Spring Break...

Things have been stressful lately...

No need to go into detail on my "online private journal" haha but I don't write anywhere else so here it is.  

Life is not all rainbows and kitty cats as much as I would like it to be and believe me I seriously try and make it just that. 

I actually deleted all my social media because when life throws you curve balls and you are reading and looking at peoples pictures and they are spending spring break in Hawaii and Paris and the Bahamas and their life looks so perfect and you forget that maybe their life isn't so perfect.

And even though I know this when I see all the pictures of people seemingly living their perfect lives it makes me not count my many blessings and makes me wonder, "Why am I not in Paris for spring break? Why does my husband have to work all week?  Things like that and suddenly I am having a pity party for one serving myself a healthy dose of sadness to go with it. 

So for me I have to step back and remove it all and start at the basics.  We are healthy, I live with the man of my dreams and he gave me these people who I love more than anything and I get to share this crazy life with them and yes things are hard right now but these people are all healthy and happy and suddenly you stop having that little pity party. I just have to focus right now on helping my family the best way I know how.  

What's the saying? 

If Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy.  

Truer words have never been spoken.

So I keep putting on my oxygen mask first so I can help my kiddos and my sweet man. If I can't breathe then I certainly can't help them breathe.

In the meantime spring break turned out to be a blast and boy I was not expecting that.  

Monday I allowed myself to be in just a rotten mood.  Sometimes you have to work through stuff and I did. 

I woke up on Tuesday ready to make the best of it all so little Charles and I headed to the Oakland zoo.  Ella was with her girlfriend and since Charlie being the fourth child and all, probably didn't even know that a zoo exists, it was the perfect place for our date.

So hand in hand doing just what he wanted... we saw it all.

I honestly have never loved the zoo more.

It was all through Charlie's 8 year old eyes...

This is the part where the zoo worker scolded me for letting him sit on the fence.  C'mon it's not like I was dangling him above the lions...it was a little harmless monkey.  See him looking at us?

Wednesday was a total success at Six Flags.  

I am still amusement parked out from last spring break when we had our fun at Magic Mountain but the kiddos love it and I am such a roller coaster junkie at heart it didn't take much convincing.  So we met the Doxey's and Ellie came with Ella and again it exceeded all my expectations.  

Maybe that is the key don't have any expectations and then nothing is a disappointment...right?  Truthfully though I think it is because we talked Charles into riding Medusa and he loved it.  His height barely squeaked the line but the worker probably had pity on us after she over heard me talk to Charlie for 30 minutes straight how much he was going to love it.

Heading up the first hill I had my doubts. 

The poor kid was a light green color... but luckily to my roller coaster loving heart when I heard him say, "That is my favorite ride ever!"

 Well it was one of the happiest moments of my life.

We went on it 3 more times back to back and I mean we ran fast and I felt like a kid again and I was laughing and panting and laughing some more until Ellie threw up because apparently she does not have the roller coaster stomach stamina that Call's are naturally born with.

Oops sorry Ellie..

Things weren't quite as funny for a moment there...

Ellie looks a little pale still  ;)

This is where it gets good and I mean really good like as in great.  

Like as in the ocean seems to calm my restless soul instantly.

Growing up I didn't know I needed the ocean.  Land locked in Utah I just didn't know.

Now I need it's healing presence like I need air.

We stayed in Carmel Thursday and we drove home late Sunday night.

4 days on the beach and all was right with my world.

The first couple of days it was just me, Ella and Charles plus

Doxey's and Ann.

Nicholas flew in late Friday and he, Ben,Tom and John drove down to meet us.

I can't express how much fun these couple of days were.

Bonfires on the beach, runs along the ocean, bike rides into town and hours playing in the ocean.

I needed that.

I can't express how much I needed that.

This is an important picture.

This is Paris bakery and when I am here I sing to myself, "Who needs Paris anyway?" Sung in Elsa's voice to the tune of frozen, "The Cold Never Bothered Me Anyway."  Seriously those songs have ruined me forever.

As I was saying the best pastry on the planet lives here and it is an almond croissant and you might be thinking that that doesn't sound very good because I would of, but it happens to be the best thing that has ever happened to our planet and the best thing that has ever happened to me while I am eating it and I was sharing it for the first time with Nicholas and I was just so very happy.

Siblings together again...

Things like this happen here.  

Usually I have to beg, borrow, plead and bribe to get them to let me take their picture.  My generally nice people turn nasty mean when they see a camera and make ugly faces on purpose, but when we are in Carmel Charlie looks at me and says, 

"Take a picture of me running fast."  

I smile and I do.

My boys are competitive about everything...

When Nicholas saw this picture he thought he looked buff and so I put it here to remember how much my boys like to look buff.

I love that they love the ocean...

but no one more than my Ella

He still loves his kite...

But not his burn because he was a ding dong and would not listen to his Mama.

I begged him...I really did.  

But noooo he wanted to be bronze for the ladies.

The kids went back to school on Monday and I was grateful for every minute with them and I got Nicholas for a whole week almost to myself while they were in school...
to be continued...

My Simple Philosophy...

Tom and I were first told we lived on vacation a couple of years ago by my brother and sister in law.  They visit us every summer, and yes,when we have guests in town, we are definitely living on vacation.

But that isn't real life...right?

But then I was talking to my best friend last week and she said the same thing.

Your family lives on vacation.

I thought about that this week.

Tom and I always say it to each other but never to anyone else.

So in saying it all the time... are we acting like we do?

I suppose we are.

Not completely, I mean there is a lot to do around here... 

but we play really hard.

Now this is a good time as any to interject some major disclosures.

Our life is far from perfect.  

We have many, many struggles.

After all, we have four kids for crying out loud and with that in of itself is crazy business. 

Insert like 100 crazies before the word business. 

Tom works from home which is a huge blessing to have him with us so much.  From the outside, I am sure with that reason alone it looks like maybe we are living on vacation.

Oh, but the financial pressures of working for yourself, are at times, completely unbearable. 

I mean like ghastly horrible.

So you see with me saying that we live on vacation... it has more to do with our approach to life and not that we are free from life's continuous hurdles.  

Now with all that said...back to playing really really hard.

We do.

In some ways I think we never grew up...we are always looking for the fun. 

We always have. 

Every. Single. Day. 

During the week it's hard.  

I mean seriously...between cleaning, cooking, homework and kids activities sometimes I want to fling myself.

So it might just be running to Safeway at night to get my favorite frozen mango yogurt. 

And for some added fun we go on our bikes in the dark. Actually we ride our bikes a lot. I  

think maybe it is our constant picnics for lunch even if they are just a block from our house.

It's getting a diet coke.

It's going for a run on the trail.

it's eating breakfast on a different table outside.

Tom cooking a great meal.

It's going hiking in our hills.

Reading a good book.

Craigslist runs.

Driving around our neighborhood.

It's chocolate covered almonds.

It is all the little somethings that add up to a whole lot of everything's. 

Wait I think that is a line from you've got mail. I love that show so much. 

Crap where was I? 

Oh yea, all those things make us think we are having our very own family trip every day. 

On the week ends we step it up for sure. Friday we have a party and by party I mean we tell Ella and Charlie that we are having a party. 

We cook like Mexican food. 

Ben is always at football this time of year so he never parties with us on Fridays. That makes us sad for sure but the party must and should go on.  

Not always, but we really try to do a day trip once a month at least, and then Tom and I have our date hell or high water.

We love where we live.

We love each other.

We love our kids.

There are really bad moments just like when you are on a vacation. 

But we wake up and the trip has to continue until it ends.

There are a lot of variables that go into living a life like this.

Sometimes I get scared.

I love my people so fiercely and I need them healthy so our vacation can go on and on.

I just have to put those scary thoughts in the back of my very simple brain and enjoy today.  

Because nobody knows what tomorrow will bring.

So at the end of the day I guess we really do live on vacation.

These pictures are from 2 of our trips down to Carmel-By-The_Sea

One was a overnighter and one was just a day trip.

Now this place is special and is truly my favorite place in the US of A.

I have more pictures of this trip and I will put them on my good ole' blog later

because I am done doing this now.

I have to go make food for Benjamin's football pasta feed but in my mind I will pretend that we are going on a picnic.  

Yep works every time.  ;)