Since August 19th cont'd...Special Braiden and mom trip

One of my funnest childhood memories was the time that my Dad woke me up early one morning and said "Wake up, we are going to Disneyland!" and we did. It was so fun to be surprised that way. We also lived in California, 30 minutes from Disneyland so it was much easier to do that. Well, if you haven't figured it out, we are big Disneyland fans. Maybe because Eric and I we both born and raised in California and Disneyland was a huge part of both of our childhood memories. So anyway...I decided that since I had a 4 day weekend for Labor Day I really wanted to surprise Braiden with a mom and me trip to Disneyland. So I did! It wasn't easy keeping the secret but it all worked out and we had so much fun.

The week before we actually spent in St. George with my grandma helping her get over a bit of an illness she was experiencing. My company has an office down in St George so I went down, with Braiden, and stayed with her. Braiden stayed at the house with my Grandma during the day while I was gone and helped her get food and took the dog out. He was such a good helper. You can bet by the time I got home around 2pm he was begging me to take him to do something. He went swimming everyday. He now thinks he is Michael Phelps.

On the way to California we made our obligatory stop in Las Vegas but I am becoming less and less enchanted with Sin City. Braiden really wanted to stop at the M&M Store so we did. This quick little "jaunt" turned into a 3 hour ordeal. Ick! Las Vegas on Labor Day weekend. Stay Away.

We finally made it to my Dad's house on Friday evening and went out to dinner with the whole familia. It was fun and I finally got to meet Sam, my little 8 month old brother. Those of you who don't know the mechanics of my family, hang on...

Me and my dad, I am the oldest.Braiden playing with Dads guitar. He looks so natural with that, doesn't he? Thank you Rock Band...These are my two brothers from another mother. My little Latin brothers Sam and Lee.
Here we go...Left to right: Lee, Braiden, Paul, Norma (dad's wife), Sam, Mary, Me, Julie, Dad.Not so little Sam WatsonI love this, I had to take a picture of it. This is a perfect lesson in not counting your chickens before they hatch. My step mom, long ago, bought this teddy bear hanging with all the kids names on them. Little did she know that there would eventually be 6 more kids in the Watson family. So Ben improvised and drew the 4 then my dad added the last two after Lee and Sam came. I love that its still on the the wall. I hope he leaves it there for a long time.
So I learned after this trip that its really important to spend time with each of your individual kids. I think Braiden was really hungry for some mom attention. In the craziness that comes with being a full time employee and a mom with very young kids it gets easy to look over the important things just so i can get through every day. Braiden and I had a really good time and he loved the one on one attention. I kind of did too. I didn't realize how much I didn't know about my son. Looking forward to the next one, Bud!!