Mall Secret

Friday night I discovered something that has somehow escaped my attention for the 10+ years that I've been a frequent mall patron.

With nothing else to do on a Friday night Brady and I went to the Galleria at closing time. We had half an hour to wander around aimlessly and look at things, my typical mall strategy.

As we passed Mrs. Fields I felt bad for all the uneaten cookies that were going to waste and jokingly asked Brady to see if they'd give us some for free. I was pretty confident that he'd get shot down but they told him that 15 mins before closing time they sell leftovers for $o.25. Not a bad deal considering they're delicious and normally about $1.50. So we walked away pretty happy with our 25 cent cookies.

Emboldened by our new discovery we walked up to the food court pizza place to see what they'd give us. We got a greasy slice for a dollar instead of the usual $3-4.

Even though we had actually just eaten cheeseburgers before arriving at the mall we thoroughly enjoyed scarfing down our cheap food and plan on going back again to see what other closing time deals we've been missing out on all these years.

(Next time I think we'll try Auntie Anne's Pretzels and Panda Express.)

31 Weeks down

The weeks we have left until the big day are in the single digits now and we're really starting to accumulate a lot of baby supplies.

Last week we received our lovely crib. It only took four people and a little bit of bickering to put together. Of course we could have waited and left it in the box for a few more weeks but it was too tempting just sitting there all in it's cute little pieces.

We also have a stroller from craigslist that I've pushed around the apartment a time or two for practice. The look on Brady's face is pretty indicative of his interest level when it comes to picking out baby things.

My grandma got us this infant car seat. Brady decided to go for the deer-in-the-headlights look for this picture.

Since last week we have also acquired a bassinet and a swing among other things. I've quickly realized that babies need a lot of stuff and our cozy apartment is not really equipped to hold all of these necessities.

Sand and Snow

The theme of the past couple months seem to be sand and snow as we've been alternating between the beach and the mountains. We can't decide which we like better, winter or summer, so we choose both.

First we went to the beach, Bodega Bay to be exact, with the whole Sessions family. We stayed in this big awesome beach house for a few days leading up to Christmas. It was only about 2.5 hours driving distance from Rocklin.

Being that its winter in Northern California and not especially warm out, everyone loved the hot tub...

and sauna.

Brady was very excited to go surfing, a rare treat for him.

Unfortunately he wasn't out there long before he came in complaining of shoulder pain. Here he is describing how his arm kept coming out of place from the socket.

He was disappointed that surfing didn't really work out but soon found joy in digging a giant hole in the sand. Don't ask me why someone would find that fun. It was so deep by the time he was done that it took several attempts to actually get him out.

Though I'm not having my little boy for another three months I often feel like I already have one. When he wasn't playing in the water, digging holes, or frolicking with his niece and nephews, he was jumping off sand dunes...

or screaming with fear and delight as he slid down them at mach speed.

After Christmas we headed to the mountains for a day of winter frivolity. On our way we saw tons of people on the ski slopes and I admit, it was hard to resist their siren call, but I'm sure the baby appreciates not getting a prenatal concussion.

Once we parked Brady and Talon wasted no time in building an igloo.

My dad and brother Brett did some tubing but Brady declined. He's still traumatized from his terrible sledding accident from 3 or 4 years ago that resulted in a bionic gimp leg. Apparently he felt safer on the sand dunes.

Building an igloo was more than enough fun for him. When they were done I wasn't brave or nimble enough to wiggle my way inside but I was told that it was big enough to stand up in.

After a weekend of snow Brady was itching to get back to the beach so we took a quick trip to Santa Cruz. Despite the gloomy clouds it was warmer than we anticipated, which was a nice surprise.

Brady got to try out some of his mountain biking themed Christmas presents while I entertained myself by watching the surfers out by the lighthouse.

Naturally a trip to the beach had to be followed by another weekend to the snow. It happened to be dumping snow and what was supposed to be about an hour long drive turned into 4-5 hours. At one point we waited, with our car off, for over 1.5 hours on HWY 80. After an hour had gone by I decided to risk it all and leave the car in search of a bathroom. Twenty minutes later, none was found and upon seeing people getting in their cars and start them up I began running back to our car and made it inside just as the van ahead of us started moving. Brady wasn't too pleased with my risky expedition.

The next day we had a great time playing in the deep powder.

Naturally Brady got to work building a snow cave with the other guys.

The result was actually pretty amazing. They put up lights and built snow platforms to sleep on and even a snow table in the middle.

Sadly after a few hours they realized the heavy snow was slowly sinking in the roof and decided against sleeping in their cave. Still we had fun just hanging out in there, until I got cold and went inside.

At last the new semester at Sierra has started and Brady is back in school so we're done with the sand and snow, for now.

If you're actually still reading this, sorry for the long post, but good job for sticking with it I'm sure that wasn't easy.