Happy Birthday Emily!

Emily is 14 today, or as Eva would have you know, "Emily turned my favorite number today!" Eva has been infatuated with the number 14 since she was three years old, half her life. She used to write the number fourteen on tiny post-it notes and put them around the house, proudly asserting that it was her favorite.

To the mass of people who have said me over the years, "oh, they grow up so fast," I have this to say:

OK FINE. YOU ARE RIGHT. IT IS TRUE DANGIT!

She's my first baby. Sob. As in cry, not the other one.  Yesterday a song came on the radio that was popular for several months of 1998 that followed her birth.  I remember laying with her on more than one night listening to these words and feeling overwhelmed with emotion as I thought of this most precious gift I had ever received.  Every line felt like it was written for that moment of my life, looking at her, loving her. My sweet baby girl. 

I could stay awake just to hear you breathing
Watch you smile while you are sleeping
While you're far away and dreaming
I could spend my life in this sweet surrender
I could stay lost in this moment forever
Where every moment spent with you is a moment I treasure

Don't wanna close my eyes, I don't wanna fall asleep
'Cause I'd miss you baby and I don't wanna miss a thing
'Cause even when I dream of you the sweetest dream would never do
I'd still miss you baby and I don't want to miss a thing

Lying close to you feeling your heart beating
And I'm wondering what you're dreaming
Wondering if it's me you're seeing
Then I kiss your eyes and thank God we're together
I just wanna stay with you in this moment forever, forever and ever

I don't wanna miss one smile, I don't wanna miss one kiss
I just wanna be with you, right here with you, just like this
I just want to hold you close, feel your heart so close to mine
And just stay here in this moment for all the rest of time

I'm nearly certain that the woman that wrote that song wrote it about her baby!  I knew it was about me and my baby anyway. Don't think about Steven Tyler, that just messes with my imagery.

Happy 14th Birthday Emily! You are such a lucky kid that your awesomeness exceeds your pain-in-the-buttness. I love you girl. Even though you won't let me hug or kiss you anymore, maybe I'll steal a hug, or at least give you the 14 spankings for your birthday that you deserve.

Road Tripping.

May 2012 gave us a good thrashing. So glad to have lived it and survived, but so glad it's behind us. It's like a race to the finish line. The finish line being the last day of school. It's so much like December, only the finish line is Christmas day. So many things are crammed into these two months. Especially if you have a kid, or four.

We ditched our plans to camp in Pinecrest last week because again this year the temps were lower than we were prepared to bear. Lucky we did too because it got cold, and it rained, and it snowed! We're tent campers and I'm not ready to go there. We wanted to get out of town anyway since we had already allotted the time to be away. Tony and I were almost giddy with our prospects. Anywhere in California we thought. The whole state our playground for five days.

So where did we end up? You'll never believe it. Las Vegas. Really.

We didn't make reservations until the morning we left town. Crazy right? And thrilling if you really want to know the truth. Tony and I have never been there together but have each been there once, or twice, I can't quite remember. And the four impressionable young children that we love and cherish? What an adventure is all I can say!

In my imaginings, I seem to remember some news about Vegas becoming more kid friendly over the years. I didn't do any research on this before we left so I was surprised to find that this is completely untrue. Who knew?

I actually sat in our hotel room and googled the marketing history of Las Vegas on Emily's laptop and read this:

"...in the 1990s, Las Vegas worked hard to become a family destination. Hotels built elaborate theme parks and stage shows offered kid-friendly fare. Television and print campaigns touted this Nevada city as the ideal place for a family vacation. For all intents and purposes, the campaign failed."

Haahaahaahaa! How dumb are we?

Despite that realization, we did have a really good time. Our hotel had an amazing wave pool and lazy river where we spent the majority of our afternoons.





We ate donuts for breakfast. We did lots of tram riding and fun dining, and Vegas style Eiffel tower/Statue of Liberty/Pyramid sightseeing while dodging timeshare sellers (successfully) and hundreds, if not thousands of smokers (unsuccessfully) along the way. We actually found lots of healthy fodder for educational conversations if you can believe that. People, places, history, modern architecture, ancient pyramids, you name it. The kids decided that if we ever go back we have to stay at the Luxor. We'll see.



We visited Hoover dam, briefly stepped into Arizona, and marveled at the new bypass bridge that spans an unbelievably large (but not grand) canyon. Wyatt had never visited another state until this trip. He didn't want to leave California. Then he didn't want to leave Nevada, refusing to walk across the border on the second half of the dam. We coaxed him over and congratulated him on his second new state.



We drove almost eight hours each way. The majority of those hours were through the Mojave desert. Sounds boring, but it was amazing. Our family has never been on such a long road trip, so we marveled at everything we saw. We also laughed. A lot.

We talked about Joshua trees, otherworldly terrain, looked for desert mountains, and wondered about all the abandoned properties and homes. Who lived there? Why? When did they leave? Where did they go? Have you ever waited hours to stop for dinner and missed your one and only exit in the middle of the desert with no u-turn available for dozens of miles? We did that, and rather than let the hunger grouch in us take over, we found it hilarious and just kept snacking in the car. We came into the big city a little before 10 p.m. No one had fallen asleep through the desert and and it was fun coming up on it with all the pretty lights after a couple hundred miles of slight civilization.

Did we gamble? Yes, Tony tripled his money and made exactly $15.

Glad we went? Yes.

Would we go back with our kids? No.

Would Tony and I go back on a plane and stay a night or two, see a show or a concert with friends? Definitely.