The Best Mother's Day Weekend

My heart is overflowing with love right now (even one week later as I sit down to write this ;), this blog is not/has not/will not be known for its timeliness :)) - I had the very best mother's day weekend. It was jam packed with so many fun things!

On Friday afternoon, I got a text from one of our friends and she offered to keep the girls on Friday night so we could go on a date! How lucky was that!! We said yes, dropped the kids off and had the best time drinking margaritas and sharing chocolate cake. It is so hard for us to leave the girls with anyone here (so most of the time we just don't) - but we were so happy we said yes, we had a blast!

On Saturday, the girls were up early and ready to play. We went and got a Starbucks and then it was time to meet some of our friends at our favorite playground - we hadn't seen these friends in awhile and it was so fun to catch up! The girls had a blast playing with their friends!!

On our way out, there was a long path of hydrangeas and I could not not stop to take some pictures ;).

Even if the girls might not have been feeling it :).

So blessed these two munchkins call me mommy.

That night, I went and had a massage and dinner with four of my mom friends and wowzers it was a nice way to spoil ourselves for mothers day! I have loved getting massages in China (they are so cheap!) and having one with girlfriends was perfect.

The next morning, the girls woke me up at 6:30am so excited to share their surprise with me! Not going to lie, I grumbled a little bit before finally getting out of bed :). The girls had each picked out a treat for me at the market the night before (Dove dark chocolate!) and they couldn't wait to give it to me and then proceed to eat it!! ha! they also had the best homemade cards for me (for some reason, I am missing Ev's picture), but isn't Emma's wrapping perfect? and so Emma :).

Inside was some Elsa glitter art she had made for me :).

Shortly after breakfast, and a quick stop at Starbucks, we made our way out to a farm with the four moms (and this time the dads joined too!) I had dinner with the previous evening.  The kiddos had the best time - they picked vegetables, fed the animals, dug in the dirt and found worms, painted planter boxes, planted, played on the playground and ran around in a maze to their hearts content. We enjoyed spending the day with our kiddos outside and with each other!

Not a day goes by that I am not thankful to be their mother, but each year, this weekend always makes me pause, soak them in a bit more and realize how blessed I am that I get to be their mom. They are truly the best thing I have ever done. 

No More Training Wheels!!

Excuse the grainy pictures, I am just so excited to share with you that Emma can ride her bike!! Without training wheels!!! During the spring and fall, we like to go on daily bike/scooter rides in the evening and so what started out as a normal night turned into one of my proudest moments. We made it down to the end of the street when Emma told us that one of her friends had learned to ride their bike without training wheels and she thought she might like to try it out. I asked her if she wanted to try right now. She said yes. So we headed back to our house, Wes took off the training wheels and before we let her think about it we gave her a little push and she was riding!! We couldn't believe it, she couldn't believe it - we were all just so proud and excited :). She got the hang of it right away!! We are so proud of you Emma Lemma! 

Sydney, Day Two

We woke up to our alarm on Sunday morning, our second day in Sydney. This day was zoo day! I knew the girls would love the zoo, so we had planned going to Taronga Zoo while we were in Sydney and Steve Irwin's zoo as part of our road trip. Even though we all slept well (seriously, sleep had never felt so glorious!), you can tell by our eyes we had to wake up earlier than we would have liked ;). 

We made our way to a place called Local Mbassy to try some red velvet pancakes! The ladies there were so nice to the girls! We had a great cup of coffee (sidebar: coffee in Australia is amazing, we really never had a bad cup!) and while we favored the Crab Eggs Benedict to the red velvet pancakes, it was a good experience.

After we finished, we took an Uber to Circular Quay in order to catch a ferry to the zoo. We arrived right on time and caught the first ferry of the day (p.s. how awesome is that to take a ferry to the zoo!). While we waited, the girls were delighted to discover a 'rainbow'.

The views from the ferry were unreal (definitely one of our favorite parts of Sydney!). 

Cute, 'secret' beach on our walk to the zoo!

We made it!!

I have always said that the Giants ballpark in San Francisco has the best views hands down. Well, the Taronga Zoo hands down has the best views of any zoo we have been too.

Wild turkey's everywhere.

Everywhere you looked was picturesque.

These cute seals could not get enough of the girls, they came over to say hello several times.

That smile!

We got up close to a seal during the show!

Loooooved seeing my first koala in Australia!

These two koalas were pretty cute too ;).

Hanging with the roos! Before we left to go to Australia, Everly was the most excited about getting to feed/pet/hang out with the kangaroos and while I will say Steve Irwin's zoo has many more kangaroos and is much more interactive, Ev's still had a blast here!

A sweet little water park the girls couldn't resist.

These giraffes have the best view!

Can you see the Opera House?

And before we knew it, 5 - 6 hours had passed and we found ourselves back on the ferry.

The Opera House never got old to me. We went past it several times and each time, I took a picture :). And no I didn't post all of them ;).

When we got back to the main ferry terminal, we realized that our ferry pass was good all day (for the original $2.5 - in general the ferry is kind of expensive, but they run a special on Sunday's that we didn't know about ahead of time) so we decided to make a change of plans and take the ferry to Manly Beach. The girls were itching to get in the water and on a beach - after all we had been talking about all the beaches we were going to see for weeks leading up to our vacation. The sun sets early in Australia (around 5:30) so we knew we would be getting there with only about 30 - 45 minutes of sunlight left, but we decided to go for it. It turned out to be the sweetest little evening. The girls played in the very cold water and had the best time as we watched the sun set.

When I told Wes I wanted to take a picture of us at Manly Beach!

After we 'kind of' dried off, we found an Aldi and bought the girls some strawberries then found a place similar to Chipotle to eat - it really was a great evening. The ferry ride took about half an hour to get back to Circular Quay - we were excited to see the Opera House all lit up at night on our way back.

We took an Uber back to our hotel room and went right to sleep (actually I think Everly might have fallen asleep in the car) - we had a big day ahead of us!