And the trip home...

We finally made our trip to the beach!! We told Belle that if she wore her glasses every day that we'd plan a trip. I made a sticker chart for incentive, which she barely needed. She's been so good about wearing her glasses that she's actually begun to like them! Incidentally, her eyes have also improved a lot already and the prognosis is good for correction!

So after a long drive (for Belle) to SF with lots of "mommy are we at the beach?" we arrived at Ocean Beach... With our picnic all packed and the kids adequately layered we trekked up the little hill and over to see the ocean and play in the sand. Lucky for us, the weather was a mild 68 degrees with a light breeze. Although the water was certainly too cold to swim in, it was fine for dipping in our feet and chasing the waves back and forth and of course the giggles never ended during that game! Eventually the kids ended up with wet pants and sand sticking all over so we cleaned up and ate our lunch. By then they were happily worn out and with full bellies we headed back to the car for our drive home.

It was great to get out of town with the humidity and smoke and play in the fresh air... We've all been so busy getting the daycare up and running smoothly we haven't had time for special play. I think we all feel a little bit filled up by that one fun little afternoon.

A milestone in development occurred this afternoon at about 7. We were at the park, after dinner and before bath, when the kids were doing what they do. David was riding around in a new tricycle, and Isabelle was climbing around on the play structure. I don't know if you can still call 'em jungle gyms or monkey bars or whatever we used to call them. But I digress.



Isabelle had a great breakthrough while she was playing. For the first time, she was able to hang onto a horizontal bar, one of many which create a ladder to the next structure, and she then reached out and grabbed the next bar. Then the next, and so on. She has never done that before. She was always afraid of falling or not making it to the next rung.

And she made it to the other side! She was so happy! And we clapped and said, "Yeah!" Then she jumped up and down, screamed a little happy scream, and did a little dance.

Then she was right back to repeat her feat! With much more confidence.

So, I think I have captured the face of the previously mentioned screeming and giggling until hiccups expression

So it seems we've got to stage in life where yelling, "OOOuurrrgggh" is the funniest thing ever, as it is immediately followed by lots of giggling. Sometimes this activity occurs near a doorway or wall. This will go on until the body needs more oxygen than is being delivered with all those exhalations, or until the hiccups begin.

But then it resumes.

This last weekend was Father's Day, of course. The kids all said "Happy Birthday!" when I got up in the morning. We didn't go anywhere special, just played at the homestead. We did head out to the smoothy store, which the kids love. So we all shared a few tasty fruit smoothies. Sometimes I think they drink them so fast they must get brain freezes.

OK everyone.  I found the blogging software again.  Well, not really.  I just found a few minutes to try and get caught up.  For those that don't yet know, we have moved.  Contact us if you need to new address.  The moving explains most of why there have not been any posts lately.  Just too many other things to do.  We've also been getting ready for opening our daycare, so that includes lots of other hoops with the state to go through.

Grandma Judy came out for a week to help us out, and my friend Randy was also in town, and he helped a lot too.

So besides that, what have we been up to?  I went on a camping trip with a couple of my best friends.  It was good, albeit a short trip.  I can send you pictures if you want as well, but I'm not going to put them up here, as I try to keep this mostly about the kids.

David also had a recheck hearing exam, and it turns out his hearing is fine.  He's just very selective at times.

Isabelle also had an eye exam, following her wellness check.  It turns out she has a lazy eye, and she's almost exclusively using her right eye to see things.  So she now has a pair of very nice polycarbonate scratch resistant sparkling red glasses to force her to use her left eye, before her brain just starts to ignore it all the time.  We also have the option to put a patch on her right eye, and force her to use the left, but we won't do anything drastic like that yet.  Although I think she might like being a pirate all day.  We have a recheck with her ophthalmologist at the end of the month to see how her vision is improving with the glasses, then we'll decide the next step.

We had Grandma Jeanne, Aunt Susie, Uncle Greg, and Aunt Joani come up for a Mother's Day BBQ.  It was nice, except for the 100 degree temp!

Julie and I just made a huge chalk board for the back yard, which the kids tend to ignore.

We have two cherry trees in the back yard, which is nice to get that fresh fruit.  Unfortunately, David likes to swallow the pits, so we have to be pretty attentive to low hanging fruit.

We also live very near the edge of town, which I think is great.  We can walk about 100 meters and be at the city limits.  And the city has done a really nice thing in that they have built a greenbelt the encircles this part of town, so we go for 'nature walks' with the kids and they can see lots of wild animals, mostly birds, and pretend they are in the deep dark jungle, a la The Jungle Book.

"Look David!" says Isabelle, "There's Bagheera and Mowgli!"

As an aside, I hope David isn't constantly disappointed, because he can't see the things in Isabelle's imagination when she says things like that.

Yesterday they got to see their first real live snake in the wild.  Julie spotted a gopher snake going into a gopher hole, and the kids were so excited to get up close to see it's tail.  I held onto it so they could pet it a little, but it had to get into that hole, either to escape us, or get dinner.  I've also seen a gaggle of turkeys (one tom, and maybe 8 hens) in the vicinity, but I see them early in the morning, and the kids haven't seen them yet when we all go out in the afternoon.