2 Girls, A Mini Cooper, and 1313 Miles

Who: Me & Ev

What: Road Trip

When: May 22-26

Where: Los Angeles to Richland, Washington,

with pit stops in San Fran and Portland.

Why: To pick up the Mini!

Snafus: Only one. A piece of our car flying off right

as we closed in on Weed, California. Ha!

Buttonwillow, California

Gustine, California

San Francisco. Uniqlo store. Overnight stop.

Vacaville, California

Cottonwood, California

Henley & Hornbrook, California

Sutherlin, Oregon.

Portland, Oregon! (Midnight) Overnight stop.

Richland, Washington. 5pm today.

We drove, we ate, we shopped, we jogged, we listened to John Legend's "All of Me" on the radio about 300 times, we sipped coffee, we drank bubbly, we walked, we BART-ed, we star-stalked, we saw Shakira (!), we sang, we talked, we slept, and we laughed a lot. (What we didn't do was read any of the books or magazines we brought or listen to the book on tape Ev brought.)

In-N-Out. A must!

Breakfast with Dad and Joanne

Real maps.

Asians on a bench.

RHOBH Lisa VanderPump's Sur restaurant. No star sightings.

Runyon Canyon. Pretty views of LA.

Welcome back, little Mini!

The Grove. Shakira and husband and son sighting. Also Jon Favreau sighting.

Dylan's Candy Bar - gummy teeth.

Crossroads restaurant. Saw Travis Barker and Kathryn Bigelow.

"Jogging" San Francisco hills.

Golden Gate

Lovely Chez Panisse in Berkeley. Organic food movement beginnings here?

French breakfast. Smallest (cutest) table ever.

Tilted windows.

Pilates! 

The Snafu. This guy flew right off as we were pedal to the metal on I-5

Finally! 7-8pm or so yesterday. We got a late start due to shopping in SF.

Mal at Ikea in Portland today.

Reunited with these little hams!

Didi's hand-me-down bike. A perfect fit!

Hand-me-down Skuut. A perfect fit!

One Teeth

Today in the car, from Leelee: "Mom, when you're a full-day student, does all of your teeth come out, or just one teeth come out?"

hahaha.

Leelee unintentionally made a heart from his beads.

Costco samples galore. Double-fisting.

El Rancho Alegre for dinner with a Spotted Fox coupon. Olin slept through the entire dinner.

Leelee sucked bone marrow straight out of the lamb leg.

Dining nook table: the last Ikea piece I assemble for a while, hopefully. (Wishful thinking)

The table in use! I love the small cuteness of it :)

The next section I am devoting entirely to my new closet. If you wonder why I am so excited, may I point you back to this post (scroll to last photo), and my closet situation of old.

I love, love, love the spaciousness. 

More closet love...

More closet love...Dae's unorganized mess is just peeking out the right side there...I try not to look in that direction.

Making Progress

I'm powering through rooms in this house like nobody's business, and feeling quite productive.

I did get a few sad moments when I went in the kids' room, or caught sight of Olin's paci laying by my bed, or was about to wipe down the piano bench and saw these little footprints:

That middle print has all 5 toes fairly clearly outlined. haha. I did not end up wiping these prints off :)

Ev and Uncle Jeff have been taking great care of the kids. Ev told me that they slept through the entire first night, and the second night Olin woke up one time, calling for "Uncle Jeff". (He and Uncle Jeff must be forging some strong bonds this weekend!)

The boys are sharing Didi's Ikea twin. Poor Didi and Mal have been displaced all over the house.

Mal's Birthday party

Mal pitching, Leelee at bat

Suckers, and smiles. Their cute feet.

Back at 48 Vista Court...

I've got the bookshelf somewhat close to how I want it. I really had to look on Houzz to get an idea of how to make bookshelves look decent. 

This dining room was packed with boxes forever. This was earlier today, and now the boxes are pretty much gone. Woohoo!

The living room is coming together. We need wall hangings desperately. It's looking pretty bare. I've got magazines laid out in a very deliberate fashion: Time and National Geographic up front and center, and my less-than-intellectual magazines (People and US Weekly) tucked neatly underneath!

 

This photo isn't all that impressive looking, but our office was in shambles. It is now clean, and organized! (and has indentations all over the carpet. haha)

Peanuts

This guy powered through about 6 baskets of peanuts while we were at Five Guys last week. He ate nary a bite of his regular food. Him and his nuts.

Meanwhile, Ev has the kids in Portland from Thursday through Sunday and Dae is leaving for Dallas tomorrow! That means me, alone, at home, for an entire weekend. I can barely grasp the concept, but all I know is that I am going to be unpacking as if my life depends on it. I'm not going to let Ev's generous babysitting offer go to waste, that's for sure!

As it turns out, Alex was also heading up to Portland on Thursday so he offered to drive the kids over. So nice! I was a little nervous about him having to deal with the kids and their needs, but apparently all went ok, save for one skirmish between Olin and JoJo involving the iPad, of course. I believe it ended up with Olin scratching Jo and Al taking the iPad away from all three kids. Yikes... poor Al.