Goodbye Dear Friend

Tomorrow the  movers arrive.  Luckily I told the hubbs that we had to pay people to pack our house if we were going to move with a baby who is 5 weeks old.  He agreed which means that tomorrow I will be overseeing the packing of our house and basically making sure that the kids don't cause too much trouble and that not too many things get broken.  

Last week we had a family photo shoot scheduled with one of our friends who is enormously talented.  Then Noah got a cold.  Then Claire was getting new teeth and had a really high fever and a runny nose and then I threw my back out.  And I remembered that I'm 3 sizes bigger than I normally am and really, who wants to pay to document the beginning of post-baby weight loss and you're still wearing maternity pants?  maybe we'll have professional photos taken in January when we've settled into our new lives and I can squeeze into my real jeans.

So instead of having professional portraits we had grandma snap a few shots one evening when had 15 extra minutes (here they are pre-photo-shop.  In the tradition of being a family of 4 we missed the perfect evening light by 15 minutes.  Frankly I'm just glad we made it at all). 

Goodbye San Diego.  Thank you for the friends, the sun, the beach, the fun.

Thank you 

Thank you

Thank you

An Announcement

It's been a big week at our house.  Last Tuesday we welcomed baby Noah into the world and it has been so fun.  I will tell you that even though my patience is wearing thin (the 4 hours of straight sleep I got last night seems to have helped with that--a fluke at this stage of the game but I will take it) being a mom for the second time around it so much better than the first time. I'll have to dedicate an entire post to how the second time around things go a little smoother (though not breast feeding if you're wondering.  I'd still be slaughtered if I were a milk cow) and you don't worry so much. But that's not what this post is about.  This post is about something different altogether.

Last Monday we made a pretty big decision about our lives too.

The hubbs got a new job.  It's an incredible opportunity and both of us feel like this is a job that will change the path of his career (in the best kind of way.)  The only trouble with the job is that it's in New York City.  And when I say New York City I mean like around the corner from Grand Central Station Manhattan.

And we've taken it.

He starts at the end of next month.  The kids and I will follow him to New York after the moving truck arrives with our things.  While we wait for the truck we'll stay at grandma's house in Salt Lake.

I am a little sick about it.  I haven't really told anyone that we're moving because saying it out loud makes it real. My heart hurts thinking about leaving San Diego.  We have loved it here.  We have great friends, we get to go to the beach once a week, there are only like 5 days a year when we can't go outside and when it hits 55 degrees here people get out their ski jackets--those are my kind of people.

So I guess this is the official announcement.  We're moving to New York City (a place I've never even really been other than the airport and a hotel near the airport).  Though, truth be told we're probably not moving to New York City.  As much as I wish I could say that we were island people (or even a specific borough kind of people) I'm pretty sure that we're suburb people.

Do you remember the book Fredrick by Leo Lionni? (if you don't you should read it right this second but it's about a mouse who doesn't do any of the work to collect food for the winter.  He spends his time collecting sunshine and colors and when the nights get long and the food gets scarce he is the one who gives the other mice hope so they can make it through the winter)

For the next 4 weeks I am going to spend my time gathering sunshine and sand and surf and trips to the zoo and time at the pool and time with my girlfriends for the long, long move and the cold winter that is ahead.

Just Because

Just because I love Dwight, he makes me think of my little brother, and we could all use a little reality check.

Happy Weekend to All.  What are your plans?  The hubbs is working today (so my day is just really like any other day) but tonight we're all headed to the Padres game.  Having a toddler makes you lower expectations and we're only planning on making it through 5 innings.

A Sunday afternoon at the Swami Meditation Garden

A New Destination

Claire and I have added a new destination to our regular daytime outings.  It's the Flying Leatherneck museum at the Marine base just down the street (don't let that website fool you.  It's WAY nicer than the museum).   You may remember that we went to the museum last year.  It's located in a triple-wide and the people who volunteer there are awesome and hilarious.

Claire likes to look at the airplanes but mostly, she likes to pick up the different colors of gravel that they have the airplanes parked on and put them in her purse. We have lots of different color rocks from the museum.

She also likes to point to the airplanes and say, "Black airplane. So cute."

Her grandpa would be so proud.

Just a little overnighter

Friday the hubbs and I had this brilliant idea that he would leave work a couple of hours early and we would head to LA to spend the night.  We'd stay at a hotel using Marriot points and play in the pool, go to the aquarium and look at sharks, see what the LA beaches had to offer, enjoy a snow-cone or two and make it home in time for nap.

A couple of things we didn't consider.
1. LA traffic
2. Toddlers don't really like to sleep in hotels and after a night of non-sleep much of the trip would actually look a little more like this than the idyllic family vision that we had planned.

Let's make it Earth Day every day!

Saturday the hubbs and I went on our long awaited whale watching cruise.  Ever since we read Moby Dick I've been a little obsessed and when there was a groupon for 50% off at San Diego Whale Watch I bought tickets for both the hubbs and I and my parents. My parents went on their tour the last time they came to visit but due to scheduling errors the hubbs and I weren't able to go until Saturday.

And we had wild success.  We saw a mamma grey whale and her baby.  We followed them for 30 min or so.  Then we moved on and saw an incredible pod of dolphins.  The naturalist on the boat thought that there were at least 1200 dolphins.  The water was literally churning.  I pulled this terrible video of the dolphins and got nothing of the whales.



The good news is that I should be able to take great video on our next whale watching vacation.  The naturalist told us that if you go to Mexico during the birthing season the baby whales will come right up to your boat and you can pet them (and, as I saw on National Geographic, hug them).

Dear Hubbs,
There are two vacations that I am dying to go on.
The Monarch Migration and

Baby Whale hugging.

Will you see what you can do?

Loves
S

A chance encounter

I've posted about these trees before.  They look like they came right out of a Dr Seuss book (or maybe the greenhouse at Hogwarts).  They bloom with brilliant spiky flowers before there is any hit of a leaf (I consider myself to have some knowledge of plants and how they work--I do have a Master's Degree in Plant Science--and this boggles the mind.  How can they bloom before they have made leaves.  I always worry that they'll run out of energy and die before they've made their leaves and can get food) and since moving to CA they have been a small obsession of mine.

When they do finally get leaves they come in "pom pom" style with large bushy bunches on the end of each branch.  I love them.

The sad news is that googling "weird red blossom tree California" or "red spiky flower tree california" doesn't get you anywhere.  I had no idea what they were until a chance meeting with a very knowledgeable tram rider at the Wild Animal Park.

South African Coral Tree.

And some day when we have a yard, there will be one there.

He ain't heavy, he's my brother

Okay, in Claire's case he is actually heavy.
She's recently learned the word heavy and how the dramatic use of it gets a laugh from anyone who happens to be around. I think it all started when she was trying to bring a bucket of Legos into the living room.  They are actually kind of heavy and as she was straining along she let out a gasping, "heavy, heavy." I'm sure that I giggled and repeated what she said before I went over to help her (actually me telling her that she could push them across the floor while I sat on the couch sounds a little bit more like what I actually did).  Since then everything is a gasping, "heavy, heavy."  The diaper bag, a book, her plate of apple slices as she moves them from her little table to the big table.

Humm.  A penchant for dramatics and a propensity to overstate physical accomplishments.
Wonder where she got that?

******
Last year I read this incredible book about a women's organization to which I belong called the Relief Society and how the early members just did incredible things (like start their own nursing clinics and fight for rights for the disabled).  After reading it and talking in a book club about it we decided that we wanted to be women who were worth putting in the book.  You may remember our Christmas project to make care packages for babies who had to be in the NICU on Christmas.

Right after I read that book I signed up to be a volunteer for the local YMCA.  It's a good thing that I signed up then because the feeling of wanting to be book-worthy has sort of passed but I already agreed to it.  However, I do believe in being part of a community and I am incredibly lucky and blessed and I feel the desire to give back.  So here's to rekindling the book-worthy fire!

It's the Y's annual fundraiser.  Here's my volunteer page.  As you can see I still have a lot of work to do (and I only have to the end of the month--though I did get donations yesterday so it's not as grim as it looks).  Whoops.  The Y is an incredible organization that promotes community and fitness.  No one is turned away from the Y because they can't afford the dues.  No one.  As much as I love 24 Hour Fitness they just can't say that. That's why the hubbs and I have decided to provide swimming lessons for 3 children.

So if you can, please give back.  The Y is worthy of your support. How many swimming lessons can you provide?

There are two types of people in this world...

Dr. Leo Marvin: Are you married? 
Bob Wiley: I'm divorced. 
Dr. Leo Marvin: Would you like to talk about that? 
Bob Wiley: There are two types of people in this world: Those who like Neil Diamond, and those who don't. My ex-wife loves him. 
Dr. Leo Marvin: [pause] I see. So, what you're saying is that even though you are an almost-paralyzed, multiphobic personality who is in a constant state of panic, your wife did not leave you, you left her because she... liked Neil Diamond?

*********

So it turns out that there is another way to segment society.  There are two types of people in this world: Those who like cruises, and those who don't.  Turns out that the hubbs and I belong to the latter category.  


Oh the rocking.


And the huge quantity of mediocre food that is constantly surrounding you.  I'm getting heart burn just thinking about it


And the having a toddler in a confined space.


And the boat that smelled like raw sewage.


Not.  Good. 


Don't get me wrong, Catalina was awesome, Ensenada was great and we loved spending time with family but the large boat is where the whole equation went south.  I think next time we'll just stick with a hotel.

Christmas Lights

This is what it looks like when you go see Christmas lights in San Diego.

And this is what it looks like in Utah.

Once again that's San Diego

And Utah (that's a close up so you can see that Grandpa really is wearing a Russian-style military fur hat)

A first time for everything

Today I ventured out into shoppingdome for the first time on a Black Friday ever.  I typically avoid the tradition like the plague and here are my reasons

1) I love sleep
2) Why would I want to spend a Friday off of work crammed into a store with a million other people?
3) Historically all of my Black Fridays have been spent in places where the weather this time of the year can be summed up as "snowy" and I don't like being cold.
4) I don't have any money to spend

The last one may seem downright Un-American but my fear of eating dog food for my whole retirement outweighs my love of cheap goods at bargain prices.

This year was a little different.  The church I belong to has this really amazing women's group called the Relief Society.  The purpose of the Relief Society is to do just like what it sounds like: provide relief.  As a group we recently read a really inspiring book about the kinds of things that women who belonged to the organization had done in times past (which included starting a hospital to specifically serve women and the disabled, raising wheat that would be sent to Europe after World War 2 to feed the starving people etc, etc etc).  After our discussion about the book one of the women in the group raised her hand and said, "This book made me want to get to work.  I haven't done anything worthy of being written about in this book."

So we decided that we are going to do our best to be book-worthy.

We still don't have a long term relief-providing project picked out (or even thought up.  We are taking suggestions) but until we do we are busying ourselves providing relief in smaller less book-worthy ways.  This Christmas we are providing care kits for families who will have to be in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU) on Christmas.  One of the women in our group had a baby born at 23 weeks.  Charlotte lived in the NICU for 7 months (you wouldn't know it now).  Another one of the women works at the NICU so it's a cause that's near to our hearts.

Our very own Claire spent her first 7 days in the NICU.

Hands down, the worst 7 days of my life.

I had a baby born at 41 weeks gestation.  She weighed 7lbs 15oz and I knew that her stay in the NICU would be a short one (her next door neighbor only weighed 4 lbs) and it was STILL an awful experience.  The nurses were nice, the doctors were kind but walking away from the hospital and leaving my brand new baby there with an IV taped to her head and an oxygen tube was one of the hardest things I have ever done.

On Saturday we have a service extravaganza to make everything that will be needed for the care packages.  We will be busy making baby leg warmers, blankets, silky soothing blankets and crinkly toys.  We're trying to make 40 of each.  Our children are making the cards to go with the packages*.

 Making all of those crafty things requires a lot of crafty materials.  And the one thing that could get me out of my bed and to the mall before 8 is the thought of those babies in the NICU and their moms whose hearts are breaking and who have to walk away from their brand new babies on Christmas day. So for my very first Black Friday experience I hit up Joann's Fabric.  I geared myself up for pushing ladies out of the way to get all of the flannel I needed and I loaded up my purse with snacks.

Totally unnecessary.  The cutting-line was long but you just had to take a number and wait your turn (which took about an hour). The employees were nice and everyone in line was discussing their next project.  And believe you me, when it came to buying fabric in bulk I had nothing on those ladies (yes, that is one lady's cart and pile on the counter).

Would I do it again?

Only if there's a group of babies who need our help.

*If any of you are interested in joining us for the baby-supply-making extravaganza just email me.  We could always use another pair of hands.

That's what love is.....

Love is wanting to share your greatest successes and happiest moments with children.

You know, like your love of walking around the beach on a Monday in the middle of the work day with your metal detector.  And really, who has 4 child-sized metal detectors?  

(No, Calvin is not learning to use a metal detector.  Like most people, he is just at the beach to play in the water, dig holes and chase seagulls.  The kids with the metal detectors are behind him to the right.  Grown-up and 4 kids huddled around some kind of treasure)

If I were better at taking pictures this would have been WAY funnier.

A little off guard

When November 14th looks like this

We're training Claire to chase the seagulls.
The birds can get pretty aggressive  when you're the only people on the beach.

The seagull didn't stand a chance

One of the moms brought ingredients to make volcanoes in the sand.  Brilliant

it can catch you totally off guard that Thanksgiving is next week (and you don't have a turkey or anything in the cupboard). This morning when I mentioned that to the hubbs he pulled out his phone to check the calendar because he thought I must be joking.

Happy Fall to us.