Do you know the way to San Jose?

At the beginning of March, my friend Vanessa and I got adventurous and took our kids down to San Jose to the children's museum for a day. She has two kids, daughter Abbi, and son Jack, and I took my two boys. It took about two and a half hours to get to the museum, so it was lunch time by the time we got there. We sat on some benches to eat, and managed to get about halfway through before it started raining on us and we had to move under the overhang to finish. They don't allow outside food in the eating area of the museum. (Do the people who plan these things even have children, or just an evil love of money?) Once inside, there was plenty to see and do. 

The kids eating on the bench, pre-rain.

Such cute boys

Adam in firefighter gear

Driving the firetruck

Jonathan and his sometimes future-mother-in-law, sometimes girlfriend Vanessa

Adam dominating the dragon, not too long before...

...this happened. He ran into another kid and took the force of that kid's noggin in his eye. This picture doesn't do it justice - it was a big fat black eye that made it look like he had been boxing. We had to get an ice pack and fill out an accident report. It's not an official trip until someone gets hurt in our family.

There was an art area, and one wall was for painting on. Not great for teaching them that we only paint on paper, but fun none the less. The aprons were super cute.

Jonathan driving the old-time farm truck.

Adam and the corn-husk doll that he and I made.

Jonathan and a girl we don't know catching bubbles.

This bubble thing was cool - there was a line on a pully and when you pulled it up, it created this huge bubble. When you shook it, the bubble would wave back and forth.

Abbi making bubbles with the air nozzle.

Adam being "injured" on the gurney in the back of the ambulance - thankfully we haven't had to do this for real, yet.

Abbi and Jonathan in the water area - sadly I didn't actually get any pictures of the whole thing. Here, you put the ball on the track and it rolled down to the center, where a stream of water shot it into the air and into another track up higher.

The moms, still smiling near the end of the day.

Jonathan in the Vietnamese boat with the hat and everything - he actually could pass for a chubby little Asian boy.

Adam in the hat - he could never pass for Asian. And I don't know what is up with the picture - his teeth aren't really scary like that.

Happy baby Jack - he was really good all day.

Van and Abbi

On the way out, Adam insisted on getting his face painted (I told him in the beginning of the day that we would do it later, hoping he would forget...no such luck.) The twist here is that the kids are supposed to paint their own faces...there are even signs posted in the room to basically tell the parents not to do it. But no one was around to stop me, and there was no way I was going to let Adam do it himself when we were getting ready to leave. He said he wanted to be a tiger. I know you could already tell that from my awesome artistic skill, but just in case I thought I would let you know what he was supposed to be.

Van asked me if I would mind going 20 minutes out of the way to have dinner at this barbecue place she really likes (Gilroy is the closest one to us.) I said sure, even though I don't really care for restaurant bbq all that much. Let me tell you, it was excellent. I would go there again in a heartbeat. It is called Famous Dave's. This was our dessert that we split - and still were only able to eat half. Yum.

Overall, it was a great trip. The kids were really good all day, there were really no breakdowns (for either them or us) and aside from the black eye, it went off relatively without a hitch.

Long Time Gone

Alright already, I will post some new things to the blog. It has been in the back of my mind since the end of February, but with school and kids and gardening, I haven't had the time to sit down and do anything about it. Plus I have to share the computer with another school-going person, who has been using more than his fair share lately. At any rate, I have not forgotten about all of you faithful readers out there who are just dying to know what happens in the next chapter in the lives of the Joyner family (she said, voice dripping with sarcasm.) 

In the interest of blogging more often, and not just waiting for something big to happen before I blog, I took this picture of the banana muffins I made at the beginning of March. Obviously the idea that I would just get them posted on here a day or two later to show you all my culinary endeavor just didn't pan out, but it is such a tasty looking tower that I will post it now so we can all wish we had some in our kitchens. I usually use my grandma's banana bread recipe when I make the bread, but in the interest of trying to cut out some of the sugars and fats and whatnot (also known as everything that makes food taste good) I substituted 1/4 of the flour with whole wheat flour, 1/2 of the sugar with Splenda for baking, and replaced all of the butter with this fruit compote type butter substitute made by Sunsweet. It was a complete experiment - I knew very well that they could turn out rubbery and tasteless and be good only for bouncing on the pavement outside, but I figured that worst case scenario my boys would have something new to play with! They actually turned out pretty yummy, although it could have been the fact that I had been pretty well deprived of all things baked for a while. Making them as muffins made it much easier to transport and pass out to kids, but I still like the traditional bread form better.

Ok, stay tuned, there is more goodness to come...

Happy Happy Birthday Baby

Jonathan is not really a baby anymore - last Friday (February 13th) we celebrated his 2nd birthday. I can't believe that he is getting so big so fast! I guess I should say old rather than big, since, let's be honest, he has always been so big. At any rate, Friday we had a party for him (with an Elmo them since Jonathan loves Elmo.) Due to the snow trapping my side of the family, the guest list was decreased; attending were Jamie and her three kids, Jon's mom, Jake and his friend Brenda, and our friends Josh and Jen with their little son Will (who is almost 2 himself.) We had hotdogs and Bratwursts (Jon had to grill under the garage door due to the rain) with chili, veggies & chips and dip and salads. I handed out party horns to the kids and immediately regretted it, but the had a blast (no pun intended.) Then came the piece de resistance, the Elmo cupcakes. I made them using a star tip to do the frosting, marshamallows with black gel for eyes, an orange peanut m&m for a nose, and a half an oreo for the mouth. It was funny to watch the kids eat them - they all went at them differently. Jonathan ate the face off of his, but then wouldn't eat the actual cupcake until we gave him a fork and showed him that it was cake. Then Jonathan opened presents and that was pretty much it.  

That many Elmos is just scary!

Deconstructed Elmo

My Jonathans

Dedicated to the One I Love

On New Year's Eve, (behind in posting again, I know...) Jon and I reached our 10 year anniversary.  I know, I know - who would have thought we'd make it this long?  Well, I did for one, and Jon too.  We have never had any doubt that we will spend this life together and then the eternities.  Following with our tradition, which started the year we got married, we celebrated our marriage on the 1st of January, clear of all the crazy people and crowds.  This year, we got a hotel room with a jacuzzi tub and went out to sushi for dinner.  It was lovely.  We spent more time in the tub than anywhere - heavenly.  My future house will have one of those, from which I will conduct all of my business.  

And now, for your reading pleasure, a list of things that I love love love about my husband...

His sense of humor

The fact that even when I don't want to laugh at him, I can't help it

His guitar playing/singing

The way he puts me to bed when I fall asleep on the couch or on top of the covers

The way he holds me every night while we fall asleep

How he looks like Josh Groban when he grows his hair out

That he likes to cuddle

His tolerance of my endless reading

His kisses

His hugs

That he is such a wonderful daddy

His height

His appetite

The fact that he laughs at my jokes and voices

Our inside jokes

The times when he pulls thoughts out of my head and says them before I can

His willingness (and desire) to see Twilight and then talk about it ad nauseum with me

The way he calls me "Beautiful" like it is my name

That he knows about my guilty pleasures and doesn't tease me about them

That he puts up with my occassional nueroses

The way he takes care of me

His ability to remain married to me 

The fact that he is my best friend

He believes he can do anything

He believes I can do anything

His self confidence

The way he thinks more of me than I do

His constant support of me in all things

The fact that he joined his life to mine

That is not everything - there are a million little things that he does and is that I can't remember at the moment or can't post on here ;) But that gives you the jist of it.

It's The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Or at least it was...

I have a disease assosciated with blogging.  It is something akin to bulemia.  I go for weeks at a time, binging with my camera, taking dozens and dozens of pictures, hoarding them to myself, until finally I feel so guilty for my gluttony that I purge, vomiting everything all over you at once in the form of five new blog posts in one day.  Well, no more.  I am breaking the cycle of bad behavior. Becoming healthier, as it were.  Call it a resolution.  And the cycle of healing will begin with this one post - that is right - ONE post, highlightinging the things that I have not been sharing with you over the last several weeks.  And if this one post turns out to be just as long as those five separate posts would have been, just remember, sickness isn't cured in just one day.

December was a busy month, as it is for so many of you out there.  I had planned to post lists of my favorite and not-so-favorite Christmas songs for your enjoyment, but as that time has clearly passed you will have to wait until next year.  In a second-annual Joyner tradition, we traveled to Sacramento to watch the Santa parade, which came later in the year this time around due to financial difficulties.  We were joined this year by the Sartains, minus Tim, and rather than drive the whole way we thought we would try our luck on the Light Rail, Sacramento's regional transit system.  

While we waited in the parking lot, we were joined by a festive group of prisoners who came by to wish us a Merry Christmas (or clean the parking lot, but who knows?)  We boarded the train, waved goodbye to our new friends, and were off on our way to the parade.  Once there, we chose our spot and sat down to wait in the toasty 35 degree weather.  Afterwards, we walked the seven children cattle-drive style back to the Light Rail, where we enjoyed a nearly standing-room-only ride back to our car.  Sadly, the inmates were gone.

We attended Anna's choir concert.

We also attended a Christmas concert in which Hailey took part.

We decorated for the holiday...

We had our traditional Christmas Eve breakfast with our friends the Hunts...

and our traditional Joyner-Alston Christmas Eve dinner, complete with nativity scene.

No children were accidentally thrown away with the wrapping paper in the chaos of opening presents on Christmas morning...

and we evaded road closures and survived being shuttled through the snow to get to my Dad's for Christmas dinner.

For New Year's Eve, the Joyners and Sartains were treated to dinner at the Eastern Max Chinese buffet by the Aby, of which the only picture is the aftermath...

Somewhere in the middle of all that December fun we also made a trip to Utah to attend a funeral.  It was a very busy month, and by the end, we were pretty much ready to say goodbye to 2008 and hello to a new year.  So there you are - I feel much better now, not quite so full and ashamed of myself ;)