DOUBLE DIGITS

I don't have a lot of luck with videos, so we'll see if it works. But if it doesn't, here are some pictures to please the eye of a certain someone who is now double digits! :-D A couple pics from the birthday, and a couple pics of the pinata for his party. He and his best friend had a combined party last year that was so successful that we decided to do it again THIS year :-) Pics from the party will have to come later :-D







and just so you don't think I'm playing favorites, here are some of my favorite daughter! ;-)

VACATION 2011

We're having so much fun so far.

We took the train from south Orange County to Santa Barbara. The train was great, but boy, I shoud have taken some motion sickness stuff - I had a few moments of uh oh! But no worries, made it fine. We were all ready to get here though after 3+ hours of train :-) Hubby taught the kids how to play poker, and we played Uno and Phase 10. It's my daughters best day EVER! LOL My son is just having the best time - so happy with train, and getting to take a TAXI and chillin at hotel, swimming in pool, walking probably 1/2 mile to dinner. It's very cute. We haven't done this in a LONG time. :-(

We were smart to upgrade to business class when we made our reservation. It meant we all got to sit together, and had a table. It also meant we got "free" stuff! Juice, coffee and pastries in the morning, and then the cutest little cans of soda and a yummy little snack back in the afternoon! We all loved that - they came at JUST the right time too :-)

We ordered lunch from the cafe car. The kids loved that. We got surprisingly delicious cheeseburgers, and DD got OF COURSE, cup of noodle, her favorite :-) (and a hot dog - sodium city!)

I got some cute pictures from the train, and from our arrival to the hotel. We got a great room, that overlooks the street, and we're across the street from the beach. The door is always open, and so pleasant!

We can't wait to rent some bikes today and go explore. Maybe we'll even hit SAMBO'S - does anyone else remember that place? Always reminds me of Tony the Tiger ;-) Haven't been there since I was a kid- guessing this is the LAST location actually :-)

Here the kids are posing in front of the Station sign





This wasn't actually our train but these are the same cars we occupied most of our visit on our OWN train - which came about 10 minutes later :-)


Here's a group shot (minus me) on train - notice the nickles - poker winnings :-)


DD and I hangin on the train - good girl, never show your hand! ;-)


First trip on a train created a LOT of excitement. This was too cute to miss.


Here's DS holding his cute tiny Sierra Mist - the attendant teasingly gave him a hard time, because he kept saying Sprite. He was not amused.... :-)


Here's DD holding HER cute tiny Pepsi :-)


DS is so "cool" - I just think he's stinkin' cute! Here he is in all his cuteness and coolness :-)




Here I am chillin on our balcony - trying to get background picture too :-)


Here's another one of me chillin. I think you can see the background better....all that white behind trees is ocean :-)

Family Day

We had the best family day!

This has been a pretty uneventful summer with DD's water polo, etc. and DS has been sooooooo bored! He's pretty much played video games from dawn to dusk, or gone over to his friends house to play video games.

So I said to hubby, let's do something as a family tomorrow. I was thinking bowling, and he said, let's go to the harbor and rent those paddle boats - we're envisioning the kind we had played in at a company picnic years ago, or like you see in movies. Well, doesn't it figure, nobody has those! So, we went online, and saw the ones in the picture, and decided to adventure outside of our little box :-)

What a fun day! We went to this huge park in Irvine and rented these funny water bikes. It was a lot of WORK to peddle these things! I rode with DD and we were trying to chase down ducks, but they were too smart and fast for us. I gotta say, 30 minutes felt like an HOUR! LOL Next we took the little train around the park. Some poor little kid fell off the train! He was ok though. Weird! They just picked the kid up, and got back on - no lawsuit, no security, nothing! Lastly, we rented a 'deuce coupe'. DD is REALLY into driving - she wants to drive SOOOOO BAD. So she had to be 100% in control of our transportation. We had so much fun riding that bike around for an hour. We let her and DS go off by themselves and they had the best time. DD is DYING to go back!

The beauty of this little adventure is that we had so much fun as a family, we've decided to do MORE together as a family. We got talking about taking a train trip to Yosemite and taking the train through the gold rush area. Now, we just have to work out the details :-)

Here's hubby and DS on their water bike


DD and I on our water bike


Here's the kids posing as the Train Conductor :-)




Here the kid are on the bike. I rode with them too, but of course no picture :-)

WE WON! WE'RE THE3.5 USTA CHAMPIONS!

WE WON!!! WE'RE THE SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA 3.5 USTA CHAMPIONS!



The road ends here unfortunately, but what a FANTASTIC experience! Here are some pictures of DAY 3. We played a match in the morning that would determine if we continued on to the finals. We took ALL 3!! We won ours in tie breaker. Boy was that STRESSFUL! It was 6-3, ha - I don't remember second set, and tie breaker 11-9!!! STRESS! But SWEET VICTORY afterwards finding out our other two teams had won also!






So, we waited to see if it had been enough to make finals. IT WAS! We were now on to the finals in ONE HOUR!





Second match of the day. So excited, you couldn't even think about being tired. We played great! We won 6-2, 7-5. Those girls changed up their game in the second set, and we were down 0-4! We fought HARD and got caught backup to 4-4. They won the next game 4-5. We knew we hadn't fought back from 0-4 to lose 4-6 so we fought HARDER and WON!!! Line 2 had already won, which means we had clinched the PRIZE, but we were still hoping to sweep. We watched our Line 1 which who were in a VERY intense match and we're happy to experience their final WIN as well.








What an exciting moment, an exciting day. We couldn't believe we had DONE IT! We knew we'd had a chance, we went out there and fought hard to achieve it.

ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE!

Thanks for your support, prayers, etc.

Oh, here are two gratuitous pictures from the evening of Day 2. Me and my roomies and our group at dinner with the owner of the restaurant.




I'm EXHAUSTED! LOL Looking forward to getting home to my hubby, kids and my OWN BED! :-D

*DAY 2* - USTA SECTIONALS

Let's start with the GOOD news :-) There was a raffle between the two teams and I WON! I won this signature Head tennis bag! WOOHOOO ME! I NEVER win anything and I can't believe how lucky I was!

and here's a few pictures of the team today:


This first picture is me with our 'fan' club :-) The gal on my left is a friend of ours and rooming with me and my other friend. The gal on my right works at the club and is in charge of all the leagues, etc. :-)




These pictures are us in todays uniforms and the last two pictures are me and my partner on the court (while we were winning...)




So, the bad news is I have broken my winning streak. We lost today. The team took one line, and the other two lines lost in tie breakers.

Our game score was 6-3, 1-5 and 6-10 tie break. It was a huge disappointment. I am frustrated to a large extent that mentally, I never really got to "that place" where I needed to be. I try to be cool, calm and collected, which helps my partner have confidence. But today, I wasn't. The other team was very NICE, but they were kinda obnoxious. They talked a lot and I was kinda annoyed with them, and the crowd cheering. I think MY main problem was I let too many things get in my head so that I wasn't able to play a strong game. I made errors, but it was more about the mentality for me. I feel too that because I wasn't mentally "there" my partner made errors.

Oh well. You win some, you lose some. Some hurt more than others :-)

We came here knowing that we were "FORTUNATE" to be here, and win or lose, this is an amazing experience that only comes around "once in a lifetime" so live it up and have fun.

I need to remember that tomorrow :-) I don't know if today hurts our chances of being in the finals, but we will go out there tomorrow and play the best tennis we can!

Thanks everyone for cheering us on! I really appreciate it, and look forward to sharing my experience with you :-)

(PS - the reason my uniform never matches, is because these girls are all on the same team in a different league. So, that's their team uniform, and I'm just trying t match colors with them) :-)