Coronado ferry

beautiful Coronado as we arrive via ferry

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This morning the kids enjoyed their first boat ride (ever!). We rode the ferry from downtown San Diego over to Coronado and back. It's a very popular trip to make and people often bring their bicycles and pedal all over the island (technically not an island, but feels like an island) before returning to SD via the ferry. Today we left our bikes at home and opted instead to walk over to the Hotel del Coronado to eat before heading back to the ferry. It was the perfect day for this adventure.

Thomas looks for things ~ sea lion ~ Meredith on the ferry
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M lounges in the sun at the Hotel del Coronado
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waiting for the ferry to take us back to SD

If there should ever be any question...

...this morning Meredith started saying "Daddy's Girl". Yes, little one, you sure are...

22 months

hanging out in Balboa Park

Balboa Park is the largest urban cultural park in the country and today we learned why. It's huge. Every museum, garden, recreational opportunity, performing arts, etc. is located at this park. Not to mention all the wonderful spaces between filled with trails, sculptures, water fountains, views of San Diego and people. There's also the chiming of the clock tower and the sounds from the Spreckels Organ Pavilion that can be heard all along the main thoroughfare, El Prado. All this in a beautiful setting of Spanish architecture made us feel like we had been transported to another town, another country. Absolutely beautiful. We're already looking forward to our next visit to Balboa Park!

these trees are everywhere ~ view from the Cabrillo Bridge

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M dances to the organ ~ kids at the Spreckels Organ Pavilion

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T is a silly 3 year old ~ the family on a twisted tree (note: tree is not as rough as they look)

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kids' favorite sculpture (mine, too!!)

Relay for Life

Last night our family attended a fundraiser dinner and dance to benefit the American Cancer Society. More specifically, it was a benefit to raise money for a Relay for Life team comprised of moms (and a couple of dads) from our playgroup. It was a great success and a nice amount of money was raised while many of our favorite families ate and danced the night away together -- all for this very important cause. If you would like to donate -- yes, on my behalf (!!) since I'm on the team -- please let me know and I can give you the details. No amount is too small.

Note: Our 24 hour relay event is the last weekend of April. M will bring the kids out and do some of the walk with me, but the 4am to 5am hour is going to be by myself. Any suggestions to keep myself entertained and make the time pass...?!

the fire engine birthday party

We've been to so many birthday parties over the past year it's almost ridiculous. Well, I think it is but I'm pretty sure Thomas and Meredith don't think so. And each birthday party seems to get bigger and better. I'm not one for "keeping up with the Joneses", but I know by the time Thomas' 4th birthday comes around he'll have many ideas concerning what his party should be.

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This morning our pal Tyler celebrated his 3rd birthday with a fire engine-themed party complete with a real fire engine. I had no idea one could even get a fire engine to come to your party. The kids loved climbing all over the thing, talking to the firefighter and going for a (very long!) ride in the back of the engine. It was a little too windy for Meredith, but Thomas loved it and had some great questions for the firefighter when we were all done regarding this particular engine. For a child who is often reserved, it was nice to see him approach a stranger and ask questions like he did today.

windblown kids after the long, long ride

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the "put out the fire with water balloons" game was a huge hit

(don't they have THE BEST backyard ever?)

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the littlest of firefighters today enjoyed pizza & the bouncehouse

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[Note: I now know what it's like to be in a parade. The fire engine took us all over their neighborhood and down several major roads, past the high school and popular park... and he had no problems with sounding the siren (very often!) or honking his horn at every person outside. It's a nice day here, so there are a lot of people out. I'm not waving to anyone else today.]

pre-ballet

M: pre-ballet & body parts from c on Vimeo.

At this morning's playdate, Meredith's friend Felicity showed off the ballet moves she already knows. The two of them, along with their pal Grace, are signed up to start ballet in April. I hadn't started showing her any ballet moves yet, but after seeing her friend I thought I might as well. So this afternoon we practiced the plie and I just thought it was so funny when I asked her to "point her toes" and instead she pointed to her toes. This is such a fun age!

ZOO favorites

Meredith couldn't get enough of these today!

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Thomas couldn't get enough of the goats and pal Gus!

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I couldn't get over peacocks in trees and baby Meerkats!

soy sauce

Meredith likes soy sauce. During dinner last night she dipped foods into the soy sance, then proceeded to simply use her fingers to dip and eat, then she finished it off by drinking the soy sauce straight from her bowl. I love soy sauce, but to drink it...??

Aptera

Have you heard of an Aptera? The father of one of Thomas' classmates works for the locally-based company that is producing this electric, three-wheeled vehicle and today he brought one in for the kids to see. The photo above was taken by the preschool teacher and posted in her daily report to the parents. I wish I could have been there to not only see this exciting new car, but to capture the look on Thomas' face because I'm pretty sure he was super-excited to see this car today. While tucking him into bed tonight he said he wishes he could have an Aptera. I asked if our family of four could fit in one and he explained that the car only seats two people but that he and Meredith could sit on our laps.

one year

One year ago we packed up our things and moved our family to California. The home we were originally going to rent fell through just days before we left Portland. Looking back it seems kind of crazy that we packed up our entire life, shoved it into a POD and drove 1000 miles away from everything and everyone we knew -- and we really didn't know where we were going! M had found a rental at the last minute that sounded great but all we had were a couple of phone calls with a man whose first language wasn't English and one exterior photo of the house posted on Craigslist. Talk about stressful...

...and an adventure! We arrived here exactly one year ago today. Sometimes it feels like we just moved here and other times it feels like we've been here longer. There are family, friends and things about Portland that we certainly miss but we like it here. We don't know what the future will bring. For now, we're enjoying the adventure, the opportunities and each other. What a year it's been!

a pink Valentine's Day

Pink Valentines, pink sweets, pink cake, pink sprinkles, pink eye... Yes, PINK EYE. Definitely not something you think you'll receive for Valentine's Day, but this year we did. The photo above was taken yesterday afternoon. See how swollen his eyes are!? Poor kid. He's been taking eye drops and is looking pretty good today, but he'll be doing the drops for a few more days. It looks horrible. We're so thankful we were able to keep the rest of the family from catching it.

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Each of the Valentines in our house received a special cake they got to decorate and eat themselves. Neither child ate all theirs but they sure enjoyed this special treat. Meredith's favorite part was putting the sprinkles on her cake. Thomas' favorite was eating the chocolate frosting. He said the cake was "yucky". Their parents had no problems polishing off their own cakes...

special Valentines

Today we delivered Valentines to a local senior nursing home. The residents loved seeing the kids. We received so many heartfelt Thank Yous. It was incredibly touching and definitely a great experience for the kids and myself. I was a little nervous that seeing the seniors might scare the children but my fears were unwarranted. We all split up in the dining room (lunch hour) so I didn't see what the other kids did, but mine both did great. We greeted residents and chatted with them while handing out Valentines. Thomas wished every person a Happy Valentine's Day. Of the 40 residents present for lunch today, we only saw about 10 because we were moving so slowly, but those 10 were really great and my kids loved it. On our way out Thomas said to me, "That was really fun to give out cards." Yes, it certainly was.

kids with their friends outside the nursing home

Before heading out this morning the kids made some last minute Valentines for playgroup friends. They painted hearts that I later cut out, punched a hole and strung on red yarn with a bead. I also added a short Valentine greeting on the back. Again, they loved handing these out to their friends. Meredith chased down Felicity from across the park to hand her the special one she made for her. So fun!

Valentines

I've never been a fan of those foam stickers that everyone buys for craft projects. But with so many Valentines on tap this year I needed something easy that both kids could do so we went with the foam stickers. Still not crazy about them or the finished product, but our littlest card maker can peel the tiny stickers herself (though sometimes getting them off her fingers and onto the paper can be a challenge) and she's suddenly become an avid card maker so I'm liking them a little bit more now...

yoga kids

kids demonstrate the frog, bird, lion and mouse poses

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This evening the family was in the playroom reading books and playing when suddenly Meredith started doing yoga poses. She had taken the book Yoga Baby off the shelf, opened it up to the "bird" pose and was practicing the pose -- and doing it very well, I might add! As soon as M and I took notice Thomas then also wanted to do some yoga. The two went through the book several times demonstrating all the different poses. They always have so much fun together.

park playdate

recent heavy rains have left snow in the mountains (from our house we see both these mountains and the Pacific Ocean -- yesterday we could see white caps which tells you just how stormy it was since we're 2 miles up the road from the beach!)

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This morning the kids and I enjoyed a playgroup outing to the park. It has been raining on and off these last three days (yesterday was stormy!) so a beautiful, sunny morning out was just what we needed. This photo is deceiving since I took it off to the side of the park; the park was very busy today! We enjoyed some Valentine cookie decorating and crafting some Valentines to be delivered later this week to a local assisted-living facility. Here's a sampling of the cards made this morning by our 1 to 4 year old friends...

fun with a chair

80 degrees

A college girlfriend is staying in town with her in-laws so this morning we went to visit them. The kids had a great time playing in the swimming pools at the Four Seasons. The kids' pool is heated to 80 degrees which felt like bath water this morning. And with an outside air temperature of 80 degrees also, well... it's really a very lovely way to spend the morning! Afterwards her in-laws treated us to a nice lunch spread back at the condo where they are staying. Lovely people, lovely pool, lovely day... The kids are taking some great naps today! (Thanks, Sofie!!)