Random

I won't spend too much time on it because I'm not quite ready to talk about it, but I'll just say that my very best friend in the world moved last month. I can't talk about it. But I can talk about her crazy kiddos. I got to watch them while she packed up 9 years of our best friendship and moved . . . fine, it was just 2 miles away, but it's not next door. Don't tell me it's going to be fine because it's just not.

Anyway, Mr. Franks here was being ignored by the girls who were jumping on the trampoline, and I was feeding Malcolm so after a while when I didn't hear him, I decided to check on him. Poor little guy was exhausted. I should have just left him there for his nap. It was so cute.

Maybe a little distance will be good for Macy since I'm sure Stella's weirdness has rubbed off on her.

Stella has been learning a ton about bodies in school. They went through all of the systems of the body and even did a report on the nervous system. She has retained quite a bit more than I expected her to. After the projects were all over, Stella brought home this guy. Actually, it's her and all of her organs. It freaks me out. Stella taped it up on the wall by the piano, so when I'm folding laundry (sometimes after bedtime with very few lights on), I'll look up and just see the skeleton head peeking over the couch. Freaky.

Best pet ever. Stella named it Francis and planned on it becoming Fran when it became a butterfly. It died though. Stella was so excited to have it and even paid attention to it (we can't say so much about her poor beta fish). It got to the point of molting (if that's what you call it) and turned into what looked like a cocoon, but then it kind of just disintegrated.

Stella was pretty sad about it until we found a dead moth on the floor and I told her that it was Fran. She wasn't as sad to see it go (she has an irrational fear of moths).

Never a dull moment with this girl.

Malcolm likes to play cards with us. Stella got the giggles big time.

I don't know. I really don't know.  But I love her.

Washing Daddy's Truck

Stella and Macy strapped on their swimmers for the first time this year and helped Elliot wash his truck. Elliot mostly just sprayed them with the hose, but they thought they were helping and they were having a great time doing it (03/03/12).

Veteran's Day

I remember 7 years ago when we took Stella to this same parade on Mill Avenue on Veteran's Day. It was her first parade. This is Malcolm's first parade too.

When we got out of the car to walk to the parade route, Stella was very concerned that we forgot to bring a bag to collect her candy.

The parade went up Mill Avenue, and we were on the West side of the road, so there was a whole side of the road that didn't have any parade on it. Stella decided to move a little closer even though there was no one else in the middle of the road.

(As the Shriners were coming down the road with their little band float, I recognized the song they were playing as "there's a place in France where the naked ladies dance . . ." My friend assured me that the tune came before the lyrics.)

Kids slowly started venturing out by Stella in the middle of the road.

By the end of the parade even some of the adults were out there and wondering why they hadn't watched the entire parade from there since it was so much closer. Stella is a born leader . . . or a bad example going out in the middle of the road. Whatev.

For some reason, it is always more fun to watch a parade with friends.

The Campbell's are our neighbors (seriously, just one house between us), but when Stella sees them in public, it's like she hasn't seen them in a year! She gets so excited!

Stella took the camera to snap some pictures of said friends.

They were just as excited to see us.

I don't know where he got that sucker because it turns out that the parade was just a bunch of Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Shriners, Hugh Hallman, a fire truck, and Harley Davidson's . . . and no candy.

Despite the lack of candy-throwers and exciting floats, Stella seemed to be having the time of her life, even starting a high-five line-up along the road. After the parade was over, we walked down the road back to the car and had the following short conversation as Stella was skipping along:

MOM: (totally pleased with myself for dragging my kids out of the house when it was clearly supposed to be a pajama day) "Did you just have the best time ever Sis?"
STELLA: (stopping dead in her tracks and giving me a totally disgusted look) "No. They didn't even throw any candy."

Malcolm didn't mind.

South Carlsbad Beach Camping - Day 5

SAVE THE SEAWEED

Garrett was quite the engineer with his construction of this little swing. I'm sure Stella thought it was all for her.

The last day of camp is always the worst. There's not a lot of playing and too much clean up. We made breakfast, so we got to clean that up as well as the camp. It always seems like everyone is in such a hurry on the last day. Not my favorite.

But I do love to take that one last walk on the beach before we drive away. Elliot chose not to come down with us (having only been walking on his foot for one week was painful). But Beth came with us.

I didn't think we were down there for very long, but apparently it was long enough for me to get a sunburn . . .

. . . and for Stella to get completely wet and sandy.

Also enough time for Sarah and Lorraine to do Yoga and headstands.

Tyler, Sarah, Stella, Joe, and Dara liked the last walk on the beach.

Joe especially liked it.

Some of our favorite people.

Oh look, there's more.

For some reason, Beth was really excited to sit in the back seat with Stella for the next 6 hours.

See ya next year . . . we'll have a 9-month-old baby brother to consume his portion of sand by then. :)

South Carlsbad Beach Camping - Day 4

It's no Oregon Coast, but it was pretty chilly when we went to the beach this day. I went to the store while everyone headed down to the beach and this is how I found Stella and Elliot upon my return. She was freezing and pretty much just cuddled with Elliot for the first while. He didn't mind at all. :)

Sarah

Macy

Sam

Clark

Once she figured out that it was warmer NOT under the shade of the canopy, Stella ventured out to watch the waves. She didn't get in the water very much.

Sarah, Stella, and Emma collected shells instead of playing in the water.

Reagan rolled around the beach most of the day. I'm not kidding. I wish I had more pictures of the different areas we would suddenly find her. I'm sure Lynnae had a great time getting all of the sand out of every crevice in her body. She was a mess.

Speaking of mess . . . Franklin. He even made a new friend with another curly-headed boy who's family set up camp right next to us. They had a great time eating sand.

Stella made some new friends as well. She was buried for several hours . . .

. . . before she turned into a mermaid.

We ran into some old friends that used to be in our ward that just happened to be beach camping with some of their friends as well. We set up quite the compound of lazy adults.

Lynnae, Sarah, Lorraine

Speaking of lazy . . . this is pretty much what we did all day (besides the trek ALL the way up the 76 steps to go pee).

I got up once so Elliot could take a picture of my giant 30 week belly.

South Carlsbad Beach Camping - Day 3

On Wednesday, we took the day off of the beach and went to the San Diego Zoo with Travis, Lorraine, Sarah, and Garrett.

The BEST part of the zoo, BY FAR, was the gorillas. The Boss gorilla had his rear right against the glass display when we first walked up to it, but Stella was too busy looking far into the habitat for the other gorillas that she didn't see him 1 foot away from her. I wish I would have had video of when she finally did see him as she walked along the glass case because it was quite the shock and hilarious.

The Boss gorilla moved to a better seat to observe 2 other gorillas totally wrestling. Stella was concerned for a little bit because of the bearing of teeth, the smacking of their heads against the glass, and the sudden attacks . . . but when I pointed out that she does the same things to us at home, she was like, "Oh." Then she was fine and thought it was hilarious.

The gorillas wrestled for quite some time until the little gorilla won by sitting on the bigger gorilla's head. So entertaining.

Stella would totally ride a gorilla.

We stuck around some of the animals a little longer than we needed just so see if they were real . . .

. . . like this alligator . . . it never moved . . .

. . . and this hippo . . . also, never moved. Travis is still convinced that they were statues.

The Pandas had their very own private display where we were instructed to whisper even though there was a zoo lady using a microphone to describe Panda behavior and these specific pandas.

Interesting facts:
1) These pandas only weigh about 120 pounds (the zoo lady was very defensive of his size and said at least 3 times that size does not matter),
2) they are vegetarians and only eat cold/moist bamboo or leaves so the zoo has to refrigerate their foliage,
3) the girl panda is only fertile 2 days out of the year,
4) me too,
5) if she is pregnant, she's due in August,
6) me too,
7) once again in defense of the boy panda's size, the zoo lady said, "he hasn't ever missed those 2 days."
8) neither has Elliot.

After the San Diego Zoo took Beth's life savings to pay for lunch, we headed over to the Polar Bears.

This one was cooling his uma-goolies.

Did you know that polar bears can be 10 feet tall? Stella wanted to climb the bigger one, but I wouldn't let her.

My favorite zoo sign of the day was at the lion cage. We needed one of those at our house when my cousins would teach us how to do blue darts.

The best quote of the day, even though I didn't get it, came with observing the camels when Elliot said something about this pathetic looking creature listening to Bob Marley and not being able to give up the ganja.

We made it around to most of the rest of the zoo, including the petting zoo (which I avoided), until the kids decided they were done (I was sort of done too . . . but not until I got my giant over-priced chocolate ice cream cone).

. . . guaranteed that Stella's favorite part of the zoo didn't have anything to do with the animals.

It was a lot of walking, but it was an absolutely beautiful day and the animals were out where we could see them . . . that's a successful zoo trip. I was excited for a little nap when we got back to camp because of the massive headache I was working on, but what we were really excited about was this bowl of goodness. . .

Lorraine makes the best guacamole!

It was good for the kids to spend the day apart because they played so nicely together when we got back.

Marshmallow face.