Rebecca's

I accidentally posted these pictures backwards, oh well. It is so easy to spend A LOT of time outside here. Not that we are getting tired of it, but we have been looking for fun things to do indoors that also provide an opportunity to get to know our neighbors and help us become recognizable in our community. Plus, we are trying to avoid skin cancer. We found Rebecca's this week - a coffee shop similar to Hartford (for those of you in STL). It is much more diverse that the little deli around the corner. When we went this week there were four men who were very likely homeless sitting at the outside tables playing chess. Supposedly they have the best scones in the city - we are just settling for the iced coffee and 25 cent brownies for the kids. I feel bad going the cheap route - after all they are trying to run a business. But we just aren't budgeted for pricey coffee drinks every other day of the week.
So during one stir crazy afternoon this week, we packed up this new little bag I just made (yes, with a sewing machine and everything!) with our crayons and paper and Go Fish and headed to Rebecca's. Great idea! We each worked on our own little projects. I cut out fake felt Fall leaves, because we have no real ones here and I keep forgetting it is Fall...my favorite season...remember all the Fall Festivals of yesteryear? Sad. I'll show you later what we did with the leaves.
Olivia drew her brother. Good likeness I thought.
Joseph mostly just made a mess of the brownie and ate a brown crayon he mistook for a brownie, but he did a fair bit of coloring as well...and puzzle working.
Olivia took most of our pictures. Her eyes looked so blue sitting there by that window, but it didn't turn out in the picture. She is still a cutie, sweaty, tootie.

The heavens declare the glory of God.

Sunday Polka

More friends visit SD!

We've been out here for a little over two months and already we have seen 3 friends from back East. Granted, none of them actually came specifically to see us - but we benefitted from their previously planned trips. We won't complain. Guy and Peggy lived across the street from my parents in Gulf Breeze for about 7 years.Someone must have said, "Everyone put on your smart face."

We had such a nice evening with them seeing the seals in La Jolla and we found a great little mediterranean market for supper.

Homemade chocolate pudding

You kind of have to bathe in it for full enjoyment.

Goo Goo Goggles

Thank you Annika and Lauren!! The goggles arrived safely. Olivia had to be told she could not wear them to bed.

Confused birthday wishes for G'pa Mac

Wild Things

We finally revisited the Wild Animal Park - we went last year with my (Mandy) parents.  What a great day we had today!  We love the zoo, but this is a different level.  It is kind of like comparing the MO Botanical Garden and the Shaw Nature Reserve - both are great for different reasons.  We got there about 10 and left about 2 - no strollers, lunch and water in the Camelback.

Some of you know I am a bit of an animal nerd.  This developed later in my life - I think having children brought it on.  There are so many interesting facts I want to write about these animals. I think I will do an animal fact installment series - whether you all are interested or not.  We are doing something fun for preschool with Olivia this year - I will share more about that later, but maybe I will do the animal installments as I report on that.  

Waiting for the Safari Tour train.
This is the area you ride through on a train and get an up close look at African animals.  If you look closely you can see the dust flying in this picture - all the giraffes had just stampeded across the dirt field.  Apparently they don't really do that during the day - our train driver was pretty pumped about it.  There were 19 of them - one dad, 13 mothers, and 6 babies.

See the baby nursing?
Mother and son.  Did you know their horns are made of the same stuff as our fingernails - which means it grows all the time.  That is why they have all those rocks in the habitat - otherwise they will sharpen them on the trees and kill the trees.


This was the best part of the day.  I left feeling I might have missed my calling - as a cheetah trainer.  There are three sisters in this picture and they were all hand raised - which is why the trainer can actually be in the exhibit with them.  They were so beautiful.
Wore him slap out - this is how we carried him out.

Back to the ballpark

It felt very familiar being back in the Padres ballpark. A lot of fun memories from there last summer. We did take Olivia, she was just down in the sandbox playing. We haven't quite switched our loyalties yet. This was the series with the Cardinals - Joseph thinks the Cardinals play in every baseball game. You won't believe this, but we actually ran into Aaron Belz and his kids (who live out here now) and his dad, Mark who had come out from St. Louis! That was a fun surprise.

Let the games begin!

Neither Mike nor I are what you would call die hard - for anything really. Maybe we aren't big on comittment, maybe we are just well balanced (that makes us sound good, right?). We enjoy a lot of things and even do a few of them pretty regularly, with excitement. Like golf...Mike will get up early to play it (that is a sure sign of priority around here) and would play as much as his wallet, time, and family would allow (all within reason). But still...I would not call him a fanatic. All that to say, when I make this post it's not like I am saying we are die hard college football fans. I mean Mike is going to know who is good and more of the stats just because most men have an uncanny way of remembering that kind of boring, I mean...yeah, boring stuff. But I like it for the memories I have of growing up in a die hard football town and the excitement you could feel every Saturday. My brother and dad and papaw watched it and so just hearing it in the back ground on t.v. makes me feel at home. I like it because it is (or can be) a group activity - something the whole family can enjoy together. And we did - all day Saturday. And it started with Joseph begging to be excused from the breakfast table so he could "go watch football in there."

A fear (involuntarily) conquered

I have always been afraid of one of our kids getting a head wound. I figured it would be Joseph. That kid hits his head like...well, I can't think of anything. But, a lot...and hard. This morning we were five minutes from getting out the door to go to the beach when I heard her scream. They had been running around messing with each other and apparently Olivia tripped going out of her bedroom and hit her head on the corner of a small toy box. Thankfully it did not end up being too bad at all, but when I got to her the blood was squirting out pretty good. She was so brave at the doctor. She did everything they told her to and was so still. I wished I had had a mirror so she could watch. Can you believe the location of the cut? I mean, just a little bit either way and it could have been bad news. It was weird because she seemed to have hit on an angle - it wasn't very deep, but it was wide.

Since it wasn't too deep, they glued it shut. That's right. I could have just stayed home, kept my $40 co-pay and used Elmer's. We can't get it wet for a few days, so no beach until after the weekend. She was sad.

He was a good support. Wanted to lay on the table with her. I won't mention everything else he wanted to do while we were there - this kid has selective hearing. Sometimes I feel like I am just talking to myself because he sure ain't listening. You can pray for us both.

Just a little swelling. She said tonight at bed time that it hurt a little but not much.

Still a little afraid of head wounds as I feel like we got out easy on this one.