On to the Beach

Saturday morning we were up early and ready to continue on to San Diego. Our first day there was supposed to be our beach day. It was 65 degrees which is nice but not nice enough when the water is only 60 degrees. We still headed to the beach, however, just not in our swimsuits. :)

We decided to go to Mission Beach. Mission Beach is nice because there is a carnival, some shops and places to eat. Which was nice since we weren't planning on spending time in the water. We walked through the shops down to the beach and immediately the kids had their shoes off and were running to the water. They were a little shocked at how cold it was but after their feet went numb they didn't seem to mind. ;)

Getting a feel for the water.

Chet and the kids enjoying the water.

One of my favorite things to do, as a kid, at the beach was dig for sand crabs. I remember my dad teaching me to look for the "v's" in the sand after the wave receded. I showed my kids this last time we were at the beach in San Diego so they knew right what to look for and waisted no time in getting digging. They didn't have to dig very much though because there were hundreds of them as soon as the wave washed ashore (they must have just had a hatch). Even in your footprints they would collect! It was crazy! The kids loved scooping up a big handful of sand and then feeling all the crabs trying to dig out. 

Diggin' for sand crabs.

Looking for the "V's".

We had made dinner reservations about a mile up the beach and decided that it would be fun to walk the beach to get there. So Chet gathered up the shoes and we started walking. We were almost to the restaurant when we noticed that one of Liv's shoes was missing. Crap! We had zigzagged a mile up the beach to get to dinner. Her shoe could have been anywhere! Since we needed it for her to get into the restaurant Chet took off running on the beach to try and find it. About 20 minuted later he came back empty handed. We decided to head to dinner anyway.

We ate at a steakhouse called Saskas. It was awesome! When we were all finished eating the kids begged us to walk back along the beach again, which was fine with us. We could look for Liv's shoe again. It was a beautiful walk. The sun was setting into the ocean and most of the people had left the beach. We decided to stick close to the water so the kids could stop and dig for more crabs. As we were walking we saw a big purplish blob in front of us. It was a giant sea slug! Unfortunately it was dead and kinda gross so we didn't take a picture. So we left it and moved along. We were almost back to where we started when we spotted something silver sticking out of the sand ahead of us. Guess what it was? Liv's shoe!! Chet was so mad, he had stopped looking only about 5 feet away! At least we found it. It was a happy ending to a happy day.

Meteor Crater

For a while now Chet has been wanting to go on a road trip. I'm not sure why, because my idea of a good time is not sitting in a car for hours at a time looking at nothing. But Chet suggested that we do a road trip through California, up the PCH, because then we would all get what we wanted-- a road trip and a Disneyland trip. ;)

We left Friday when the kids got out of school and made our way towards the coast. San Diego was our first destination but from our house that is a 13 hour drive. No way we were doing that in one day! So we drove to Phoenix and spent the night.

As we were driving through Arizona we saw signs for the "Meteor Crater". Chet got really excited and decided this was something that we needed to see. We took a slight detour and headed towards the crater. Not until we were almost there did a sign inform us that it closed at 7. It was 6:55. We decided to go anyway and made it just in time. As long as you are in by 7 you can stay until 7:30. We skipped the museum and headed straight for the crater.

Fifty thousand years ago a meteor travelling 26,000 MPH hit the earth. The hole it left is 550 feet deep and nearly a mile across! It is a very grand sight...

Meteor Crater from the sky.

That rock jutting out of the top is the size of a 2 story house!

There are several observation decks to view the crater from. It was quite windy at the top deck.

You could see for miles from the top deck. The view was amazing!

Harris wanted to take a picture next to this holey rock to send to Auntie Lindsay...

Beautiful Liv posing on the middle deck.

I'm glad that we stopped to see the crater. After all it isn't always about the destination but the journey.

Schools Out

Yesterday was the last day of school. The kids had a great year! They made so many friends, loved their teachers and learned so much. I was really quite concerned with the kids going to a Montessori school. Their style of teaching is so freestyle that I was worried that they wouldn't learn as much as they would at a regular school. I was wrong. Harris advanced so much more than Liv did when she was in kindergarten. He is reading on a 3rd grade level and was doing long division math and double digit multiplication by the end of the year! Liv was in a combined 4th 5th and 6th grade class and was reading on a High School level and finished all the math through 6th grade! I am glad that we chose this school and am looking forward to what they will learn next year!

Harris and his teachers Mr. Ian and Ms. Erica. Wonderful teachers!

 

A teary eyed Liv and her teachers Mr. Rob and Ms. Megan. She loved them!

 Liv was having a really hard time saying goodbye. Especially to Ms. Megan. In Montessori, to help the kids have consistency in learning, they have the same teachers for 1st, 2nd and 3rd and then 4th, 5th and 6th grades. For next year they were able to hire a new teacher and so they had to move 5 kids from each class to the new teachers class. Liv was worried that she would be one of the ones moved but she got lucky and gets to stay in Mr. Robs class for the rest of her time there. But because they hired this new teacher the classes are small enough, 20 kids each, that the teacher no longer needs an aide. So Ms. Megan will not be her teacher next year, which is why she was having such a hard time saying goodbye. On a positive note, however, Ms. Megan will now be Mr. Matts aide who just so happens to be Harris new teacher for the next 3 years. I'm pretty sure Liv will spend a lot of time volunteering to help in that class. ;)

Have I Mentioned...

...that I love the ABQ Zoo!

Chet has been out of town the last 2 weeks and so when he got home on Thursday we picked up the kids and headed to the zoo. I was really excited to go because the burrowing owls had 4 baby chicks! Owls are my very favorites. :)

The daddy and 3 of the babies.

See where the Daddy is standing guard? There are 2 burrows there each with a chick poking his head out.

After quite a while ;) we went and got some ice cream and then headed to the cat walk. The lions are at the end of the cat walk. The first time we went to the zoo we got a surprise when the male lion started roaring. Unfortunately we only had Chets phone to take video with so the quality wasn't very good. Now whenever we go we are prepared and this time we weren't disappointed!

They were both just lying around when all of a sudden the male stood up and started roaring at the female who was sleeping under the tree. She then started roaring back at him. It was a quick conversation but apparently they both had something to say. :)

Brace Face

This morning at 6:30 Liv came into our bedroom in tears. Why? Well, yesterday she got her braces on. And while the procedure was quick (45 minutes) and painless the actual straightening of the teeth is not.

In the next 6 weeks the special wire that they put in will pull all of her teeth down from the top and up from the bottom so that they are all even and level. To accomplish this, every night she has to rinse her mouth with hot water or drink something hot. This will tighten up the wire which is heat activated (things have really advanced in the 20 years since I had braces). When she goes back to the orthodontist they will put in wires to do the actual straightening. The whole process will take about 8 months.

I love her smile and can't wait to see the finished product! 

Expanded

Today, after 3 long months, Liv got her expander off! I thought that it was just going to be grinding the cement off and then popping off the expander, but I was wrong! It did start with drilling, but when the assistant (whose first day it was!) went to suction her mouth, she stuck it too far down her throat and gagged her. After recovering from the gagging and then rinsing her mouth, the orthodontist grabbed some big plier things and started to "pop" the expander off. While he was working on getting it out, he kept commenting on how tight it was on her teeth. I figured that he would drill a little more of the cement off and then try again, but he just kept tugging on it. When it finally popped off, Liv let out a little scream and as the orthodontist pulled it out of her mouth there was a TOOTH stuck in it!!! He said that this occasionally happens when a baby tooth gets loose under the expander. Since the tooth wasn't quite ready to come out, she bled and bled and bled! She finally stopped bleeding and they were able to clean the rest of the cement off and send us on our way. When got out to the car Liv broke down and cried. She didn't know why she was crying just that she was scared when it happened and that her mouth hurt. Poor girl!!



Poor unsuspecting Liv ready to get her expander off...

The damage..

She gets a week for her gums to heal and then we will go back and get her braces on. Hopefully that goes a lot smoother!!

T-Ball Time

This is Harris' first year of T-Ball.  Harris has always shown some good baseball tendencies (good hand/eye coordination, arm strength etc.) and we had some friends in the Ward that also have a 5 year old boy indicate some interest in getting the 2 boys on the same team so we did a little research and finally figured out how to get Harris signed up for some organized sports here in the ABQ (it seemed much more straightforward in Utah).

When I was a child I attempted to play little league baseball and was so terrible, soooo terrible.  I try my best not to transpose my feelings of baseball inadequacy onto my poor son but I think he will do very well despite me :).  (to be fair, my own father went to the Little League World Series and has serious baseball skills).

Already, it's been a ton of fun to watch him.  On to the pictures! I decided to go with captions that would be typical of what I may have been yelling at him from the bleachers (in parenthesis will be my internal monologue and afterthoughts).  This should be good.

Go get 'em, son!  Grrr.... (he is so cute!)

Nice swagger son!  (I love the hand on hip action here.  So funny!)

Run Harris!  Go!  

Catch the ball son!  Nicely done! 

Nice focus son! (this might be a good photo for his baseball card)

Nice swing!  (we've actually done quite a bit of work with him on his swing.  His last couple times at bat had him hitting it all the way to the outfield) 

Keep going! (he is so fast that I almost missed the shot!)

Run home! (you need to zoom in to see the look on his face, pure joy, priceless!)

That's it for now.  I love seeing him enjoy playing sports and will continue to update as the season progresses.

Chet is out, peace!