Tuesday, May 27, 2008

San Diego Company Trip


(Hotel Del Coronado, Coronado Island, San Diego, CA)

Last night Eric and I arrived home from 4 days in San Diego with some of Eric's employees and their wives. Eric took some of his employees for a VA Pro Presidents Club trip to reward them for all their hard work. Not all the employees got to come only those who are full-time and who have been with the company for longer than 6 months. We all flew out on Friday evening to San Diego and checked into the Hotel Del Coronado www.hoteldel.com




The Hotel Del is historic and beautiful and has so many fun things to do.



Some of the highlights of the trip were

Group Dinners at 
1500 Ocean at the DEL



Going to ENO, an awesome Wine, Cheese and Chocolate Bar.
It was actually kind of funny like 12 of us went there late one night and they start telling us all the menu specialties and the tasting meu ect.and Eric says
"Before you start with the menu, we are all mormon but one of us, so we just want one third of your service, the cheese and chocolate"
The girl looked at us like..."um...ok ...this never happens"
But they made up a new just chocolate and cheese menu for us.
It was incredibly yummy and fun!





Dinner at the famous NOBU sushi bar at the Hard Rock



We had lots of time for pool, relaxing and spa treatments




We also had tons of fun riding in style everywhere. We had stretch SUV limos take us everywhere so all 20 of us could go everywhere together, instead of having to take like 10 taxis.







The guys went golfing at the PGA course La Costa



We went to the famous Crown Room Brunch at the Del, it was amazing, their was so much food, and sweets, and anything and everything you could eat.




On Saturday night we also had our company VA PRO dinner in a private room at the Hotel, it was a "white themed" party so everyone wore white and we had a big group shot taken by a photographer for a good souvenior from the trip. Everyone looked so nice. It was really fun. Eric also got to give out some awards for his top guys and other recognitions for some of the employees.



We spent time at the beach,the guys (and Amber) surfed and skim boarded. All us girls watched and relaxed on the beach...and took pictures.







Eric was a pretty impressive surfer, I mean none of the guys were doing anything more than "staying up" but it was still more than I could do.


Also one other fun thing we did but I have NO pics of (which I am so sad about) we all went dancing one night. It was hillarious. I have not been dancing since I was in school before I even met Eric, and most everyone wasn't exactly a "typical group" you would see out on the town dancing, but we did.
But, it was probably the most fun night. We were out at the Hard Rock for dinner and stayed to all hang out. It was so funny/fun. Eric and the guys were break dancing and were all hyper and crazy. It was so much fun and by far the most fun night!

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Famous Cupcakes!!



So I recieved the following email this morning from my cupcake girl. Kinda cool. It is on a couple of other cupcake blogs I found too!
Hailey,
Ok so check this out.... like the biggest and most popular cupcake blog in the country, Cupcakes Take The Cake, blogged about your American Idol Cupcakes. Yay! http://cupcakestakethecake.blospot.com/2008/05/american-idol-cupcakes-from-sweet-tooth.html
Fun stuff!
-Megan

Wednesday, May 21, 2008

And The Winner IS..... David....COOK!!



Ok so contrary to poll numbers on my blog, Cook beat out Archuletta tonight. Which I was bummed out at first about but I am happy for him. He really is very very good and seems like a cool guy. This was the best American Idol finale yet, cuz I felt like there was no frontrunner. SO it was fun to watch. Our American Idol Party was fun to have everyone over to watch with us and eat the snacks I got way to much of. 



Ok I do have to spot light the cupcakes we served, my cupcake go-to girl Megan from the SWEET TOOTH FAIRY made little cupcakes with microphones on them and stars, then some had "American Idol" on them. Then my favorite ones had Idol saying on them like 
" It was a little pitchy" "It was all too cabaret for me" and "dude, you could sing the phone book" They were a hit!



Ok so I made everyone choose who they were rooting for and wear a wrist band to show it. (I didn't want anyone switching teams once they announced the winner like Eric always has) I even had the kids wearing ones to support "their David"
Blue was for Archuletta and Silver was for Cook, this is Eric braggin about his silver wristband



Ashley, Ava and Haley were for Archuletta, we were for sure a mixed crowd.



We all sat around for the big announcement. Even the kids all settled down to watch.
Thanks everyone for coming! It was so fun to have everyone over!! And now So You Think You Can Dance starts tomorrow. Yay, now we won't go through Idol withdrawls.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Getting so very anxious...



I would say Ady and Eric are really itchin' to be hangin out in the pool, right? We are getting so so anxious now that the weather is getting nice for the pool and backyard to be done. I guess I have always taken for granted having a backyard for my kids to play in, cuz now that they cannot play in the backyard, we are dying to be outside.



Supposedly once I pick the pool tile and stamped concrete finish this week we will be a couple of weeks away from diving into the pool... we will see though.
This is how the yard looked in March

And the beginning of April..

And the end of April...

And right now...

Tuesday, May 13, 2008

Survival Swimming

Last year when I was a new mom again with a brand new baby Max and a 20 month old Adyson who didnt want to stay home just cuz we had a new baby. I decided to register Ady for a survival swim class for "something to do" it was 4 days a week for a 3 weeks session and I thought "why not?" My friend Camille was having her son Gavin do it and she loved it. So, we decided to give it a try. Well, I did not know how amazing the "KIDS CAN SWIM" survival swim classes really were. So here I am a year later with both my kids currently enrolled for a 2 weeks session. As you can see in the picture above that is Maxwell, my 13 month old floating on his back unassisted, the swim teacher is close behind him (just in case) but he can float on his back all alone, and this picture is only from his 2nd lesson. In Survival Swim their goal is to teach kids to "find the air" if they ever fell into any water or got into too deep of water they could immediately flip to their back to the "finding the air" position and keep themselves afloat until help came. Now, I would NEVER leave my kids alone or unattended around water but this class does equip them with the needed survival skills and well as gives them confidence in the water.



As you can see in the picture Max is learning to flip to his back on his own. And after his 2nd lesson he is already learning that to be a reflex almost when his mouth gets under water. It is incredible. They teach kids as soon as they can crawl these skills. I video taped Max and Ady's first lessons this season and I will post them once I have recorded their last lesson so you can see the amazing results in just a couple of weeks. Really, I cannot say enough about this program. It is more than I could have hoped my kids could learn at such a young age.



Now, you all may be wondering, is it mean? And I think NO WAY! Yes, both of my kids really had a hard time their first lesson, and few other times (Ady last year more than Max) but now both of them smile in the water and are not scared of the lessons any more. They are short 10 minutes a piece private lessons and the teacher is great with them! But, anyway I will get off my survival swim soapbox, but I just wanted to say how proud and amazed I am at how much my kids have learned. Eric too, he was a complete skeptic at first and he cannot believe how well the kids do. He came to their lesson today and could not believe how much Max had learned after just 4 lessons. Ady too, since she had already mastered finding the air last year, she needed only a couple days of brushing up on that skill now they are teaching her how to kick on her back to the side and get out of the pool. She is also jumping off the diving board then going immediately to her back once she comes up to the surface. I really will post the videos on here next week, I think you will all be surprised at how much they can both do. We are!!