January 31 - Vegas

ATV Adventure

Every January my company has it's annual National Sales Meeting to review 2017 sales and present new products for 2018. It's our biggest meeting of the year and we rotate between east and west coast. We had a fantastic 2017 so I was looking forward to the meeting. 

This year our meeting was at the Green Valley Ranch Resort in Las Vegas, a few miles off the strip. I arrived Wednesday and had meetings most of the day. One of my co-workers checked in the night before and was given the penthouse suite. So one the highlight of my week was going to see it. Over 4.2k sq ft with 2 bedrooms, 3 marble bathrooms, a piano, full kitchen, Ostrich coach and 95" tv. It was insane! Thursday and Friday morning were spent in meetings all day and then Friday afternoon was what my boss likes to call 'free Friday.' We were able to register for a different activity (golf, TopGolf, go-karting, hike, ATV) and I chose ATV. I've never been on an ATV tour before and it was quite an experience.

Penthouse Suite & the hotel pool

I didn't realize what a workout it would be, my arms (and right thumb) were incredibly sore afterwards. We had 21 people and were divided into a few groups, then followed our guide for about 2 hours. We were in rocky terrain, up and down steeps hills with rocks and some with sand. A completely unique experience!! Friday night I was invited to dinner by our sales agent based out of Redlands, CA. He brought 2 surgeons, a sales reps, some hospital staff and then a few of us from corporate. It was a delicious Italian restaurant off the strip and some of the best food I've even eaten. Yum! After dinner, it was dance time. I met up with some work friends at Umbria, a club at Ceasars, and we danced the night away like we were 21 again. 

Saturday was a day full of meetings and ending with our awards banquet. Then back to Houston at the crack of dawn on Sunday. It was a great work trip but it's great to be back with the family. 

Jillian's first time in her new carseat #notafan

My girls

Luke designed this...complete with chimney, light, 2 windows, door and the ability to mount his iPad

January 23 - Little Monkeys

Jilly sandwich!

Houston was shut down last week for 2-days due to 'winter weather.' It would be easy to laugh at that (I admit, I thought it was ridiculous at first too) but the city really isn't equipped to handle ice on roadways. There was freezing rain most of last Wednesday and it was slippery out there. Jillian was still able to go to Rachel's so I could work, while Julia and Luke were home yet again. To entertain themselves, at one point they were climbing up the door frames like ninja warriors! Then after temperatures in the teens (which I think was a new record low)...we were back up to 70 by the weekend. Crazy Texas weather!

Monkey Boy

Reading time

January 22 - Morning Schedule

I'd like to report that everyone is healthy but.....Julia now has an ear infection and JD has a nasty cold. It's nonstop people, nonstop! In good news, while Jillian is still coughing, her drainage has gotten a lot better. Julia is on day 4 of antibiotics and doing much better, while Luke and I are both healthy. 

So, let's talk about Julia. We've been watching motivational YouTube videos (some on Michael Phelps, some on how hard work beats talent) and she is ready to tackle her 'fitness.' If any of you have seen Julia in recent years, she's a lean, muscle and doesn't need to work on her 'fitness' but hey, those videos really inspired her. Two Thursdays ago, she wrote up a new morning routine for herself and posted it in her room. The next morning, I heard her alarm go off just after 6am. While I was putting in my contacts I heard the back door open. JD was out of town so I couldn't leave the house, but I waited for her downstairs for over 20min. I'd like to point out that it was 30 degrees outside with gusting winds (this run probably contributed to her ear infection). She ran with her iPod blasting K-POP and told me she was 'invigorated' and 'ready to start her day.' I told her that was great but she cannot run by herself at 6am in the morning when it's dark outside. She tried to argue that we have street lights in our neighborhood so it wasn't even dark outside. While true, I told her she had to wait for me or dad to go with her. Last week, there was no running going on with her ear infection and the ice around Houston. This morning though, we started our new 'morning routine' together and went running for 20min before school. Guys-I hate (DESPISE!) running with every fiber of my being. But I LOVE that Julia wants to do this with me. 

Love my original baby bean!

January 15 - Germs, Germs Go AWAY

Happy New Year everyone! We had a quiet NYE at home. JD is what I like to call a "New Years Scrooge" (he thinks any NYE celebration is ridiculous). We usually leave him at home and go to a friend's house. This year I was feeling under the weather so we didn't go anywhere. The kids and I watched a movie and watched a Netflix New Years countdown and I was asleep by midnight. 

Unfortunately, my 'feeling under the weather' turned out to be bronchitis and even though I've been done with antibiotics for over a week now, I'm still coughing. Not fun! Jillian started a bad cold last weekend and after still draining a crazy amount after several days, I took her to the doctor. She tested positive for RSV, which is a bad respiratory infection. She doesn't have a fever and isn't contagious, but she will be draining and coughing for week. Poor thing!

So if anyone is counting...
November: stomach flu x5
December: flu type A x2
January: bronchitis x1 and RSV x1

I have never disinfected my house and done so much laundry in my life. Come on germs, move along. The Yamo's are done being sick!

December 31 - Merry Christmas

For the first time in years, JD and I were caught up on wrapping BEFORE Christmas Eve so we didn't have a late night. Julia and Luke had been conspiring on how to "catch Santa" and slept in Julia's room but they fell asleep with all the excitement. We told them they had to wait until Jillian got up on Christmas morning before we could go downstairs. As  you can imagine, that didn't go over well. 

Christmas morning, Julia and Luke came into our room around 6.30am very excited!! They had to wait until Jillian woke up at 7.30am (when I saw 'she woke up' I mean...Julia and Luke couldn't wait any longer and woke her up) to go downstairs and then it was present time!

helping Dad with dinner

After opening amazing presents from family, friends and Santa, we ate a delicious breakfast and then it was time to play. Thank you everyone for making our Christmas so special!! The kids are working on thank you cards this week and we'll have them in the mail soon. 

So for the first time ever, JD cooked a Christmas day dinner. We had prime rib, potatoes, cauliflower casserole, mint peas and apple cake. Everything was as homemade as possible and absolutely incredible. JD said he enjoyed cooking Christmas day so much, he will do this going forward instead of Christmas Eve. Happy Holidays everyone!!

Thanks everyone!

December 30 - Cookie Thief

Sorry Santa - Cookie Thief!

Christmas Eve! After a week of sickness, everyone was finally healthy and ready for Christmas. We spent a good portion of Christmas eve baking cookies-chocolate chip, mint chocolate chip and sugar cookies. Guess who discovered the joy of cookies? If you guess Jillian, you guessed correctly. She kept trying to get them. When I was taking a picture of the kids before bedtime, she stole one of Santa's cookies. Cookie Thief!

We usually have our fancy dinner on Christmas Eve (JD's family tradition). This year he decided to do dinner on Christmas day. He made two of the side dishes on Christmas Eve, otherwise, we had a relaxing day of baking. I also did a shopping run early in the morning, and was lucky to knock out Target, the mall and the grocery store in less than 2 hours. Fantastic day!

Baking away

Ready for Santa!

December 24 - RoboRockets Dominate

Robots people, robots! As you all (or most of you know? I think?) JD has been a mentor for our elementary school robotics team for the last several years. This year Julia is a member of the team. Our school's team is called the RoboRockets and we have 4 teams, comprised of 6 students each. Four are builders (responsible for designing and building) and 2 are programmers (responsible for programming the robot). The school district competition was last weekend and although Julia was worried they weren't prepared....THEY DOMINATED!! There were 61 teams competing and this is how our kids fared:

*Team (paired with a random school, as a team you try to score as many points as possible, there are prelim rounds and final 'winner takes all finals"): FIRST, SECOND, THIRD and FOURTH!! Julia was on the team that came in first!!

*Skills (driver skills and autonomous programming): FIRST, THIRD, 5th and 6th!! Julia was on the team that came in first!

*Excellence (combination of all categories): our team didn't place in the top 4, we're all scratching our heads as to why since we won every other category

*Design (notebook plus robot design): FIRST!!

States are at the end of February.....Good luck RoboRockets!

December 23 - Santa Hustle

Love these girls!

I was planning our December Girl Scout meetings about a month ago and had a crazy idea-what if we did a fun run with the girls to help earn the Staying Fit badge? I'm not, nor have I ever been, a runner, but I knew races were early in the mornings. Would anyone want to get up at the crack of dawn and exercise? Teresa (my co-leader) and I discussed it and she was "in!" Thanks to google, we found a local race in Galveston called the Santa Hustle. The girls could do the 1 mile Rudolph Run and race time was 6.30am. Would anyone else be interested? I sent out a planning email letting the parents know about the race and a few people immediately said they were in. Fantastic! 

Santa Moms: Teresa, Christine, Cynthia & Candice

Cynthia, one of our resident parent runners, decided to register herself for the 5k (which started after the mile run). She spoke to the event organizers and they said Lauren (her daughter) could run with her at no extra charge. Teresa, Candice and I also registered for the 5k and we were all set. 5k participants received Santa hats, beards, race shirt and candy-cane socks. The Rudolph Run participants received Santa hats and beards. We heard people dress up for this race so the girls were prepared to wear their troop shirts and fun socks. 

only thing missing was Santa

The day before the race, I headed down to Moody Gardens Hotel to pick up our race gear with Luke and Jillian. Luke was initially complaining about going to the hotel but once he saw the amazing Christmas trees inside he asked "Can we come back next  year and stay here?" I don't know if we'll ever stay in the hotel, but next year I will definitely be taking the kids back to get some photos (or at least attempt photos) in front of the trees. They were so pretty! This hotel also has a trail of lights and an ice exhibit (it's supposed to be amazing, Julia went one year for a birthday party and loved it, she even came back with artwork from real life penguins), so we will need to check it out. 

1 mile and 5k finishers - impressive!

Race day came early-we all woke up before 5am, donned our race gear and were off to Galveston. The girls ran the mile race and had a blast!! Seeing a bunch of kids donned in hats and beards running was one of the cutest things I've ever seen. I'd also like to give props to our girls who all had insane weekends and still made the race. Sophia was up until 2am Friday night for a sleepover and 11.45pm the night before the race because she went to see Sleeping Beauty at the Hobby Center. Julia and Hannah spent 10 hours at the robotics competition on Saturday while Kendall and Lauren had volleyball games on Saturday. Talk about troop dedication! 

Mother Daughter Santas

After the Rudolph Run, Sophia and her dad headed home (she needed sleep!). Then it was 5k time. Cynthia and Teresa (the running moms) started off with Kendall, Lauren and Julia. Candice and Christine (the walking moms) went with Hannah. My group (the walkers) had fun checking out all the fun costumes. Cynthia and Teresa busted it keeping up with the girls. I wish I had signed Julia up officially for the 5k, she would have won her age group (out of 92 kids). We all had such an amazing time we decided we should definitely make this a troop tradition. We finished off the morning with a delicious breakfast at Cracker Barrel and just had such a fun, wonderful start to the day!

Santa Moms!

December 22 - It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

Christmas tree time! Julia had a swim meet two weekends ago, but we had to find time to squeeze in a trip to the tree tent. We went Saturday morning and found a tree quickly. After JD brought the tree into the house, he and Julia left for the meet. Luke was a perfect angel and helped me with the lights. He also baked homemade pumpkin bread and made homemade chocolate chip cookies for his swim coaches. I put the bread and cookies in and out of the oven, but he did everything else himself. I was so impressed.

Getting the tree ready

Attempting to get a good Christmas card photo...

December 21 - A Small Chance of Snow

snow!

There is a flu outbreak in Houston. 36% of the first grade students are out sick at our elementary school (including Luke) and Julia is also down for the count. Luke missed his winter party yesterday, which was unfortunate because his class performed 'The Grinch Who Stole Christmas' and he had the starring role of the Grinch. Julia's class party is today and she's also missing the festivities. JD is also sick (more of a sinus infection than the flu). So, fingers crossed that the baby and I stay healthy. 

Now, let's go back 2 weeks ago for a more exciting, healthy week. On Monday December 4th, there was a promising weather report. We heard there was a small chance of snow for the end of the week.

JD's Christmas party

No one wanted to get their hopes up because...well, this is Houston. The last time it snowed here was 9 years ago. But as the week progressed and the temperature kept dropping and moisture remained in the air, chances were rising. Thursday afternoon every weather report was saying "It's coming!" Growing up in NY where snow is a given, I never thought I'd be waiting up to "see snow" but that is exactly where I found myself. I fell asleep at 11.30pm Thursday and it started snowing at 11.30pm (doh!). We woke up to a winter wonderland (by Texas standards). The kids were so excited, this was the best early Christmas present the city could have wished for! This was Amelia's first time seeing snow and...let's say she didn't want to get her paws wet!

Some cute pictures of little Jillian