.

Sunday's post on Monday

This St.Patricks Day was a blur..
It started of by getting up at 6:am and getting ready to go run the Hooleys half marathon. My friend ally came to my house and three of us road together to fancy Escondido. My dad was waiting for us because he is almost always early. It was a little chilly out but that's great when you are running because you warm up really fast. My dads plan was to run with me but I knew I would this would be a run I would take at a much slower pace than usual. Kathy Loper puts on a lot of races in San Diego and she does a great job this race was no different.

Kathy Loper races are well organized , affordable and they give you great bling. I almost forget they are usually small races..Believe me its better to run with 11hundred people than 20 thousand. (thats my preference ).. My dad loves running halfs so this was the most perfect way to start of his Birthday. Here is a small fact about my dad. He is full Irish and born on St. Patricks day and his name is Michael Patrick..The other small fact about my dad is he loves celebrating his special day..So thats what we did...

After the run I went home got my little family ready and made some food and drove an hour to my dads house for his Party. I was so happy that everyone showed up for him..The whole family crew was there..We ate and laughed and watched old family movies. 

So happy Birthday Dad...We Love you so much....

Happy St.Patricks Day

Hi Guys..What do you have planned for tomorrow ?
Its my dad's Birthday on St. Patricks day so we are going to run a half marathon..I will be run jogging and my dad and crew will be running. Then my whole family will be getting together to celebrate my dad turning 64... I will post pictures from his birthday get together soon. This morning we drove down to the San Diego bay and ran a 10k. I took it slow but it was still fun. I think just being outside and moving is a good thing. I met with my friend Ally there. I have known her for about 6 years and she is pretty rad. When we first met our life revolved around Scrapping at the Pink Pineapple..Its always nice when you have history with someone. Have a great Sunday and I will share more soon...