Semi-Finals: Game 7

The LA Kings advance to the  third round!! Woo hoo! This entire series has been a well played battle with close games and calls.

It began as a best of seven, then best of three and finally best of one. It seriously could have gone either way but in the end our goalie was better and the Kings scored. As we walked to Staples Center, we met a Sharks fan who was going to game with her friend, an LA fan. She was super nice and chatty for the 3 block walk there. Overall, the Sharks fan were really nice and respectful which sometimes can be hit/miss depending on the amount of alcohol consumed.

Tonight the other Western conference game 7 is being played tonight after which the Kings will find out their next opponent.





I tried recording the excitement of the final minute of play where the crowd is definitely pumped up. Hector sings along to "This is LA" and I just noticed that the three men in each row of the next section are wearing the same identical Brown jersey. HA ha!

Exciting to the last second...congrats to the Sharks on their season. They're such a strong team but the playoffs are consistently tough for them. I sincerely wish them a Stanley  Cup in their future but  I will root for the Kings always. The Sharks will have to figure out how to get there...

Longboard: day 2

So far I have  had the longboard for 2 days which the 2 boys and I have thoroughly enjoyed. I don't know if I can convince Hector to try it.

The boys have taken to it no problem and don't even know they're working out their upper body. Tyler rode it in our cul-de-sac before dinner for about 15 minutes and now wants to take it to the park. Josh rode the board to school this morning then I took over and rode it at the park for 40 minutes.

I got quite a few stares from the older set walking around and didn't even return my Hello. Hmmpff.  A couple of the other moms were cool and talked to me about it so this is definitely a conversation starter.

I haven't taken any pics of me in action but here is a blurry pic of me with the board/stick.



After 40 minutes, I worked up a good sweat too.  My shoulders seem okay or at least whatever issues I have, this didn't seem to bother it.

Thumbs up so far! :)

crazy or adventurous?

I forget how old I am which is good and bad...good to be young at heart but bad sometimes when common sense gets tossed aside. I don't think my newest pursuit is bad but I do need to take precautions for my safety. Okay, it's not BASE jumping or anything extreme although your view of extreme may be different than mine.

It's longboarding...a very long skateboard. It looks almost like a mini surfboard, at least the one I got. My birthday was in April and Mother's Day just passed so I had some Amazon cards to spend. I decided to get something unusual and unexpected. I don't remember where I got the idea but it popped into my head. I looked at lots of longboards and then I saw an ad for the Kahuna big stick, so I clicked on that & watched the video. That made my decision...someone said it was like SUP but on land which totally appeals to me. I do love SUP but those boards are like 12 feet long which I'd have to put on top of the truck, drive to a body of water (which isn't too far) then take the board off the truck and paddle. Plus the costs would be over $1000. I figured I'd rent SUP at $30/hour and save the money.

The longboard changes that up a bit. Once I get comfortable and competent enough, I can board more locations like my neighborhood, the beach or park.

Tyler also wants to try longboarding so this is kind of killing two birds with one stone. :) Summer is coming so we can practice a lot and figure it all out.

Don't worry, I have a helmet and the various padding along with some ibuprofen.



It's long like the name implies. About 44 inches long and I even have my Vans (Tyler's outgrown shoes in a blink of an eye).

My Kahuna stick should arrive today so maybe I can test it out a bit in our cul-de-sac later. I'll let you know how my mini-mid-life crisis goes...

baby time

Switching back over here to post some things...like baby photos. I have a friend that has twin girls that just turned 1 year old. They are adorable beyond words and a joy to play, hold & cuddle. :)

V says she doesn't have bath time pics of the girls so I eagerly jumped at the chance. So much fun...

So enough of me blathering on and onto the baby girls.

Tad blurry of twins but they're together.

K hangs out while the other gets a bath.

Happy.

Not so happy.

All clean and ready to hit the town.

Next up...

b/w

They're coming !!

Springtime.

Exploring.

Bowers Museum

We had a nice weekend. Not much planned which can be a relief sometimes. Tyler wanted to see Lucy's Legacy showing at the Bowers Museum. I've never been to this museum and we had a good time. Of course, the main attraction was Lucy and the next popular one was artwork of Maurice Sendak, author of Where the Wild Things are.

Bowers is not a super large museum but big enough to spend several hours enjoying everything. There were exhibits on early California artifacts which Josh learned about in 3rd grade, a scrimshaw exhibit and a few more.

I think Hector could spend all day reading everything while the kids and I can breeze through a museum fairly fast. :) We made our way through half of the museum and he was still in the Lucy exhibit.

I have a few photos from our day juggling both digital and film cameras. I'm saving the film rolls in batches so those will come later....

More socks

Kind of on a roll here with my socks knitting...



Pattern: Angee by Cookie A. Her patterns are so pretty and I admit, a bit intimidating at first. When I first started knitting socks, I was just looked at the patterns over and over but was too scared to try them. Finally, I'm more confident in tackling them and they're well written & wonder what was stopping me.

That's the great thing about knitting, there are so many levels of difficulty but it all depends on the knitter. What may be challenging to me, may be totally easy for someone else. So I'm definitely challenging myself with more Cookie A patterns this year. I also belong to her sock yarn club and I'm really behind in that so I'm trying to remedy that.



I only knit 1.5 repeats on the leg chart because I thought the leg would be too long on me with the 2.5 repeats the pattern suggested.



I probably would have been fine as the pattern was written but I'm still very happy with them. :)

Spring Break: Instagram Style

Spring break came later than most schools but the kids school are very consistent in having their spring break the 2nd week of April.

I think I dropped the ball on telling H about the spring break dates because he wasn't able to get the time off but he said go ahead and take the kids on our annual Mammoth Lakes trip.

So off we went for 5 days to enjoy the mountains, snow and nature. :) It really is a great place to go. I made a conscious decision to leave my DSLR home and use my iPhone and my Canon A-1. It was definitely a learning experience.

I still have to finish up the roll of film in the A-1 so here are my Instagram photos to give you an idea of our trip.

Hike to Fossil Falls.

Wednesday at Mammoth Mountain.

With the later spring break, we were to able to enjoy the mountain with very little crowds. It was great. The kids are both learning snowboarding and it helps so much when they don't have to worry about people whizzing by them.

The first night/day there was some light snow so that was kind of fun. I think Tyler enjoys scraping the snow off the truck in a very limited way since it was sort of the one time thing. :) Thankfully, the new snow melted and I didn't have to deal with tire chains.

Our first morning.

Josh

Tyler

Lakes basin

The rest of the week was great. The weather was mild and sunny and the kids made some progress on their snowboarding. I'm pretty sure that Mammoth will be open until June so maybe we can squeeze another trip in there. :)