Happy Birthday Teia!

Teia turned 2 on October 18th and its been driving me nuts that we have not yet posted to commemorate that. 2nd children really do get ripped off. I'm afraid it is going to be November before I make a photo montage like I did for Kai's birthday or Greg finally writes up a post about her birthday activities. So I just had to hop on here while the kids sleep in and I have a sec to say


HAPPY BIRTHDAY LITTLE PEACH! WE LOVE YOU!!!!!! (and its not that we don't honor and cherish your birthday, we're just so stinkin' busy!!!!!!) - stinkin' eh? I'm turning American. Yikes!

More fun up north

I am going to make a concerted effort to get caught up on our blog, if for no other reason than I don't want Teia to think we forgot to blog about her birthday (which was last Tuesday) or that we didn't blog about her birthday until November (when she is older and reads all of these b/c I am sure she will ;-). The task of commemorating her big day has been assigned to Daddy who has  been MIA from our blog for far too long. He likes to spend his 2 or 3 free minutes per day keeping up with what is going on in the world, whereas I tend to focus on the small details like blogging about the kids and uploading photos. Blame it on gender difference. But I'll get him on here soon enough....

The kids had alot of fun on our trip to Banff/Calgary. It is amazing to watch them have new experiences. It really reminds me how important little things are to little kids (and should be to all of us). Being able to toss things down from the loft in our vacation condo was a major highlight to Kai and I will never forget him saying to me urgently "I need underpants!" after being told firmly that he was not to throw anything that was big or heavy; underpants however, were acceptable projectiles. (Greg and I were just musing about where he picked up the term under-pants; we're pretty sure we don't use it!)

Like most little boys, Kai likes things that are mechanical and things that go. He is particularly enamored with the two sky trams we ride regularly in San Diego. So when he found out that Banff had a gondola that went all the way up a mountain, well he was keen to give it a try!

Both he and Teia made it to the very top of Sulphur Mountain under their own power. There was hike of many, many stairs leading to the top. Kai pretty much sprinted all the way. The altitude didn't slow that boy down! Teia was also amazing, walking all the way to the top and then pretty much jumping all the way down. Let's just say, it took awhile.

This is looking back at the gondola house from the top so you can see it was quite a walk for little people. Kai actually did the top portion twice, he got tired of waiting for the rest of us (my excuse is the roboboot).  On the ride down Greg and I got to see what it might be like to have 4 kids and we rode down with our 2 plus Allie and Emily. 

Once in Calgary Kai's choice of activity was the Calgary Tower. He was pretty stoked to ride a gondola and find a big tower on the same trip (two of his favorite things). I haven't been up the Calgary Tower since 1994 so it was a new experience for me too. That glass floor sure made me woozy. But not the kids, they couldn't get enough of it. 

While we were up there some folks were rappelling down the Tower. Standing there on that glass floor I couldn't think of anything I would rather do less than rappel down that Tower. Kai's comment: "that is a dwiffwent way to get down the Calgary Tower." 

Still kinda post-vacation bummin' so I 'm sure I'll be on here again to post some more photos and stories. It was a really great trip!

Beautiful Wedding

We just returned home from a teaser trip to the mountains to take part in M & A's incredible wedding. I say a teaser trip b/c it was near torture to be back in what used to be my mountain playground with 2 kids in tow and a gimpy foot. But we made the best of it and just enjoyed the wilderness peaks from the sidelines. I thought I had some good shots until I saw some sneak peaks of the official wedding photos and I have to say, I think they are the most amazing wedding photos I have ever seen. Not hard to do when you have a gorgeous bride and groom and breathtaking scenery.

I must say, our kids were pretty darn cute, as were Em and Allie, T's fellow flower girls. Buds was confident as he strode down the aisle - he chose to go by himself (he took his job carrying bunny bearing rings very seriously) but Daddy stayed close behind just in case. He even encouraged Emily during the rehearsal when she was a bit nervous.

I didn't get a shot of the 3 flower girls coming down the aisle (escorted by me b/c one little flower girl was a wee bit unsure of the whole thing). They looked absolutely adorable in their ivory dresses with red shoes, hair clips and purses. They loved their purses!

 Little T wasn't too crazy about the idea of standing up at the front after she walked down the aisle but you can get a glimpse of her cuteness. Having never really dressed her up before we were pretty smitten with our little "princess."

Everyone had a really great time and there were quite a few dancin' fools that night. Our kids stayed out later than ever before they were having so much fun (after 10 pm!) Every time I asked Kai if he had had enough he told me wanted more dancing. And Teia just never stopped moving and you couldn't wipe the smile from her face. From the photographic evidence, I surmised that alot more dancin' foolery went on after we took the little'uns home to bed. But here are some of the "early" evening dancing.....

You may not be familiar with this dance. Its called the "Gordon dance"(inspired by the #4 engine from Thomas the Train in case you were a little unsure), - Kai was teaching Allie. 

How to have an un-relaxing weekend

Rent a motor home. A big one. Then take two small children, Kai and Teia to be specific, to a campsite. If that doesn't feel un-relaxing enough, flood the motor home overnight. That is exactly what we did this weekend.

Kai has been really into "houses on wheels" ever since our friends the Hatfields visited with their trailer. Kai has never forgotten them or their extremely cool "home." Greg, being just the awesomest of awesome Daddies, has been working really hard to make this a reality. Not too many RV companies are willing to rent out an RV for one night and we just weren't about to make this a multi-night affair. Not to mention, these babies ain't cheap. But we discovered there is a VRBO type deal for RVs! Who'da thunk? Greg did.

So Greg concealed his prior RV driving record (that was in Europe so it doesn't count) and convinced a family to rent us their RV. Now this wasn't just an RV. This thing was GINORMOUS. If you don't believe me, check it out....

If Greg loses his job, he is now qualified to drive tour buses. He did great, though. Returned this thing with nary a nick. The kids were pretty psyched. Kai could not wait to get to sleep. He was quite impatient to get through the rest of the day's activities so he could try out sleeping in this thing. Reminded me of a kid on xmas eve. 

Is this a 2 year old thing? Saying cheese and squinting whenever anyone points a camera at you? Maybe its a girl thing.....

Teia spent most of the weekend being places she shouldn't be: the very large dash, the stair well, the driver's seat playing with the controls. And if we let her out of the RV she just ran away to check out all the other RVs. These things should come with a disclaimer that they should not be used by parents if their children are under 3. Life with Teia in the RV was....challenging. And then of course, Kai had to go everywhere that his little sis went so we had double trouble. Thankfully for us, Kai tends to exercise a little more caution, so we had maybe a second more to respond to potential disasters. Remember too, Mama is still wearing the robo-boot. 

Here is our lovely campsite. It was a mixture of surf sounds and ocean views together with trains and highway noise. But inside that beast of an RV, we couldn't hear anything anyway. 

The other highlight for Kai was the campfire. He really loved that part, particularly when Daddy unexpectedly lit a marshmallow on fire. Couldn't get enough of that. Speaking of roasting marshmallows, Greg revealed his true lack of camping experience when he told me he had bought some marshmallow sticks:

Funny how the kids wanted to sit in our chairs rather than their own. Didn't really matter though, b/c b/tw playing defense, making food, cleaning up or averting disaster, we didn't sit down anyway. Post-campfire we finally got down to the weekend highlight, sleeping in the house on wheels. Everyone huddled close to Daddy for books and milk before bed. Greg steeled me for what was ahead "Remember, we don't expect to actually sleep tonight, right?"

Right. Actually, Greg and Kai slept very well. But see that pack and play in the photo? Miss Teia wanted nothing to do with it. So Mama didn't sleep so well sharing a tiny little bed with Teia, lying horizontally across it as she snoozed. And she was up at 5:45 am. Thank you Apple for making an iPad to entertain our daughter til 7 am so we didn't have two overtired and grumpy children. At 7 I finally decided it was okay for her to get up, and swung my legs over the side of the bed. Squish. What was that? My first thought: wow, it really did get cold last night. Hang on....morning dew doesn't appear on carpets inside RVs after a cold night. Uh oh. I followed the watery trail all the way to the shower, which was slowly overflowing and had been all night long. Ummmm..... Greg???? Are you awake???? Seems I hadn't quite turned it off after rinsing the kids off post-beach. Oops. 

A mad scramble of problem solving, soaking up, cleaning up and drying up and we finished out the camping trip with a trip to a petting zoo where the kids were equal parts enthralled and terrified by being inside the pens with guinea pigs, bunnies, goats and sheep. But they did get to ride the train....

So, there you have it. That is exactly how to have an un-relaxing weekend. Unless you are 2 and 4. 

Heeeeelllllppppp Mmmmeeeeeee!

WWW://weirdweirdweek.com

Granna Barbie came to visit this week and we sure needed her. Its been a www week! First the day after Granna arrived, we had RAIN (and thunder)! Now this might not seem like a big deal but this was the first rain we've had since we touched down on June 27th! And it rained all night long and into the first day of school. Word on the street is that is hasn't rained on San Diego's first day of school in a long, long time...maybe never. Well, that rained cleared up and it got H.O.T. The temp reading in our minivan was 107!!! Now this might not be a big deal for Texas or Arizona but here in SD, we have only seen a handful of days over 80 this summer. Global warming???? Nah.....

In addition to the bizarro weather, I did this:

'

Comminuted fracture with extension into the joint. If you're not familiar with the term, as I wasn't, here is wiki's def'n: Comminuted fracture: A fracture in which the bone has broken into a number of pieces.

And no, I wasn't kickboxing as the x-ray tech thought - just putting Teia down for her nap. Occupational hazard. Those glider ottomans should come with a warning that they are likely to twist and mangle unsuspecting toes!

On Wednesday a man's body was found at Mission Trails Park, a wilderness area where I ran with my new trail running buddy on Sunday, all the while anxiously looking over my shoulder for cougars. Looks like a rattle snake got this poor guy, and pretty close to the visitor's center. Weird. 

Then most of southern California lost power on Thursday afternoon when there was a power overload and apparently someone working at a power plant in Arizona majorly screwed up and ZAP we were all out of juice. At 7:30 that night the sounds of excited children's squealing could be heard in our house as naked little ones ran around in the dark with flashlights avoiding the grasp of Granna and gimpy Mommy as Daddy was distracted on the phone by the issues being out of power presents to submarines. 

And on Friday afternoon, Vancouver Island gets hit with a (thankfully) minimally destructive 6.7 earthquake. Things that make you say hmmmmmmm........

Shipyard Kids

The other day the kids and I visited Daddy at work. We got to see the busy shipyard in action and saw a sub in dry dock. That thing was HUGE! It is amazing to me that it is one of the "small" class of submarines. Sorry, no photos to share - its CLASSIFIED. Kai was pretty mesmerized by all the stuff going on and they both enjoyed Daddy's office. Teia got right to work...

And Kai wanted a turn at the big desk too!

Seeing as photos were verboten within the shipyard gates we tried to get a few of Daddy and his posse on an old WWII memorial sub just outside. The kids just weren't havin' it. 

Poor Daddy was left empty handed when he tried to stand with them. Teia decided to lie on the sub deck instead. 

And its always a case of monkey (or rather "eee eee") see, monkey do with our two so Kai was gettin' down too and laughing at his crazy sister. But I did manage to snap this sweet one♥ (Love that I figured out how to do special characters so you may be seeing a few more of these!)