And again in 115F

Go to the Knott's Soak City water park! I would have pictures, but forgot the camera. It looks like any other water park though. Andrew loved it and it is small enough that I could keep an eye on him from one location and it also helped that he was in all orange. He took himself down the larger water slides, one with a tube and one without. He also went down so much he had holes in the back of his bathing suit! Nathan was about 1 inch too short to ride the big water slides and he was really disappointed. There were two little ones for him and an area that dumped water on your head. He did not like that at all but he must have gone down the other two for 2 hours alternating between the two and never deviating from his plan of "I do this one and then that one".

I also forgot to make note of the earthquake in CA that hit on Tuesday. We did not feel it up at Lake Arrowhead because we were in the car. I am not sure we would have felt much anyway. Bummer for me as earthquakes do not happen all that often it would have been fun to feel this one hit in the two weeks I was back to visit.

What do you do in 115F weather??

If you are Andrew and Nathan you get to go see Space Chimps with Papa, play at McDonald's and run through the sprinklers on the golf course!

Visting the OC

The kids are finally on the mend. Andrew ran a high fever Sunday evening and still had stomach issues Monday but was well enough to head down the mountain for a day of visits to our old home. We started at the Montessori school the kids had attended since they were 3-4 months old. The teachers were excited and surprised to see their old students.

Mom headed off to Fashion Island with the boys while I visited with some collegues on campus. I was so happy to see and talk with them again.

We quickly headed to Fullerton to drop mom off for doctor appointments and I took the boys to see their old park up the hill from our home, visit our old neighbors and see our good friends the Thorne's. By that time mom was done and we met my brother and family friend for dinner at the Spaghetti Factory. The kids love riding the elevator up and looking down on the trains.













A quick visit to Jason's new apartment ended the day and we headed back up the mountain. Nathan fell asleep in the car and Andrew slept until 8am!!


Today mom and I went back to the gym and dad took the boys to the coffee shop. They made a quick trip home where Nathan got his finger smacked with the door (I don't think a day will go by that someone does not have some issue!). The kids attended a day camp at the Club, it was a pirate theme and we headed off to the movies for a break.

Off to the desert tomorrow and I am sure lot's more adventure!

California Mis-adventures

Our arrival in Lake Arrowhead was great. I think I forgot to mention that on the way up we stopped in Riverside to see Jason who had his country club swim and dive team in a 4 day event. The kids enjoyed seeing some of the diving event that Uncle Jason was judging. So we got through the first 1/2 day here, but starting on our first full day we started hitting some snags. I could tell something was off in Nathan that morning when he was not interested in eating... this boy loves to eat. But I chalked that up to being excited to get going. Mom and I went to exercise class while Dad took the kids to the Village that has a park. Once home a cleaned up we headed for the club for some putting and swimming. Again, Nathan, who loves to swim hardly got in the water and started to complain that his stomach hurt...hmmmm (Clue in here Mom, but I did not). We ate lunch, he sat, and then I took him home for a nap, I figured that was the problem since he had been up since before 6. This was when the gastrointestinal issues started, not bad just the runs (trying not to be graphic here). This happened to both kids yesterday. We took the boat our for an evening ride and the kids enjoyed the binoculars. They did not eat much dinner and went to bed close to 8:30 after Nathan decided to hit his lip on the window sill trying to see what all the noise was outside (talk about a big, bloody lip, he bit HARD, this picture does not show the nice black and blue marks), Today our friends the Fyne's came up for a visit. Mom, Terry and I headed out to the spa while Dad, Joe and the kids were off to try fishing. Seems they did not even make it to the boat before Nathan lost the only thing he had eaten today, a stick of cheese. Dad and Joe handled it well, brought him back where he napped for a while and then (this would not have been my first choice) they gave him Teddy Grahams to eat (talk about testing his stomach), and he has done ok so far, they are napping now and we are suppose to go out to a fireside chat for kids tonight. Here is hoping the rest of the trip is uneventful in the heath sense.

A California Adventure

Our long awaited trip back "home" finally arrived very early Tuesday morning. Our flight left at 6:30am so that meant getting out of the house by 4:30am. The kids were great and big helpers at the airport. By the time we got through check-in and security, the plane was boarding and we got right on. The flight to Houston was a quick 1 hour and 51 minutes. After a muffin and juice Nathan fell asleep for about 45 minutes and Andrew used the bathroom...... 4 times...I think he just found it fun to use the tiny bathroom so he kept going which was fine as it kept him busy. Luckily we were right up front and close to it. Once in Houston we had a 3 hour layover. I would not suggest this as optimal with two kids....not only were they tired, they were hungry and bored. We played a card game, called Dad (Brent did not join us on this trip), walked around, played on the moving walkway until a rude, old airport worker told them "Boys, that is not a toy" and watched the airplanes. Finally we boarded and it was a pleasant surprise to find out the flight to San Diego was only 2 1/2 hours. I figured no problemo since I brought my computer and had two new shows for them to watch....ha, little did I know that my battery life has gone down to less than 1 hour, so as soon as they really got into the show, the computer shut off. We were served a personal cheese pizza, side salad and m&m's for lunch so that kept them busy for a while and Nathan even ate his salad. After the computer died they did workbooks and colored then Andrew finally fell asleep about 25 minutes prior to landing.
My best friend picked us up and dropped us at her home for the afternoon to take naps. However, the kids had other ideas and I could not get them to lay down. Needless to say they were quite tired that night but were up early due to the time change. We had a full day at Sea World the next day and left for Lake Arrowhead today where we will spend the majority of the trip. The kids were excited to see the tree house that Papa built for them.
So that is the trip so far, here are some pictures and I will try to keep updating as the trip continues. If there is anyone reading this who is in Southern CA and wonders why I did not call....I apologize but we are only going into Orange County one morning to see the kids school and need to get mom to Fullerton by the afternoon. This really is a trip to visit with my parents and I wish we had more time so I could visit everyone...next time I promise.

First swim meet!

I think I might have mentioned in another post that Andrew's teacher at the Aquatics center thought he had the makings of a good swimmer. After his YMCA practice on Thursday, the teacher approached us and asked if Andrew would like to be on the swim team and participate in a meet on Saturday. I am pretty sure he did not know what that meant because when I told him he said he thought he would be watching the meet. But, he agreed to go to the practice on Friday evening. He did really well, although was quite tired since he is not use to swimming 25m over and over in different strokes and he agreed to be in the meet today. We arrived this morning at 8:15 and the coach (same person as his swim class teacher) said she signed him up for 6 & under, 25m, freestyle and backstroke. I thought this was great since those are his best strokes. Little did I know until he was warming up in the water that he likes breast stroke the best because you get to come up for air with every stroke. Oh, well. He swam backstroke first and was concerned about running into the lane line, but he actually went pretty straight. It was a bit of a wait until his next event and he started to get bored, but finally they called for freestyle. He is still working on the diving off the starting block and was nervous. His current issue is being concerned about breathing so he stops for long periods to turn on his back to get a breath...thus not going as fast as he has before this "breathing" issue. Something to work on and he has agreed to go back to practice Monday night. We also saw our neighbors there with their two boys who swim out of a different Y. They asked if Andrew would also be interested in Boy Scouts....wow, I think our lives are going to be very busy this school year!

Dancing and Diving

For the last two weeks the boys have been taking swim lessons at the Y. Nathan's class has been a bit too easy for him since he has been training at the Southwest Aquatics center since May, but he enjoys being with other kids instead of one-on-one. Andrew's class swims for a full 45 minutes, they start with 4 laps of all the strokes, move onto practice diving and then play games like relay races. Here is a shot of him "diving", he needs more practice as he pretty much lands flat on his stomach , even from the starting block he can not seem to get his head to go in first, but at least he is trying.
















This shot is from a splash park where we met one of his best friends from school, Wesley is the boy in the blue sitting down. We started in the spash part, but as the lightening and thunder rolled in they kicked us out and we went over to the park for awhile and then got kicked out of there. No worries though, we were back the next day for a birthday party for one of Nathan's classmates.

New blog spot

Welcome to my new blog spot. There is a link here to my old blog just in case anyone wants to go back, but there will be no more posts there.