San Diego County Fair!!

Sisters

Moo

Creepy People Eyes

Kids

So Many Goats, So Little Time

"Race Car!"

Thinking: "What the Heck?" about the junior sling shot

$6

"Oh, Wow! Ride it?"

A Boy and His Dog

Buzz, Buzz

Fair Goers

Requirement Fulfilled: Smoked Turkey Leg

Plum Tuckered

Weekly Retrospective 6/19-6/25/11

Summer Time

Ahhh, summer.  Have I mentioned how excited I am that it is summer? I know for me, as a working adult, it hasn't meant all that much to me over the last few years. Just more work weeks, weekends, and avoidance of the San Diego tourist crowds.

Even since Brad's been back in school, he's usually in summer school, so again, its usually more of the same.  But this summer seems different.
 

 

When Brad initially applied to UCSD, he planned to take the summer off if he got in.  But when we didn't find out in March or April like we initially thought we would, summer school was back on the books...until the San Diego Community College District canceled summer school all together - hello, budgetary cutbacks.

Fortunately, Brad is in such a place with his schooling that it didn't really make a difference. He would have had enough time next fall and spring to take the classes he would have needed at Mesa to apply to UCSD as a guarantee transfer in 2012 without needing summer school (thank goodness!). All this to say, even without the most awesome-est of news, that Brad is in fact heading to UCSD this September, he was going to have a summer off.

And now that we do have that most awesome-est of news, the summer seems even sweeter.  Its a great chunk of time when we can focus just on our family.

I don't think most people realize how hard it is to be in school and have a new family. Just like how the obligations of parenthood never go away, neither do the obligations of being a student when you are in school. You can never relax. There is always something that needs to be done. Something to read, something to write, something to study for. There is no down-time. Life ends up being a great balancing act. This also means that sometimes things have to dip more into the school side (during finals and major exams) than the family side. So we compensate and shift things around as needed. Because that's what partners do.

But when school's out? Ahhh...so nice!  I'm trying not to get spoiled, since I know the next three years (or so) will be busy and crazy and juggley. Which means that I'm also enjoying every moment of this summer. So far we've had such a nice mix of things to do and down-time. And I look forward to taking a bit of time off work here and there to make even more of it. In fact, a weekday trip to the San Diego County Fair is next on the agenda (the theme this year is 'cars' after all, so we couldn't possibly miss that!).

I also want to plan a beach day and hopefully a couple little getaways, one as a family and one just the two of us. The details don't really matter. The important thing is spending time with my guys and just 'being' together.

Weekly Retrospective 6/12-6/18/11

Weekly Retrospective 6/5-6/11/11

Weekly Retrospective 5/29-6/4/11

Father's Day

We had such a nice Father's Day yesterday. It was filled with family and sweet moments. We started our day off at Gymboree where Elliott was a bear :)  This is Elliott playing along with the Gymbo dance at the end. I thought I was recording the whole thing, but found out I never hit record - hate that!  BUT, this is Elliott doing peak-a-boo :)
 
We then headed over to lunch where we met up with my parents and Robert and Meagan. Elliott has decided that he needs his own menu now when we go out to eat. The cute thing is that he has started reading out letters (some are right, some aren't) and I love that the reading connection is being made.




After lunch we headed over for a walk in Balboa Park. We brought Elliott's 'tricycle' along. He has a new balance bike, that he is *this* much too short to ride, on which the rule is he always has to wear his helmet.  But since he can't ride his bike, he now insists on riding his tricycle with his helmet on. And who are we to discourage good safety! (Jamee, I know you know this one well ;) I think one of my favorite moments of the day was when he came riding into the restaurant (we were finishing up, while Brad had taken Elliott to get his bike from the car), helmet and all. Needless to say, he gets quite a few chuckles and smiles when he's out riding :)

We stopped at the sculpture garden and it was such a lovely backdrop, I had to take a photo. (You can see Brad and Elliott under the sculpture.)

There was also a bit of tree climbing...

 
It was especially nice to celebrate this Father's Day knowing Brad is on the horizon to so many wonderful opportunities for him and our family. While there are still so many 'ifs' out there, the open spaces are slowly starting to fill in. This is a very exciting time for our little family and I wouldn't want anyone else by my side.  Happy Father's Day, Brad!

Potty Time!

So a certain little someone we know used the potty for the very first time tonight :) I'm still not sure who was more excited him or me! It was totally spontaneous, after his bath and I certainly don't expect this to be an every day thing now, but wow - talk about a big step!

San Diego Botanical Gardens

One of my new favorite places to take Elliott is the San Diego Botanical Gardens. We went for the first time in February and I fell in love! Not only are the gardens beautiful, but they have (very smartly) put some money into developing two great kid-friendly areas. I actually intended to do a full post after our first trip, but never got around to it. Fortunately, we recently celebrated our friend's 3rd birthday there and had a chance to visit it again as a family.



The upper area is called 'Seeds of Wonder' and has a play house, water pump and model train as well as lots of gardens to explore. Everything is meant to be touched and explored. As part of our friend's birthday party, Elliott also got to partake in a few crafts and activities, including painting rocks, painting on easels and potting a succulent. As before, the water pump and the train was a definite favorite.





After we had snacks and cake, we headed down to the lower children's garden, the Hamilton Children's Garden. This is my favorite :) The garden meanders around with lots of twists and turns over several levels. There is lots to explore in side garden areas including a music garden, art stations, a dirt pit, a boating 'stream' and a tree house.





The tree house alone is worth the trip. It is so beautiful. The foundation of the tree itself is man-made, but it is covered with real plants and feels so real. The roots at the bottom make a maze of tunnels and there is a spiral stair case up the center to take to you the upper levels. Our first trip was on a holiday Monday, so it was crazy busy and the older kids had taken over the bottom of the tree house. But last Saturday it was so open and available, Elliott could freely explore without fear of being trampled.




Both children's areas are also a perfect way to spend a hot day as they feature plenty of opportunities to get wet. Elliott was ridiculously dirty by the time our day was done - the sign of a really great day if you ask me!


I was able to score some Groupon tickets to the gardens, so I am happy we will have the opportunity to go back soon. I can't wait!

And More Good News!

We got a surprise yesterday when Brad checked on the status of his financial aid application. Turns out UCSD has awarded him a grant to cover his school expenses next year! The only thing not being covered is his 'room and board' which we were planning to cover ourselves anyway. So basically he gets to go to school next year for free!! (We were not expecting this in the least!)

I am beyond proud of him and all the hard work he has been doing the last few years. It is certainly paying off!

More Legos!!

One of the super fun things we've done over the last few weeks was visit Legoland again. I know going into it, I was by far more excited to go than Elliott (although he did start saying 'legos!' and pointing as we were making our way through the parking entrance queue). And why was I so excited? Star Wars Miniland, of course!!



I also knew Elliott would get a lot more out of it than the last time we visited in October last year. And boy, was I right! Miniland was by far the highlight of the visit. He wanted to see all the 'models' and push the 'buttons' (correctly pronounced 'buh-puns') to make the action portion of the models move.

I, of course, thought the Star Wars models were the best :) They were a little heavily weighted with scenes from the first three episodes and the Clone Wars (each of which I've only seen once, so I only recognized the scenes vs. getting all the little details), but the models of Endor, Hoth and Tantooine were awesome. Heck, I couldn't help myself and had to take a photo of myself with the Millennium Falcon :D


Besides the Star Wars models where Elliott was particularly fond of making the Hoth snow monster roar, he seemed to be really drawn to the model of New York City, where cars drove around the buildings and you could make break dancers dance on the street.

Elliott once again had a great time at the Duplo Village where he insisted on taking me for tractor rides, over and over again ('sit there! tractor back! ride!'). He also explained what everything was...in fact, this was a common theme of the day. I caught so many photos of Elliott explaining to me mid-word what things were. My favorite being when he was telling me that Bob the Builder had 'tools' in his belt. Hee.

"Legos!" - explaining the cornstalks at the train ride were made of legos

"House!" - explaining he was standing in a big house

"Tools!" - Love

This trip also marked an important milestone: Elliott is 34 inches tall! I know this because he was officially tall enough to wedge his head under the 34 inch height marker for the shortest of the height-restricted rides. While we didn't try every 34 inch ride he would have been eligible to go on (after all we were with a non-34 inch tall companion), the one we did try was a ginormous fail. Our helicopter in the helicopter ride never made it off the ground...in fact, we had to be let off before it even started. This is where I think the 'parenting-karma' is coming back to me (hello, crying on Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland). He was fine until we sat down, then he started saying 'no, no, no' and then started crying (the big, heavy, sobbing, sad cries) to be let off. Well since this was supposed to be fun (for us as well as the people around us), I had the ride attendant let us off. Oh well, I tried! Maybe next time...and maybe on something that doesn't raise 20 feet into the air (intimidating much?).

And shockingly enough, we managed to leave the place without any new legos (although I had told myself that if they had the Thomas the Train duplo train, it was coming home with us), despite the tempting new Cars 2 duplo sets AND seeing the 'hard to find' duplo camping set (it has a tent!!).

Thanks again to our friends for bringing us along - we had SO much fun!!