I can't believe Eli is 7!

Words have escaped me as I sit here trying to wrap my head around the fact that my baby is now 7 years old.  It hardly seems possible that he could be growing so fast and yet I feel like he has been a part of me my whole life.  Or rather my life did not really begin until I had my kids.  Each stage Eli has been through has been an amazing adventure.  Although they seemed scary at the beginning, they have all turned out to be my favorite at the time.  Eli has always been a good listener which he started the day he was born on July 22, 2003, his due date.  It took only 6 minutes from the time I got in the hospital for him to sweetly answer his mother's prayers to get out of me.  He took his time talking though, boy has that changed.  He has gone from squinting to glasses to contacts. Walking when he was nine months old to full head-first dives now.  He is a rather picky eater, video game addict who stills knows how to melt his mommy's heart only now he is too old to call me mommy.  "It's just mom, what do you think I am a baby or something." He wouldn't sell his first lost tooth because he said he would miss it.  He begged me to get him two legos for his birthday so that both him and Donald could have the Prince of Persia swords. He told me today that since it was his birthday tonight he was going to grow and it would make his legs hurt, but he knew it would be ok because he knew I would rub them until they didn't hurt anymore.  Each part of his life has been a learning experience and as soon as I have a phase understood he moves on to the next one.  So what do I do when he moves on to one that doesn't involve me?  I need a slowmotiononator so the next seven years will not go by as fast as the last seven years have.  Regardless though, I love him more than life and I could never live without him.  He has that third piece of my heart, which I am sure he keeps in some random plastic bin with assorted legos, but I wouldn't have it any other way.  I love you Eli, Happy Birthday!

Crocs vs. Sharks

Today was Donald's first swim meet.

 Warming up with Coach Riley

50m backstroke

50m breast

On deck for the 50m freestyle

He did awesome and said he had a really fun day, and that's what it's all about anyways!

Dread, the super freak!

Well I have been dreading doing this because writing it down only makes me realize more that I am a super failure.  The last two months of my life have been crazy and unpredictable, but they have been full of wonderful, amazing experiences, lifetime memories and unforgettable people.  However, all good things must come to an end I guess.  Don has still not gotten a job in San Antonio and last week I realized that even though I love Sea World and every experience I had there, I still love my husband more.  So I am back here in California so our family can be together while we wait to hear if he will get a job there or we will resume our life in California.  Not much has changed for Don, he was down there for a couple weeks, but mostly he has been here working the same as always.  For me it has been traumatic.  I miss Sea World so much and all the great people I met there.  The good thing is that since they loved me so much down there ;) they told me that I will always have a job to come back to, so it is waiting for me.  And if we have to stay here, I have the option of transferring to the Sea World in San Diego.
Now that I have the bad news out of the way I can share my last week in Texas experiences.
My last day at Sea World was amazing, not amazing I'm leaving, but once in a life time amazing.  It started out with me being able to watch a sea lion give birth.  So cool!  Although I could see how uncomfortable she was, it was nothing like human childbirth.  But, she probably just hid it well.  After that I got to go over to the White Whale and Dolphin pool and do a Q & A with guests about our new baby beluga whale.  Then, I spent my last hour at dolphin cove with my sweetie Kai.
That was Monday.
Tuesday was one of the worst days of my life, not only did I have to go turn in all my stuff and say goodbye to every one (cried my eyes out), but then me and the boys packed up the car and started our two day drive back to the west coast.  We left about 6pm.  At about 10:30pm, after a two hour downpour, I stopped for gas in Fort Stockton and noticed a screw in one of my tires.  Luckily I noticed it at a gas station and not in the middle of nowhere and two nice men at the gas station helped me change my tire.   I decided to stop there to get a hotel room since the next town was about two hours away.  I went to three different hotels and the last one had one room left.  We got our key, parked the car and went up the stairs to the second floor.  I stuck the key in the slot and watched the green light flash, but the door would not open.  After several attempts a voice from inside the room yelled at us to stop.  Nice...yes, the lady gave me the key to a room that already had someone in it!  We went back down to the desk only to have the lady tell us that there were no other rooms.  So back in the car we went to spend another two hours on the road before we found another hotel in Van Horn.
The next morning we got back in the car and the next 12 hours were a blur, but they did include a speeding ticket in New Mexico, a large flying bug trapped in the car until Donald begged me to stop and extract it for him, and two- hour and a half long traffic stops due to construction.  We finally arrived at 1:30am.  That trip sucked!
Although we just got back, life has still been super busy.  I have four classes now and am going a little postal trying to get all the grading done.  It is pretty much a full time job at this point, but since the kids are not in school most of it doesn't get done until the middle of the night.  On top of that Donald tried out for the Corona Aquatics Swim Team and has practice Monday through Friday at 6 o'clock in the morning.  My brain is not doing too good on 3 hours of sleep a night, but Donald loves it so far and doesn't even really complain about getting into cold water before he is even all the way awake.
So for all my Cali friends, I am here and excited to see everyone.  I guess we will see what happens in my twilight zone of a life.