::september sandy::

Kris is out of town this weekend, and Sandy just starting CRAWLING(!) this week, so he requested some cute Sandy crawling movies. So if you want to watch, here it is. It's long because he's darling and I'm enjoying the new camera I just got. It takes awesome video.



I don't think this little embedded player is showing the HD, so just change the little option down on the lower left to 720. I like it better that way.

:sssssssssurprise::

Can you see it?

How about now?
(Rachel R. you may just want to stop reading now.)

This is a special friend that Max spied this afternoon. He was just looking out the window I guess, randomly and he spied this little snake. It amazes me really because the snake is brown just like everything else outside. Max was pretty delighted to find him, and I was delighted that my dad was here to tell us that he's a harmless gopher snake. Phew.

It was really pretty nifty that he had climbed all the way up the fountain grill work. (The "fountain" that we've never actually run water in yet. We inherited it with the house.)

Also cool was to watch his little muscular body as he crawled up the wall.


Gopher snakes can come around here whenever they want as long as the eat mice and stuff. And I hope that they tell all the scary snakes to stay away. We'll see.
This one is pretty cute--for a snake.

::new carpet::

In August we were up in Taos for the weekend and sadly we had a mini flood from the swamp cooler tubing. It flooded the garage and also Sandy's room. It really wasn't too bad except that it made the carpet stink. It was so wet. Who knows how long everything was so soggy.
Anyway, Kris had to rip up half the carpet right there and then when we got home because it was so stinky. It was time for new carpet.

This is not a bad thing in a lot of ways. I really hated the carpet that was in there. It was ugly and had some bald and ripped up spots. I just wasn't quite ready to replace it just yet. And of course Max's and Sand's rooms match, so we had to redo both.

I'm so happy we did it now though. The rooms look so much better and cozier now.

(Max and Emily working with Max's electronics set in the nice empty room.)
We picked a nice shaggy beach colored carpet and it turned out perfect.

The baby was very skeptical of it at first though. He didn't want any parts of his body to touch it and if I laid him down on it he would get quite upset.
He warned up to it pretty quickly though--luckily, since it's not going anywhere!



So there you go. Not big news but news nonetheless. And now you've seen some of the pictures that have been haunting my desktop for days, waiting to be posted.
And if you want to come and feel our nice shaggy carpet with your feet anytime soon, you're welcome to.

::a birthday::

It's Ken (Kris's dad's) birthday today.

We've been thinking about him a lot today and missing him.

We're so grateful for the gospel and the promise of more life after this one. Can't wait to see him again someday.
For now we miss him and just hope he knows we're wishing him a happy birthday today.

Loves.

::??::

Can somebody explain to me how it's possible that this baby has not figured out how to crawl yet?

He's obviously quite strong enough! He's still only scooting, and only backwards. I'm pretty sure he's only a hairsbreadth away from a breakthrough though, what do you think?

What a goofball.

::beach baby::

This is baby, all ready to go to the beach--or maybe we had just come back from the beach? I can't remember. Anyway, he was an adorable beach baby. These were the only photos I took on our whole trip with my real camera. That's too bad but at least it means I was busy having fun with my hands full. Understandable with this wiggly thing around, right?

::the last bit::

Sunday was essentially our last full day since we were flying out the next morning. We got up and went to see the San Diego temple. If you haven't seen it in person, you should. It's truly amazing. So striking and attractive.
Sand enjoyed touching all the foliage and we just tried to keep Max's ebullience from being too inappropriate.

The only slight downside to the location we could come up with is that it's by the freeway, so there's a lot of traffic noise. But the benefit of that is high visibility. It's pretty amazing to come around the corner and see those crazy rocket ship spires right there!


Awww, cute brothers. I know Max looks like a beach bum here, by the way. You don't have to tell me.

After the temple we went and met up with Blake and Brooke again so we could go to Blake's home ward. It was fun and Kris got to see one of his old roomates that we haven't seen in ten years. That was pretty great.
Here's a photo of the three roomies together--just missing one!


After church was over we went home and lazed around and said our farewells to the beach. If only we could've stayed a bit longer--but then we'd have wanted to stay another bit longer. When would we ever have come home? Max and I could bum around on the beach for an awfully long time.

It was a great trip, so glad we did it!

::even more san diego::

(this flower was growing on a bush downstairs from our little condo--so pretty!!)

The next day we spent time hanging out in the morning while it was misty and grey (it was misty and grey and a bit chilly every morning until about noon, it was nice.) Kris and I went for runs--separately. Max watched a movie and Sand took a nap. Then we walked to Rubio's and had fish tacos for lunch.

Max threw a big fit about something at lunch--I don't really remember what it was about now, just that it was ridiculous. That's why he's not in the picture.
After we got back it was all beach for the rest of the day!
Kris stayed home with Sandy while Sand napped. Poor Kris has a board exam coming up in Sept, so he was glad to have some study time.
Max and I went boogie boarding. The waves were pretty huge.

(this is the wrong day but the right beach)

I haven't been boogie boarding in AGES. It was really fun and I think Max was having a blast with me out there. We rode a few waves in together and it was rather thrilling. Rather thrilling that is until my nice nice sunglasses that Kris got me for Christmas were ripped off my head and dragged off into the deep blue sea.
I was pretty bummed about that and Max and I spent a while looking for them. It was a lost cause. Max was sad and tried to make me feel better with more boogie boarding, but the savor had gone out of it. (I still boogie boarded more with him of course, but it just wasn't the same.)
Later Kris came out with the Sand and I tried to get Sand to enjoy sitting in the sand. He did NOT like it. I sat him down with just his feet in the sand and he was so disturbed. SO mad. Then later I tried to stand him in the sand and he refused. I would lower him down towards the ground and the lower he would get the higher he would tuck his feet up. He just would not touch it.

But of course, he would eat it. I sat him on a towel so he could look around safely. He like that pretty well, and of course decided to start eating the sand. Such a dork.

BLAH.

A sandy Sandy eating sand.

It was such a fun afternoon. Everybody had a good time (maybe even my sunglasses escaping their drudgery on my head.) Nobody got sunburned, though I had a close call. I wish we could do it again tomorrow.

::another day in san diego::

We went to Sea World on friday morning and it was pretty fun. We did have a problem though. They've added a bunch of rides, probably 5 or 6 big ones and some smaller ones. This was all Max could think about. I made the mistake of looking at the website with him before the trip to get him excited, and he spied the rides. That was all he could think about from that moment on--and this did not change when we actually got to the park.
We had "breakfast with Shamu" in which you have a breakfast buffet, eat right next to one of the whale tanks and see a few cool whale tricks up close. That was fun and I'm glad we did it because it was the only whale exposure we got the whole day.
After breakfast I was ready to head to the Shamu show, but Max was dying to go on the big roller coaster, so we went over there. Kris and Max went on that, and Max loved it, so I got in line with him to do it again. But of course the ride broke down, so we were stuck in line for quite a while for no reason--these Sea World guys are not too good at their ride management it turns out.

Anyway, after that we got stuck heading over to another ride, and it got hotter and more crowded. We finally made it to the Sea Lion and Seal show which was fun. Then when we tried to see the actual seals afterwards the area was so crowded it was impossible and we just had to push on. Finally Kris and I got tired of the crowds and after seeing the sharks and a few other things we hauled our boys out and took them back to the condo for some rest.

It was not great management of the Sea World trip, I'd do it differently if I was doing it again. And the Manta Ray area was closed because (of course) they're adding a big ride to it.
I think Sea World should stick with the animal stuff. It's what they do best.

But anyway, we liked this cool Shamu car.


The best part of the day happened after everybody get a little rest. We were able to get together with Kris's old roommate/mission companion Blake and his wife Brooke for dinner. It was just a weird coincidence that we both happened to be out here at the same time. They recommended a delicious Thai restaurant that we really enjoyed (all of us with refined tastes, anyway.)
Kris got fried rice that actually came inside half a pineapple. Pretty fancy, right?


After we ate Blake & Brooke took us down to a beautiful park on the coast to look at tidepools and seals. There were quite a few sea anemones in the little pools, but Max wasn't quite brave enough to stick his finger in them to make the them close.

Baby Evie was though.

Max however, was brave enough to go out to the very tip of the rocks we were out and wish that a wave would carry him out to sea. Weird kid.

It was an amazing view and a lovely sunset. And Max did not get carried away, happily.

It was prettymuch too dark to see the seals by the time we got to them, but the good company and fun conversation made up for it.
It was a really fun night--thanks Blake & Brooke for taking the trouble to meet up with us!
And Blake has a reputation in our family for taking good pictures (he took the photo that ended up being in our wedding invitation) so he took one of all of us on the rocks. I like it.