Good Breakfast Food

A few months ago, while Brian and I celebrated our 10th Anniversary with a Stay-cation, we discovered a couple of delicious breakfast joints here in OC.  I'm a BIG lover of breakfast food.  I could eat it every meal of the day.  And, then again, for dessert.

Anyway, I forgot to get pictures when we went to Stacks in Dana Point.  But, let me tell you. It was good.  Even when Brian made me go for a morning run up-hill from our hotel to get there.  It was worth the run!  They have coconut syrup.  Need I say more?

The second place we discovered is Cinnamon Productions.  They have fresh-squeezed orange juice.  Fresh-squeezed!  Of course I didn't get any pictures the first time here, but, we had to take the Jones' when they were in town, so I have a few pics to share from that trip.  

And, then, there was our most recent trip with a few of Sadie's friends from school.  Only in Southern California, will you find children playing in the splash pad in November!

Family Photos 2013 (March)

My friend, Aubrey Antis (http://www.antisphotography.com), who is an amazing real estate photographer, wanted to try out family photo shoots.  So, she took a few shots for us.  Unfortunately, the only pics with the entire family also have the letter N in them, courtesy of a Mother's Day gift for my mom. (I've included Mom's gift at the bottom--my maiden name is GINOS, pronounced Guinness.)

Morgan, 6 3/4 years

Carson, 20 months

Sadie, 4 3/4 years

The Ginos Family--these are each mounted to canvas and hanging on my mom's wall.  The best alternative to a family picture when we live in 3 states.

San Jose for Valentine's Day!

Morgan happened to have a 5 day break from school in February.  Plus, Brian and I don't celebrate Valentine's Day (I'll post about that later).  So, that left a perfect opportunity for a road trip!  We had to leave Daddy at home to work and study, but, hopefully, he'll get to come on all future road trips!

As usual, I was extremely anxious to travel 6 1/2 hours alone, with 3 kids.  But, also as usual, I received many tender mercies from my Heavenly Father as we traveled.  The kids were mostly good (thank you, DVD player!), and a gas station appeared right when I realized I had completely miscalculated my mileage and could possibly run out of gas in the middle of nowhere.  And, it was a Chevron, to boot!  Yay for me!

Once we arrived, my tensions eased up, as we had a great time with Alie, Tyler, and Jack.  Man, I wish we had cousins closer!  But, on the plus side, we are close to Grammy and Grandpa, so, when cousins visit, we get to join in on the fun!

Enjoying mustache lollipops in the backyard!

Carson and Jack loved pulling each other around in the wagon!  

It was $2 Jamba Juice week, so we took the kids for a treat!

Yummy!  I haven't had Jamba in ages!

We spent a day at Happy Hollow, and, lucky Tyler got to go on the roller coaster 3 (or more) times with the girls.  They can't wait to be big enough for Magic Mountain!  But, I didn't get any pictures, sorry!

Here they are on one of the old-school swing carousel rides.  They loved it!

 And, just for fun, Carson on the rocking horse.

And, now, more photos, courtesy of my sister's GOOD camera.  Yes, point and shoot is nice and pocket size, but, it makes for terrible photos.  Here are some better ones to enjoy!

The bug ride.  Jack wanted to go on it, until he actually got on it.  And, he proceeded to cry the entire ride.  Poor guy!  The girls enjoyed it!

Crazy kids!  L-R: Morgan and Rae, Sadie and Lulu, Carson and Fillmore, Jack and Leonard.

Carson was so excited to hold the ticket!  Too bad it wasn't his!  He's still free!

Smile = scrunchy face!  Some day, I'm sure I'll look back and miss that little face!

All the kids. But a little more serious this time.  Well, as serious as cousins having fun can be.

Alie got a picture of the roller coaster.  The girls had their arms up the whole ride.  It was the real deal (not really, but, they had a great time)!

Just finished chasing Uncle Tyler through the maze.

We only brought one stroller, and, only one seat for the stroller, so Carson improvised when Jack took his spot.  Still don't know why we didn't grab the doubles kit, but, hey, it made for a cute picture!

Thanksgivng

I know I'm really behind.  I used to be kind of up-to-date with my blog, but now, I've decided it's better to record it at some point, rather than not record it at all!

What started as a quick "just us" trip to San Jose for a BYU football game turned into an 8-day family vacation to Northern California!  We saw the Joneses (sorry, no pic!), the Posts (no pics, again!), (Great) Grandpa and Grandma Miller, and the Heathcotes!  We had a great time!

Brian and Mackenzie at the game--we had fun with the Alie and Tyler, but will NEVER again buy a BYU tailgate ticket!  It took forever to get our food, and it wasn't even good!  Add to it that we lost the game!  

Look at this kid's eyelashes!  

My Grandpa (the kids' Great-Grandpa) celebrated his 78th birthday while we were visiting (November 19).  We wanted to do something fun to surprise him, so Brian and the girls went to get him donuts!  Later that evening, the Heathcotes came over for dinner and ice cream.  We had a fun day, but, all Grandpa could say at the end was, "Why didn't I have a birthday cake?"  We love you, Grandpa!

These kids LOVE to wash dishes!  

Leave it to Carson to dirty BOTH of his jackets on the same day.  As I'm recording this one month later, this "butterfly jacket" has now become one of his favorites!

Sadie, our cheerleader!  

Morgan, our daredevil!

What do you say about a picture of yourself?  Well, here I am!  

We played at the school playground in the neighborhood.  I remember playing at this school when I was a little kid!  And, my mom (Tammy), went to this elementary school.  It was fun to show the kids where Grammy Tammy went to school.

Brian, showing off that he can still do a pull up! (For the record: I've never been able to do one--ever!  And, I'm okay with that!)

Daddy taught Morgan to play chess a few weeks before our trip.  She wanted to challenge Great-Grandpa!  He was pretty impressed with her skill!

It's always been a fun tradition to have dinner at The Old Spaghetti Factory the last night before we all head home from Sacramento.  So, we did.  And, for the first time that I can ever remember at this location, we got to eat in the main part of the restaurant!  Our group has always been so big (i.e. 25+ NOISY kids), that we've eaten in the back room.  I guess we've learned to behave ourselves a bit better as we've aged!  This is such a fun tradition!

Alie snapped this picture of Carson on Thanksgiving.  How she managed to get him to stay still for a picture is a mystery to me!  (She must have been dangling a piece of food by the camera!)