A Day of Trucks and A Whirlwind Weekend

I might as well squeeze two weekends into one post. It’s been a pretty eventful few weeks around here. It seems this great weather really brings out all the fun happenings. Here’s what we’ve been up to.

Every year our little town’s nursery school puts on what they call a Truck Touch. It’s all to benefit the school, and always draws a huge crowd. In a big parking lot they bring a bunch of vehicles of every kind for the kids to play on/in and honk the horns, and just have fun. I remember taking the cute kids I used to babysit to it once years ago. Crazy how I had plans to take my three little ones this year. It was a hot day, but it was such a great time. They were in heaven as they sat in driver’s seat of the school bus, or cement truck, and thought playing in someone’s boat was so great. There were so many, we didn’t even make it to them all. The refrigerated Safeway truck was a nice break from the heat. They got some tickets with admission, which we happily used on balloons. Best idea ever. The kids danced around with those for a while, coming back to me now and then for a bite of a snow cone. And they were easy to spot if they wandered off, by just looking for the bouncing balloon. Just before we left, a Chick-fil-a cow wandered in, and Ruby, my used-to-be-deathly-afraid-of-everyone girl, couldn’t get enough of him. She kept going back to say hi, and even demanded a hug. At one point, she kept whining to me that she wanted a hug and kiss! That girl. It was a fun day with our little family.

To keep with our truck theme (really, it was just a coincidence), that same night we went to an awesome food truck festival, held RFK stadium festival Grounds, only about four miles from our house. Probably 30 different, well-known food trucks from around the city were all in one place. It was nearly impossible for us to choose who to eat from. I was pretty giddy. My first stop was the Hula Girl truck for their amazing plate lunch Elise and I shared. That Kalua Pork was insanely good. KC went for this naan-wrapped Indian chicken type thing, that was also beyond delicious. We wished the trucks sold small portions so we could try more things, but most were dinner sized meals so our stomachs were getting too full too fast. We did find a few fun little things to try, like some great empanadas, horchata popsicles, and a milkshake. I wish they’d do this once a month. It was so fun to go with Elise and Jeff for a double date. It was also a beautiful night.

 

Last weekend was another fun one. We had a lot planned, and were able to do it all with a little energy to spare. It started off well with a fun girls night. We ate delicious food, and could’ve talked all night, but made ourselves stop to watch The Vow. I love my girl time. I really look forward to hanging with my great friends.

So anyway, I don’t think it was the best thing for me to eat all that delicious food and stay out until all hours of the night (hey, I wouldn’t have gotten home so late, if it weren’t for the construction on the freeway resulting in a lovely one-hour drive home, not to mention some weird second wind I got at 1 am, resulting in about 3 hrs. of sleep), because I had a 5k bright and early the next morning. I wasn’t expecting much out of myself. I haven’t been training too hard, I’m not feeling in the best shape right now, and it was right here in beautiful, hilly Cheverly, hilly being the operative word. But, I was just looking forward to a fun workout. I mean, how could I NOT do a 5k when it’s in my very own neighborhood? It was a small race. The 5k and 1 mile walk all together had only, maybe, 140 participants. I won’t lie, I felt pretty sluggish from the first quarter-mile on. Like I was running through mud or something. But it was a gorgeous day, and it helped that there were so many residents cheering us on as we weaved through the neighborhoods, including my own family! It was so adorable as I saw them in the distance clapping, and waving at all the runners as they passed. They didn’t even realize it was me as I passed them. I heard them cry for me when I was already down the road, and they realized who I was. Awe, my sweet little cheerleaders. I finished 17th overall (#15 and #16 passed me in the last half mile!) , and actually got my best time yet, which based on how I felt the entire run, I was not expecting at all. My official time was 25:55, but I’m giving myself a few seconds because of some confusion over where the actual finish line was. (I started walking early, and then quickly realized the race wasn’t over yet!) It was a great morning. I’m still awaiting all the pictures they promised to make available. But if you look here, you can see me in my bright green shirt right as the race began. I had so much fun, I just found another one to run next weekend. This race thing is addicting.

Before the race:

And after:

And the busy day continued. We put the kids down for an early nap because of our afternoon plans, which totally backfired. They played, laughed, and whined on and off for a solid two hours, during which I ran some quick errands. We gave up on them sleeping at all and carried out our plans as normal. We made some new friends in the ward, Tyler and Sarah, and have been having fun with them ever since. They just moved here, and bought season passes to Six Flags, just 20 minutes from our house. Last Saturday, they were allowed to bring one person free with each pass. Our original idea was to go on a double date to the park that night, but there were some babysitter complications, so we started toying with the idea of bringing the kids to the park during the day. At first, I dismissed the idea immediately (a habit I’ve gotten in when it comes to most grandiose ideas involving these kids), but then started to wonder if we should give it a try. It was free after all, and so close to home if we decided it was too much and wanted to call it quits. And it worked out that there were enough passes to get the Ribeiras in free as well. So we threw all caution to the wind and decided to give it a try. We all set out around 2:30 pm to our first amusement park adventure with the triplets! And it was better than I would’ve hoped! They were the EXACT height required to ride alone, and I can’t believe how nervous I was to just strap them in and walk away. They were a little tired, and maybe nervous as well, so it took them a while to warm up, but overall, I think they had a great time. And thanks to Lili for being the extra set of hand when we needed her. We were mostly looking forward to the little splash pad, and put them in the swimsuits from the start just for that. I think they were so tired at that point, they weren’t as enthusiastic as I had imagined, but it was great fun, nonetheless. We enjoyed a good couple hours there, and then made our way home, feeding the kids our cooler meal on the way and called it dinner. They were as chipper as ever, and kept talking about “six flags!” They were in bed at 5:45 and were asleep in 10 minutes. Beautiful.

Since we were slightly disappointed about not getting to have our double date, we still made plans to meet up at our friends’ house (we were swapping date nights with the Ribieras and that weekend), and enjoyed delicious Thai take-out, great conversation (turns our Tyler and I were in high school together), and as if I hadn’t had enough exercise that day, worked up a sweat playing Just Dance. Whew. I don’t know how I did it, but I didn’t even feel like I needed to crash until I was in bed at about 1 am. I must’ve been running on fumes at that point.

Then began a beautiful Mother’s Day. When we were all ready for church, I tried to gather everyone for a picture, but was positive it would ruin my day if I tried too hard, so I gave up to salvage any patience I had left to enjoy the day. The kids were angels during church, and didn’t even care that we just pushed them into the nursery (actually they ran into the room themselves), and then just went about our business. We have never done that. Usually we have to stick around to prevent at least one of them from bawling the whole time. We just stared going to nursery regularly with the winter being over, and naps being later, so they must be finally getting used to it, and getting past this clingy stage. It was lovely to attend Sunday School, and Relief Society. And I loved going to pick them up and seeing the huge smiles on their faces as they ran up to me and handed me a picture they colored just for their mommy.  We got to facetime/talk on the phone to our awesome moms we love so much, and ended the day with a delicious meal with the Ribeiras, made by Jeff, and I made cake and homemade ice cream, thanks to my new ice cream maker. That thing might be a problem. Ice cream is too easy to make! I may have thrown a Ninja Kitchen System in my cart while shopping as well (both were steals at Costco). It isn’t Mother’s Day without a good splurge, right?

So that’s all the busy fun we’ve been having, and I have a feeling we’re going to keep our schedule pretty packed as we try to keep these kids entertained, and enjoy the outdoors during this beautiful time of year.