Howe's Life: February 2016

While we've had some lovely El Nino rains resulting in flooding all over San Diego, a sinkhole on the 8 freeway, and lots of days for the girls to wear rainboots - February has had a couple of gorgeous weeks of spring weather! I love having 80 degree days!
The girls enjoyed superbowl at the Kelly house this year. It was amazing because we (the grown ups) were all able to sit and watch the game for once. The kids loved having dinner together and played until well past everyone's bedtimes.

I hope they know that this is what Naomi and I want to see in their future!

Matt spent the second week of February in Kansas City for work. The girls and I made it through a fairly stressful week with a couple of early mornings and a crazy grant budget issue that I still haven't solved two weeks later. The two highlights of the week were the hour I spent working in the backyard and soaking up the sun along with the amazing Thursday evening the girls and I had while we waited for Matt's flight to come in. We went straight from school to get Madeline's hair cut which involved a lengthy wait and both girls being very patient. Afterwards, we had dinner at The Corvette Diner. The girls sat down for dinner at 7pm which is way later than we ever go out with them. They were so entertained watching the waitstaff dance, generally just people gazing, and eating french fries.

Of course, President's Day weekend began the first day Matt was home from Kansas City. He had to go to the office to do all of the normal work he wasn't able to do while traveling. He did meet us for lunch after the kids and I visited Sea World for our first 2016 trip. The girls spent a ton of time touching the urchin and fish. Ella was very specific that we had to start with the penguins and we spent a relaxing 20 minutes lying with the turtles.

Saturday brought Eleanor attending gymnastics and Madeline going to dance. Our neighbors are also in Ella's gymventures class which definitely adds to the fun! Matt went golfing with Mike Shea (in town from back East) and the girls created a very clear schedule for their afternoon with me (earned by cleaning the playroom). We went to the Corner Bakery (Madi's favorite still) for lunch, visited the park, took a walk around the neighborhood, and painted nails.

On Sunday we had lunch and spent the afternoon with the extended Howe family. Both of Matt's aunt/uncle pairs were in town and all of the cousins. It was great to catch up with everyone. Ella was in a great mood and actually wanted to hug people. The only hard part of the afternoon was when my girls terrorized poor Yoda the cat under the guise of wanting to pet him. On Monday, Mom escaped to brunch and do some work for the morning. In the afternoon, we went to the Higgins yard to see all of the Sheas. Baby EJ is so big now and the girls played really well with him and of course with Danica, Brynn, and Michael.

Grandma T took the girls overnight this weekend when Matt went to LA for a basketball game. I have never been alone in the house overnight and I have to say, it as awesome! In the 24 hours I was alone, I did 9 loads of laundry, the house was totally clean, the dogs got tons of snuggles, and I managed to get a ton of my work done that has been put all due to multiple issues over the last week (including the night spent in the ER and day on the couch after Eleanor scratched my cornea). I even got to meet Auntie Renee for lunch in Carlsbad at a place that isn't Ruby's. I am reminded that if I didn't have kids, a 24 hour day would be plenty to get everything done in my life. Instead I am very thankful to my mom for giving me the chance to catch up on things (especially since the kids destroyed her house for the second time recently). Ella was especially excited to visit Grandma since lately when we pull up to the house after school she yells at me "I don't wanna go home, I wanna go Grandma T's house!"