Dogwalker

There is a new dog walker in the neighborhood!! The other day a ball happened to go over the wall from our yard into the yard behind us. I took the kids with me on Sunday to walk around and apologize and ask for the ball back plus ask them to just please throw back any balls/toys that happen to fly over the wall in the future. There was a nice couple living there with their two dogs and the Cocker Spaniel "Charlie", came out right away wanting to say hello. He was so sweet and Cassandra petted him and I just threw the question out there if it was maybe possible for her to walk the dog sometimes?!

It turned out that she happily accepted as she is now working nights and doesn't have that much time to walk them. The second dog was not safe around kids, or she didn't know the dog well enough as they not long ago got him from a shelter, but Charlie was safe and the sweetest and nicest dog possible!

So we agreed to come by on Monday, yesterday, for the first walk. Cassie was excited, and after a snack after coming home from school, we went for a walk. He was a little bit hesitant first, as he didn't know her/us, but soon when Cassie showed him who was in charge, he followed without crossing back and forth!

Benjamin and Isabella thought that it was VERY exciting and kept saying dog dog and pointing and laughing! We made a quick stop and I made Charlie stand up by the stroller so that they could pet him, and that was fun. I really didn't want to take them out of the stroller this first time, having them throw a tantrum because I would have to put them back into the stroller. That would maybe make Charlie upset and nervous, and it would be difficult for me handling them both by the street without the stroller and keeping my focus and Cassie and the dog. This way, everyone was happy and the focus was on Cassie and the dog!  Another time when he knows us better, we can let them pet him when he is in the yard or something.

Today Tuesday, we just came back from the second walk with him, and everything went just as smooth as yesterday. We haven't set up a schedule or anything, but will just drop by here and there to see if they are home. When we have walked with him for a couple of times, I think that Cassie will be confident to walk with him alone too, but for now the twins and myself will tag along.

 Charlie!

Sleeping Princesses

Yesterday, the first pictures of the Swedish newborn Princess was released. Such a cute sweet little girl. She reminded me very much of two little Princesses that I know and how they looked when they were born. With their darker skin ton and dark hair. Very pretty all of them!!

 

Royal Princess Estelle 

4 days old.

Princess Cassandra 

1 day old.

 Princess Isabella 

1 day old first picture and the other two pictures 4 days old.

And then looking through these first pictures of Isabella I found this one, of both my Princesses sleeping. Love this picture!!

Cassandra & Isabella

Playground time

Yesterday afternoon,  we went to the West-Wetlands-Park.
It's unfortunately on the other side of town, and we actually crossed over to California to get there. Well, we went back into Yuma on the Arizona side after just a few turns, but still. As we haven't been that lucky with finding a playground close to our house, I heard from a neighbor that they used to go here, and I looked it up today and we decided to go with pretty short notice.

We hadn't really looked at any pictures, but only got the address out and that was it. We were very happily surprised! It was a great huge playground and the whole area was spread out with a pond with fish, big open green spaces, bike and walking trails and different BBQ locations. Boat launching we saw a sign of as well, I'm sure we only saw half of what this big area had to offer and we'll have to come back for more. For you who came to visit us in Hutchinson, I could compare the whole Wetland Park, with our Carey Park in Hutchinson, with lots of different places, that was also where the Water park was for you who know.

Anyway, the kids were eager to get to play and I quickly applied some sunscreen and hats and we parked close to another park. It was very busy with lots of kids, so the little ones weren't safe, and Cassie really wanted to walk over to the big playground area, which was just close by with the big towers to check that out. It was great!!

picture from visityuma.com

The park in itself was very well planned and built. It was good fencing all around, except the entry way, which I think that they could have had gates for, but at least the fencing was better than nothing. If you look to the very left corner (you can see a blue train in there) is where the area for the younger kids were, which was separately fenced off from the bigger playground. Absolutely awesome! We were not the only ones there today, (read packed) but luckily the area with younger kids were not at all that crowded, but the rest of the area, where Cassie soon "disappeared" was filled with kids running around all over the place. She really liked it, and I'll go in there with her next time, as we now were too busy with Benjamin and Isabella in the other section. They couldn't have been able to go into the bigger area, much to high to climb and they would get lost and run down by the older ones. This way it worked out perfect!

I also loved the fact that the whole floor was covered in a soft rubber mat, no hot dirty sand filled with creepy bugs!! Plus that it was soft for the younger ones to fall on, no scraped up dirty knees! Only minus- they didn't have any covering. Especially for the younger area, it would have been great to have a big sail covering for shade over the kids. They now already in February were totally hot and red after all the running around and we kept giving them drinks but after not even 2 hours we had to end the playing session before they got overheated. They learned a new instruction today. Instruction sounds like we're training dogs, but I don't find a better word right now. Of course they didn't want to stop for a drink, so we had to make them stop and say - Do you want to play? If you want to play, you have to drink! It worked wonderfully!! I will for sure keep that up, as they will need to drink a lot here during these high temperatures and higher - much higher - to come!

The two picture above yelp.com

 

The swings outside before we entered the big playground.

 Making music!

 

All the playground equipment was also built out of rubber and plastic, so no wood splinters or burns from hot metal slides. Mommy likes!!

 Ben and Chris up and down the slide while me and Isabella had a break at the swings.

 Cassie was somewhere in there!

SUN-day!

Today dear friends I just wanted to share with you that I had pretty good day. When the kids took their nap I quickly switched into bikini, sprayed myself with sunscreen and hit the chair out on the patio. Warm warm and I was soon burning up in the sun. It's February, but we had over 80F/27C and in the heat in the middle of the mid day sun, you could probably add another 10 degrees.

Actually, something funny happened when I was speaking to my sister Tina. We had just started our conversation over skype and all of a sudden my phone dies. And do you know what it said?

picture Google

I had never seen that message come up before and first I had to laugh and then I got worried about that I had damaged it by leaving it out on the patio in the sun. But, I actually hadn't left it in the sun but only had it in my hand talking on the phone..

But after walking inside for a few minutes and I actually wanted to take a picture with the camera, but before I got the camera out - only a few minutes- it had already cooled down that it started up normal again. Thankfully nothing seems to be wrong and it has worked the rest of the day. 

Considering that my iPhone is white, I'm glad that I don't have a black one, it would get even hotter I'd think. BUT, the cover that I have now is black out of silicone, not fancy but very practical with two little ones that wants to use it all the time, and drop it (throw it out of frustration) on the floor here and there. Well, if it's going to overheat now in these temperatures, how often won't it overheat in the real summer? I have to get a white/light colored cover first of all that's for sure! Anyone else that had had this problem? I googled it and found this link:

How to prevent iPhone overheating.

To see what Apple actually had to say about it, I looked it up in the manual:

Below is the information copied from the iPhone 4 user manual:

Keeping iPhone Within Acceptable Temperatures iPhone is designed
to be operated in temperatures between 0º and 35º C (32º to 95º F) and
stored in temperatures between -20º and 45º C (-4º to 113º F). Low- or
high-temperature conditions might temporarily shorten battery life or
cause iPhone to temporarily stop working properly. Leaving iPhone in
a parked vehicle or in direct sunlight can cause iPhone to exceed these
storage or operating temperature ranges. Avoid dramatic changes in
temperature or humidity when using iPhone as condensation may form
on or within iPhone.
When you’re using iPhone or charging the battery, it is normal for iPhone
to get warm. The exterior of iPhone functions as a cooling surface that
transfers heat from inside the unit to the cooler air outside.

So now I know - Arizona weather is not iPhone friendly, especially considering that the temperatures reach over 110F and sometimes up to 120F in summer. Time for a new phone?

Date night!

Last night something wonderful happened. Something very rare and very special. My husband and I went for a date!! Maybe not that special you might think, but for a couple that hardly ever get to do these kind of things, with no family and friends available as babysitters, with a husband that works crazy hours that normally would cover at least two peoples full time work and therefore makes him a rare sight here at home - a date night is pretty special!

Even more special was that HE had arranged everything. He told me earlier this week that he had got a babysitter for Saturday night and that we are going out for dinner! I was almost speechless! Before we would have talked about it together and also I would have asked our dear neighbors for help for a few hours. The kids knew them so well, so there was never any problems.

Now, just moved here, we don't know anyone that we could just leave the kids with, especially not someone that the kids don't know and it would be very difficult to just go out for a night.

Chris knows me and that I'm VERY picky about babysitters and wouldn't just take the offer from the teenager down the street, and very particular with how I trust my three babies with, he made sure to find someone very trustworthy. He got in contact with this woman through work, she is a Marine as well, a Military Police and many of the other colleagues in PMO has had her watch their kids and only had good things to say about her.

She was wonderful and really sweet. She came around 7.30pm so that the kids could atleast see her before I put them to bed. Yes, before I put them to bed. I wouldn't want to let some stranger do that. But I also didn't want her to come after I put them down, and they would then a stranger would come and check on them and pick them up if they woke up later? Can you imagine, they would never want to go to sleep after that thinking that when I go to sleep Mommy disappear? No, would never risk that!! They were very hesitant and wouldn't let her hold them or wouldn't let her sit too close, but still at least they had seen her and they had seen that we were OK with having her in our home.

The kids went to sleep pretty fast, Isabella took a little while before she got quiet and fell asleep, and Benjamin who I normally sit with until he's asleep, took a while longer than normal and I was keeping my fingers crossed that he would fall deep to sleep and not wake up when I put him down in his bed.

All good, we left the house around 8.30pm and Cassie and our babysitter C. watched a movie and had pizza.

We went to Red Lobster. I had actually never been at that restaurant before, and as I love seafood, I wanted to try it out. We found several things on the menu that looked just amazing and we were hungry too.

Shared a Nacho/shrimp plate as a starter.

This is the plate I ordered! Looks delicious right?? 

Especially take not of the size of the lobster tail and the lightly lobster-buttered shrimps.

 This is the plate that I got presented, before I even touched anything....

Where are the shrimps? 

Oh, under all that sauce..which I had specifically asked for getting on the side..

AND WHERE is the lobster???

Oh, they must have boiled it in too hot water - it shrunk...

And as a side note, the chef really made a wonderful job presenting that broccoli..

It's always the same, we do get a little bit disappointed when we do go out to eat, but we were hungry and did a good job pretty much cleaning our plates anyway. I didn't want to complain, send the plate back taking longer time and we just wanted to eat and not keep sending stuff back and forth. I had ordered a side dish of asparagus, but those we had to send back as they were so overcooked that they fell apart when I tried to pick one up with the fork..not really the way to grill asparagus! With the dish there was a salad and I must say a really delicious "bread", actually it's Cheddar biscuit. Yummy!!

picture Google

But seriously, it didn't really matter what we ate, it was wonderful just to get out and spend some time together. We had a great time, and the company was clearly the best possible! We left the restaurant and were home after 10pm. Not such a long date, but we really didn't want to overdue it this first time with her. The babies were still sleeping, they hadn't made a noise since we left, so that was of course great news. Cassie had a great time too and really liked her so we certainly hope that we can have her come back again! And if they behave just as good then, we might even have the chance to squeeze a movie in there too!

Thanks alskling for a great night!! Lets hope it won't be another 6 Months until our next date...