Mainland?

Well I've been thinking AGAIN about moving to the mainland - Las Vegas in particular. This came up a few years ago and we decided to stay on Maui.

Still totally on the fence. I would love to do it. Start a new adventure, have more opportunities for Ryenne, better schools, able to save money for her, buy a house. But then I'm scared that if we didn't like it, we couldn't come back.

Our mortgage payment is like $2700/month and if we sold and moved and bought a house (not too big) than our mortgage would be like $800/month. HUGE DIFFERENCE!

Peter is leaning toward staying here at home. But I'm feeling so afraid, so stagnant, how can we have another baby here? Where would it go? How will our life be if every month we're 'just getting by'?

Ahhhhhhhhhhhh... it's so hard being a grown up.

Love to you all... thanks for listening to my rambling!

Lafayette, California

Our last day was spent with Uncle Johnny, Auntie Patti, Ryan, and Jessie. We had a great evening hanging out and it was great seeing my cousins!!

Livermore, California

What a great reunion we had with our San Saba friends! Traci and I were best friends and it was so cool to see each other after all these years. Her daughter Cadence is adorable! We had a great time talkin story with Tia Aura and Uncle Dave!

Sacramento, California

We took a quick stayover at the Sheraton in SacTown to break up the long driving trip. Ryenne had lots of fun eating her feet!

Reno, Nevada

We headed off to COLD Reno to see Grammie & Grampy. The weather was clear and nice, although I was kinda hoping for some snow.

We had a nice 4 days hanging out. Ryenne loved playing with Tina the dog and liked Grampy's neck chain. We had "Thanksgiving" at Auntie Lini's house. YUMMY! This was another time when I wish we could have stayed longer. I cried when we left Grammie & Grampy. I'm such a big baby. But I sure am glad that Ry got to meet all her great grandparents!

Truckee, California

We stpped off in beautiful Truckee on our drive to Reno!

Folsom, California

After San Jose, we headed up to Folsom to see Aunt Anita, Uncle Dan, and cousins Aaron & John. The fall trees were beautiful and we got a beautiful tour of Folsom. I had no idea how pretty it was!

Many thanks Aaron for giving up your bed! We sure appreciated it!

Big Eater

Mmmmmm..... eating Rice Cereal!

San Jose, California

We had an awesome time hanging out in San Jose with Grandmama! I was so happy that Grandmama and Ryenne could finally meet each other. They got along beautifully!

Ryenne let Grandmama hold her, feed her, and they had fun playing with Solo the dog.

We made a special trip to the Pink Elephant, my favorite panderia in San Jose. We had some nice treets including my favorite - flan! We also hit the local Target and had fun shopping. The Carter's store was also close by and we picked up lots of great clothes for the cutie pie. Grandmama has great taste in clothes, and she bought Ryenne a bagful of beautiful clothes.

It was hard to leave San Jose. Wish our vacation would have allowed us to stay longer!

Castro Valley, California

We had a great time staying our first night at Phil & Denicia's house in Castro Valley. Matthew and Ryenne had so much fun playing together. I just love the picture of them holding hands!

Peter and Phil went to see the Golden State basketball team play against Portland. (I'm talking like I know the teams when really I'm totally clueless). They sure were sitting close to the court!

Denicia had some pumpkins out front so I thought I'd get a couple pics of Ry in front of them. The weather was really nice. Around 70 degrees during the daytime. Totally nice and comfortable.

Now that I'm going through the pics, I'm noticing we missed getting a pic with Phil & Denicia! We'll have to do that next time!

Before we left...

Here's a couple of pics from before we left for the mainland. Ryenne was a ballerina princess for Halloween. She looked so darn cute! Nobod showed up for any candy, which is good because Ryenne was totally fussy and we didn't make it to our friends' halloween party. She passed out afterward with her ducky, "Dilly" (short for Dillard).

We're Home!

Well like the title says, we're home! We got up at 4am Cali time to catch our morning flight. Boy were we feeling tired! It was prett chilly in Oakland, and then when we landed on Maui and got off the plane, the heat and humidity hit us like a ton of bricks. It just feels so disgusting.

Ryenne was fabulous on the plane ride home. She played, ate, slept, she was an angel. She cried only a little bit during landing, as the pressure was bothering her ears I'm sure. I nursed her through it and she was fine.

We came home to a mouse who made a home out of our pantry and it's filthy. The darn thing broke into just about all the food in there and there's 2 weeks worth of droppings all over the place. So we're cleaning house today, doing laundry, and we'll need to restock our fridge since there's no food in there.

After we get the house back in order, I'll be editing all the pics from our trip. Can't wait to view them all. We had so much fun with everyone. For the short time we were on the mainland, we sure got to see lots of people! Thanks to all who hosted us!

Phil & Denicia in Castro Valley, Grandmama in San Jose, The Folsom Wesolowski's, Grammie & Grampy in Reno, Auntie Lini in Fernley (Ferntucky), Tia Aura and Uncle Dave in Livermore, Traci and Cadence in Livermore, and the Lafayette Plauche's.

Love to you all. Thanks for making Ryenne's first vacation so fabulous!!!

Big Baby Giggles

Today we left Aunt Anita's after a beautiful time in Folsom. It is such a pretty town, I never realized that before.

We drove through the mountains and stopped in Truckee for lunch. We also bought some fudge from a candy shop. Boy was that stuff GOOD! Ryenne did great on the car ride. I'm so happy to see that she has the travel bug. Peter and I hope to take her on many vacations and see the world!

We arrived at Grammie and Grampy's in Reno and the weather is nice. Getting a bit chilly now that it's evening, but it's very comfortable in the house.

Ryenne has been giving us baby giggles for a while, but boy did we get the BIG giggles this evening! Grammie was throwing Tina's (their dog) toy and Tina was leaping in the air to catch it. Ryenne thought this was hilarious and had the biggest set of giggles I've ever heard. I have never seen anything as cute! She's such a happy girl meeting her great parents. And I'm getting some really great pictures too.

I can't wait to go through our pictures and post some online.

We're in California!!

Well here we are in San Jose, California. We arrived in on Wednesday night. The weather has been wonderful - hovering in the upper 60's. It makes me feel so energetic!

The plane ride over went ok. Ryenne was fussy about half the way and slept for the rest. Boy was it close quarters with everyone. If we were rich, I would for sure purchase first class!

We're at Grandmama's house right now. We spent a couple of nights with our friends and Peter got to go to his first NBA game ever. He had so much fun! We've been having a great time hanging out with Grandmama and her doggy Solo. Ryenne has been such a good girl, and today she took a bottle which was wonderful. I hope she keeps it up because she has been nursing like crazy and I'm pretty sore. She must be on a growth spurt.

We're taking pictures but I don't have any way of uploading them just yet. So I'll definitely post them when I can!!