An Evening at the Beverly Hills Hotel

Owen and I went to visit his former colleague, Carol, from England. We met her and her boyfriend and her parents at the Beverly Hills Hotel, where we also spent about 4 hours drinking, having dinner, and just having a great time.

Carol, spends a lot of time around the Beverly Hills area and also the beach cities around Los Angeles. She really loves the sun and wanted to share it with her parents, who are now in their 80s. So she decided to take them on a vacation for about 2 weeks.

Frank, Carol's dad said, "of the 80 odd years I've lived, this vacation tops any other I've ever had in my life." Her parents were wonderful. They are so lively, especially for their age and just absolutely lovely people. They are so appreciative of everything, they love to laugh, and of course have a good time. It felt as though you were out partying with some younger folks

Carol appears to have such an awesome relationship with her parents. They seemed to be extremely close and it makes you really understand where her all around beauty comes from.With that, she has also taken them to the vacation of a lifetime. A week in a beautiful beach front home in Malibu then a week at the Beverly Hills Hotel. This is a true example of a child's appreciation and love of her parents.

The hotel itself was really beautiful. The staff was so amazing. I have stayed in quite a lot of hotels in the past and the Beverly Hills Hotel just has the top of the line customer service and staff. Richard, Carol's boyfriend said he had been going to this hotel frequently for many years and what he loves about it most is that the turnover is staff is very low. He says it almost feels like a family environment because the staff is top of the line and most of them have been there for many years. I felt it as soon as we had our car picked up by the valet. Incredible. For dinner, I had 3 glasses of The Screaming Eagle wine and a beautiful plate of the plumpest pork chop I'd ever seen. It was beautiful!  The whole evening was so great. Great company, great food, great environment. It was a perfect night with friends.

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My Struggle with Weight

When I was younger, I was quite skinny. My mom, on the other hand, seemed to always be just a little heavy. I always heard people say, "daughters always end up looking like their moms when they get older." I used to always think "nope, that's not gonna happen to me." Here I am! On my way there! At 131 lbs 5'1" I KNOW I need to stop feeding the pooch that's just hangin out!

For the past 4 years, I've struggled with my weight. Well, I struggle, because I absolutely love rice. I can eat it with just about anything. In fact, sometimes when I have nothing else to eat, I'll cook up some ramen noodles, crack an egg in it, and add some rice. If I want any meat, I'll even throw in some vienna sausages. Oh gosh! I know it sounds really gross to some people, but I absolutely love it and when Oli's gone down for a nap, I'll eat this with an episode of "Friends."

Anyway, living in Laguna Beach is so challenging, especially when I can't take Oli to the park without feeling a bit insecure with the skinny and well-groomed moms all around me. This is when you can truly say that yes, where you live can really affect you.

When I used to date this model (believe it or not, he was actually into me lol), he told me he used to do a lot of modeling in France and Milan. Whilst he was there, he traveled a bit with this couple who were also models. He said they were always extremely fit and they had unbelievable bodies. Now, for him to say something like that was something I felt I had to listen to because he had an unbelievable body. So when he's actually acknowledging someone else, it makes you just want to listen.

He said he asked this couple what exercises they did and they said all they did was some yoga from this book by Richard Hittleman. It's called the 28 Day Exercise Plan. Anyway, he said he'd found a copy at a local bookstore in France and actually gave it to me. Well, you can also find it on Amazon for only about $3 or so. So I've had this book since then (about 6 years now) and I've always tried to start it, get to the 2nd or 3rd day and then stop. When I first started doing it, I just followed the pictures and didn't read it. At the time, I thought it was quite stupid, but never really understood how intense it was because I didn't read. So I guess that made ME the stupid one.

The exercise plan requires you to be committed for 28 days. After that period you will supposedly have done every yoga pose there is. The book eases you into every posture so that you don't hurt yourself, while at the same time, gaining the full benefit of each pose.

After actually reading and doing the postures correctly, I found myself taking anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour to complete each session. So I always have to keep starting over because I sometimes miss it for a few days.This time, I thought that if I actually post it on my blog, it might motivate me to keep moving forward. I just completed my 3rd day and the entire process took about 50 minutes. I also had a zone bar as my first meal, one weetabix and banana for my second meal. I'm really hoping that by at least the 15th day, I can start to feel some progress. Feels like nothing right now, except that I don't feel quite as sore as I did a couple of days ago.

Worked out really well as I took Oli to the park this morning, gave him breakfast, a bath, a little playtime, a full bottle, and then a nap.

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Toddlers Love to Hide Things

Apparently, Oli isn't alone. Some of my mommy blogger friends have admitted that their toddlers love hiding things as well. Oli's really good at it too. A few months ago, Owen and I found a stash of sandals, books, and other small things behind one of our book shelves.

We have this box of fire logs that we can't seem to get rid of because we're afraid Oli would freak out. He's always putting toys and things in it. Oh, and he absolutely loves to sit or stand on it as well.

Anyway, today Owen was frantically looking for his orange watch while being about 5 minutes later than he normally leaves for work.

"I'll look for it later," Owen says as he kisses me good-bye.

While I was doing my daily yoga from Richard Hittleman's Yoga 28 Day Exercise Plan, Oli stands in front of me, holding Owen's watch and says, "heeeeee!!!"

"Oooh! That's daddy's! Can I please have it?" I ask in mid simple twist routine.

He takes off and I see him hide it behind his bench tool shop:

Here it is close up if you can't see it:

"Little Bugger!" was what Owen said when I told him.

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An Evening with Some Friends

It's always nice to meet with our friends, Rick and Alicia. Alicia just had her brand new little baby, Sydney, who's only 3 weeks old.

Here I am holding her:

Of course, it's also great that Oli and Skylar get to play and have fun together. Here is a great moment of them watching Yo Gabba Gabba. Like it was the funniest thing they'd ever seen!

Skylar gets bored, leaves, and Oli continues to watch:

Then of course, you can't go through the evening without someone screaming. We all turn around to see what's going on and it's Oli getting really pissed that he can't turn the stroller, while Sky is sitting on it!

I wonder how friendly they will be with each other later on...

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Take Care of Your Own Kid!

When he can't get what he wants, Oli loves to throw a tantrum know matter where he is. I was removing his belt buckle on his car seat when he suddenly wanted me to give him his truck so that he can carry it around the store. I would have let him do it if it was small enough that he could just carry it easily. But I knew what was going to happen. He was going to either play with it in the middle of the store or have me carry it around. So I ignored him.

He screamed and screamed in front of the car and in front of the store. I started to show him that I wasn't going to do what he wanted by walking away. Of course I was looking over my shoulder the entire time as he's only 21 months. Plus I was probably about 8 feet from him. So he stood there in front of the store and screamed and screamed his heart out.

A woman at the checkout stand was also being as loud as she could be saying, "oh! where is his mother!"  She looked around as Oli started to run towards me. Then when he realized people were trying to talk to him, he started to try to get me to pick him up.

I had about 3 items to grab from the store so I didn't plan on pushing a cart around. Plus, Oli and I go to this store almost every other day and he usually loves to just follow me around, because he gets to be a little independent.

I didn't pick him up when he was wanting me to do so, because I feel as though I have to let him get over some of his fears of other people. He and I are indoors so much that when I get him out of the house he gets extremely shy.

Anyway, this woman somehow managed to annoy me. Now I completely understand why people don't like it when you tell them what to do with their own kids. No matter what.

"He looks really tired," the woman said. "Why don't you carry him?"

"He's not tired," I replied.

"If you got one of these carts, you can put him in it so he doesn't have to walk."

That pretty much did it for me. Usually I would have gone off on her, but I actually stopped myself. I just walked away and ignored her.

I know when my own child is tired or when he needs to walk. I don't need her to tell me what to do or why I should pick him up.

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What a Toddler Does When He Has No Place to Go

Here's an average day when we have no place to go but home. So we make the most of it. Oli starts with a morning session of milk and Yo Gabba Gabba:

Then goes around and plays pretend:

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A Day in Balboa Island

Cat was leaving today. I am going to drop her off at the airport for her 11:15 PM flight. So we did our best to make most of the day.

Balboa is a pretty little island next to Newport Beach. Some of the homes are really fun to look at as they are very close to each other, but are all very beautiful. They obviously all look like just vacation homes. Of course, it's also got tourist shops and fun little coffee and ice cream parlors.

Here is a picture of Oli and Cat:

We walked through some of the stores and of course stopped by a toy store. Yes, I know, I just don't learn. Cat wanted to buy an umbrella for her daughter. So we stopped in. Here's what Oli did:

Then of course as we had to leave, we went through the same routine of trying to get him out of the store. Luckily, there wasn't anyone else there except for the sales lady:

Cat also bought me a lovely going away present which I think is really cute, given that I love to record stuff:

We finished off the rest of our beach fun day at the beach at the Montage in south Laguna Beach.  My parents called and said they were coming over to drop some stuff off for her to take home, which they did. They bought her two little outfits for Jayda (Cat's daughter) and some boxes of chocolates, which Cat couldn't take home because she just ran out of room.

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