Dizzililand!

The Gonsalves family just got back from a trip to the happiest place on earth. Thank you Grandpa David!

Before the trip we hyped it up as much as we could for Emma so that she would have something to look forward to. We told her that we were going for her dad's birthday (he turned 29 on our first day at the park). Emma doesn't watch movies so her only points of reference for Disneyland were the princesses on her bed-time diapers and her Winnie the Pooh coloring book. Even then, she doesn't know their names or what they do except for that they live in a castle at Disneyland. Her cousins and aunts and uncles were SUPER excited to go, so some of the excitement rubbed off and into the park we went.

When we arrived, Emma kept asking "where are the princesses?" and "can I go on the merry-go-round?" over and over again. We went through the castle and found King Arthur's Carousel which was the highlight of the trip as far as rides were concerned. Emma and Grady both would have been happy staying on that ride for two straight days if we had let them. After the carousel, we went on a hunt for the princesses. We looked in the castle and found no princesses. We went on rides, there were no princesses. We walked around for hours and hours, but couldn't find any princesses. Finally, someone told us that the princesses tell stories and pose for pictures in the princess fairy land or something like that. So off we went to find some princesses. By the time we arrived and waited in line f..o..r..e..v..e..r it was smack dab in the middle of what would normally be naptime. So when we finally got to go into the special area to meet the princesses, Emma was a bit tired- but loved it anyway.

After two exhausting days in the parks, we drove home and asked Emma what she liked the best. Her highlights were the merry-go-rounds in "Dizzililand" and California Adventure, the princess coloring pages that she got, and the doggy with the keys in it's mouth from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Grandpa David said that he'll take us again when Emma is 42 inches so that she can go on the big rides with him. Hopefully by then she'll be able to get excited all on her own!

Also, I'd like to give special shout outs to Jeremy, Cristina, Elijah and Arielle who moved in and watched Grandma Phyllis while we were gone and to Dan, Stephanie and Caleb who let us visit on the way down and made Dylan an awesome birthday cake.

He's Number 1!

It's Grady William's first birthday today. Although I'd like to celebrate it as the anniversary of the day I gave birth and give you a synopsis of how that happened, I think I'll spare you the details and just let you know a little bit about our little man. It is amazing to us to see the differences between Emma and Grady and we are so excited to see his personality come out even more as he gets older.

G-dub's favorite food is beans- pinto, black, lentil, you name it, he loves it. He also loves sharing peaches with his dad and burritos from Chipotle.

His favorite person in the whole world is his big sister Emma. If she's napping not around, he whines and goes looking for her. He says her name Ahhh-Maaa and is always laughing at the things that she does.

He says three words: dog, Emma, and da-da. He says something that sounds like ma-ma but he only says that when he's upset or whining so I don't think he's really saying my name!

He loves to crawl and climb and walk with help. He often disappears only to be found playing in the toilet bowl, practicing flushing, or dumping out all of the toys. He loves pushing around toy cars and then turning them over and checking out how they work. His favorite sound to make is a loud growl and he loves to cuddle and just watch what's going on around him.

Well, there's a whole lot more we could say but if you want more, you'll just have to come visit us and see him for yourself!

"Gracias, la cara, la boca"

For the past 9 months or so, 0n Thursday mornings, Emma and I attend a mommy and me Spanish art class. It is a preschool-ish class where we do art projects, sing songs and learn vocabulary- all in Spanish.

This week, on Wednesday night I told Grandma that we would be leaving for a couple of hours in the morning to go to Spanish class. She mentioned that she had always wanted to learn Spanish because she thought she would've liked to travel to Mexico some day. So, we invited her along to come to our class.

These days in class we're learning vocabulary for the different parts of our body. This week, we talked about "la cara" or the face. When we walked in with Grandma, the teacher handed her a sheet with the different vocabluary words and translations. Throughout the morning, Grandma was thoroughly enjoying her time watching the kids dance around, paint, sing and create masterpieces. When we stood up to leave, Grandma looked at the teacher and said, "Gracias, la cara, la boca." So, yes, she told the teacher "Thank you, the head, the mouth!" Besides the funny salutation, I was blown away. I mean, this is Grandma we're talking about here. She usually can't remember what day it is and she can't learn how to use a microwave, but after 50 minutes of Spanish class, she had already learned some vocabluary! After a few more weeks of class, maybe she'll be able to take that trip to Mexico after all!


(Emma's Masterpiece)

We love car camping

Car camping is great. Since we love it so much, we went for the weekend with our good friends Dan, Jackie and Rebekah Dowd. Dan, Dylan, Rebekah and Grady all have birthdays in September so we celebrated by having the 1st ever Dan-Dylan-Beka-Grady birthday camping trip. This way, we don't have to have formal birthday parties (because 29-year-olds and 1-year-olds really don't care if they have a party or not) and we were able to enjoy one more weekend of summer in the great outdoors.

On Friday, we left Grandma at home with Craig (thank you!) and loaded up the SUVs with 2 kayaks, 2 pack-n-plays, 1 toddler bed, 1 dog crate, 2 ice chests, 2 tents, 2 boxes of food, 2 crates of kitchen stuff, 2 air mattresses, bedding for 7 people and 2 dogs, a crate or two of camping gear (lanterns, matches, hand sanitizer, toilet paper, etc), a six-sided baby play pen and a bag full of games. Somehow, after all of the stuff was loaded, there was still room for two adults, one dog and a kid or two per car. Our destination was Lindsey Lake up near Tahoe. After traveling on a bumpy, dusty road for miles and miles we arrived to find that the lake and camp area were closed for the season. While we stopped to come up with plan B, Beka got stung by a yellowjacket on her lip and Emma cut her hand open and was bleeding. Ahh the joys of camping. So while us mothers took care of our ailing children, the boys went scouting for a new camp site and found another lake close by that worked. The only caveats- we had to park our cars and carry our gear in (see above list) and there were no camp fires allowed so no hobo pies or smores. Had we known this was the case, we may have attempted to pack a bit lighter, but what's the fun in that!

After about 40 hours of sleeping, kayaking in the "banana boats," playing Rumikub, eating- a lot, and Emma's eye being swollen shut from a yellow jacket bite we had to pack up, hike everything back to the cars and come home. Yup, 40 hours. We probably spent more time planning and packing than we did actually camping, but it was fun nonetheless. Hope you enjoyed the pictures............