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Thursday, June 16, 2011

June 5-11, 2011

On Sunday, we took the kids to see Rio. Will has been playing Angry Birds Rio since the game came out, so he was excited to finally put it into context. Then we came home and played around in the living room.







There may have been a dance party.



We made lemonade popsicles earlier in the day and enjoyed them after dinner. Evie didn't get one, and it pained her.

On Monday, Will saddled up and took a ride on Daddy Horse.





Also, Evie banged on the coffee table.



On Tuesday, I was a huge, giant, terrible jerk. I gave Will an angelfood cupcake with strawberries and whipped cream.



Someone call CPS.

On Wednesday, something happened, but I could not tell you what it was.

On Thursday, Evie ate some carrots.



She was trying really hard to make her face the same color as her hair.



Will was a nudist.



On Friday, I had my last day at work. In case you did not know this, I quit my job and will be working from home for a couple places. I can see the kids more! Hooray.



While I was cleaning out my desk I found this. It's a flavor packet for ramen noodles. I have never eaten ramen noodles at work in the four years I worked there. I have no idea why it was in there.

On Saturday, we went out to Station in South Park with our friends Mike and Alyssa and their son Connor. We let the kids run free in the gravelly/dirt play area while we had some beer and some food. Then Ian and his girlfriend came by and more fun was had. Very exciting.

Monday, June 6, 2011

May 29 - June 4, 2011

On Sunday, after several days of failed naps, I decided to take the kids up to Tanaka Farms in Irvine. It's just over an hour away, so I timed it so we'd leave during Evie's morning nap and come home during the kids' afternoon nap.



Evie, looking forlorn as she ponders her impending venture into child labor.



Will, waiting for the strawberry tour to start.



We piled on to a couple tractor-pulled wagons with about 40 other people for a tour of the farm. It was pretty neat, they stopped at various places around the farm and talked about the things they grew, then fed us samples of everything. Will was a trooper and tried bites of everything except the green onion, and even ate a whole carrot. Evie ate everything. She gnawed on my carrot, she ate celery, she chewed on the green onion, she ate yellow and green beans. She would have eaten the carrot leaves if I'd let her.



Then they let us off in one of their strawberry fields and gave us about 15 minute to fill up our pint containers and our bellies. Will concentrated on filling his belly; I concentrated on filling the pint container and keeping Evie from eating dirt, strawberries, and strawberry leaves.



I didn't actually mean to take this picture, but hey! Here you go. Picture of the farms and some random family.



We had a really nice time. We picked up some produce from their little stand on the way out, shared a hot dog, and headed back home. The kids napped in the car. It was a really nice day out.

On Monday, we took no pictures. But I grilled the corn we bought at the farm and it was delicious.

On Tuesday, everyone was too busy for pictures.

On Wednesday, we played baseball for awhile.



And Evie ate grass.



"Who, me?"

On Thursday, Will came up to Evie and was all, "Mom! Take our picture!" It seems that this is his new thing. But he also seems to have figured out what is cute, so kudos to him.



We also took a long walk up to the grocery store and back.



Will invented a modified version of Red Light, Green Light. It included orange light (touch your nose), black light (spin around), purple light (jump), and pink light (march).



Also, here is Evie.



Also, Lorne sent in his first draft of his dissertation. That's kind of a big deal.

On Friday, we had some naptime struggles. I gave up and decided to let Will watch Winnie the Pooh in the living room. After about ten minutes, he was doing this:



When Lorne came home from school we decided to go have First Draft of Dissertation is Complete Thai Food.



Evie really enjoyed Thai food. Though, come to think of it, we have yet to come across any kind of food that Evie doesn't enjoy.



When we finished, we took a walk around the pond that's next to the restaurant.



Will talked with the ducks for awhile.

On Saturday, we (the kids) woke up early (sooooooooooo early) so we were up and ready several hours before we usually leave for music class. We went to First Draft of Dissertation is Complete Breakfast, then did a little trip to Target, then went to music class. Will is a music class pro, but Evie has only gone a few times, so it's exciting to see her dance and clap with the music. She eats the instruments more often than she plays them, but we're getting there.

Then we went to a party for Lorne's MD/PhD program.We caught up with some friends and ate a lot. The director's wife played with Will and had toys that kept him occupied, which was awesome. But at one point she brought out this horrifying doll thing. She called it "shy baby." It looked like an actual toddler from behind - it had on clothes and it had real looking hair. And she stood it in the corner. It was basically like this:



And Will was a little scared of it. So were the rest of us, frankly. After she asked Will a couple questions about it, I was all, "Will, it's just a toy. It's not real." And I guess it hadn't occurred to her that he might think it was an actual child, so she turned it around to show him it was a doll and IT HAD NO FACE. I guess because it's supposed to stand in the corner, so you're not ever supposed to see its face? I don't know, but Will was HORRIFIED. "What's wrong with it?!" Poor Will. He had a nightmare later that night. I'm pretty sure he was dreaming about horrible shy baby. (Be glad we took no pictures today.)

May 22-28, 2011

On Sunday, the sheik, he drove his Cadillac.

On Monday, he went a-cruisin' down the ville.

On Tuesday, I took this picture that would have been cute if I had managed to turn the flash on.



And this one would have been cute if I managed to get Evie in it too. (Not that Will isn't cute, but it didn't reach maximum cute potential.)



On Wednesday, the muezzin was a-standing on the radiator grille.

On Thursday, we rocked the Casbah.

On Friday, Evie showed us her new trick - walking with the Mickey fire truck.



We also went up to the San Diego Botanic Gardens for the afternoon. I forgot the real camera, but took a couple of the kids with my phone.





We failed to take into consideration that lots of people would be leaving the city for Memorial Day Weekend and got stuck in traffic despite leaving a little after 3, and the gardens closed at 5, so we didn't get as much time to explore as we would have liked. Grandma Gail and I didn't realize that there were two children's areas, so we missed out on the model train. Will cried for awhile, then felt better after we saw the Coaster when we were driving home. Later, when Evie cried, he told her he knew she was sad that she didn't see the train, but it was okay, they saw that other train, and we'd go back to the gardens to see the train sometime. He may have been projecting.

On Saturday, Will stole my sunglasses.





I think he has a future as a sunglasses model.

May 15-21, 2011

On Sunday, Will and I built a house of cards out of his baseball cards. I built the sides, he put on the roof.



On Monday, we were on the run.

On Tuesday, we were driving in the sun.

On Wednesday, we were looking out for number one.

On Thursday, Evie ate some delicious Fallbrook avocado.



On Friday, Will sat on Grandma Gail's lap and said, "Take our picture Mom!" So I did.



On Saturday, we were driving down the 101. California, here we come!

May 10-14, 2011

On Tuesday, we were all jetlagged.

On Wednesday, we were still jetlagged.

On Thursday, we could not believe we were still jetlagged.

On Friday, we took two pictures:



and



On Saturday, Will and I made this banana cake. It is very ugly to look at it, but it was pretty tasty. It had brown sugar frosting.



Also, Evie ate some food. I believe this is her first time eating sliced up (not pureed) banana.



Also, this picture is pretty adorable.

Sunday, June 5, 2011

May 7-9, 2011 - Dublin, back home

On Saturday, we took the bus into Dublin. And Lorne and I completely forgot our camera in the hotel room. These pictures are either stolen from Bill (the nice onces) or taken on Laurel's cell phone (the crappy ones).



On the bus to downtown. I look like some sort of weirdo hipster.



The general post office. This is where the revolution began in 1916. While the general public wasn't necessarily in favor of what happened during the uprising, they were pretty pissed off about the treatment of the rebels afterward. They didn't actually succeed in breaking apart from the British Empire then, but it sowed the seeds.



Lorne and squinty Will in front of the River Liffey, which flows through the center of Dublin.

We went to Trinity College to look at the Book of Kells. I'll just refer you to that there link, because I kept getting (and continue to get) the dates all screwed up. But anyway, it's super old. After you leave the room where they store the book, they kick you out into this super old library. While we were there they had an exhibition of old medical instruments/the history of medical teaching. Will and I waited for everyone else in the old library and spent a good deal of time talking about a drawing of the muscles of the face, and what muscles are, and how they help you move your mouth and eyes and everything, and how yes, that guy had a weird eye in the picture. (No pictures allowed in library or book area.)



Then we watched a cricket game for a bit. I attempted to talk to Will about the differences between cricket and baseball, but as I know very little about cricket, I said a lot of very insightful things like, "The guy doesn't stand still to pitch the ball like a pitcher in baseball, he runs at the batter." ("The guy" is actually called "the bowler." A nice Irish man sitting next to us told me that, after saying, "So, you're not familiar with cricket, are you?")



We walked around for awhile, then looked at the outside of the castle. We decided not to go in, as a tour wasn't leaving for another 45 minutes and you have to go on a tour to look around.



We walked down to Christchurch Cathedral instead. I didn't get to look around a whole lot; Evie was super fussy so I took her to the bathroom in the crypt and fed her.



After we walked through Temple Bar and had a couple snacks from the farmer's market there (including some amazing millionaire's shortbread), we went to Porterhouse Brewing to taste some Irish craft beer and have some more snacks.



We shared three tasting flights between us (the adults, anyway) and tasted all their beers. The three dark beers were clearly the best (in my opinion). They just do dark beer right in Ireland.



Will ate some ice cream. He also kind of had a meltdown. No nap, lots of walking, very tired. Then we went back to the hotel.

Lorne and I went out on a date though. We took a long, meandering walk through downtown, had a drink at The Duke (where Oscar Wilde used to hang out, back in the day), then finally ended up at The Farm, a farm-to-table place that was absolutely amazing. We totally lucked out for just randomly wandering into a restaurant when we were tired of walking in the rain. Then we had another beer, then took the bus back to the hotel. Lovely first day in Dublin.

On Sunday, we forgot the camera in the hotel room again. Idiots.



This dude was blowing giant bubbles on the main shopping street. Will was enthralled.





Then he totally knocked down his bucket of bubbles. We felt so bad. We had Will give him, like, 7 euros. Then he thanked him for the bubbles, then we all sheepishly walked away.



We walked to Guinness. Woo! Guinness! It really does taste better in Ireland. Science says so.



Will enjoyed playing in the barley. I swear, I'm not already drunk in this picture.



Silly Will.



I don't think they had this when I went in 2002 - you can go learn how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness. Here is Lorney, pouring his pint.



My pint and Lorney's pint, settling.



250+ years of Guinness.



This magical pen kept Evie happy for quite awhile.



Will and Lorne at the Sky Bar. You can see pretty much all of Dublin from here.



After Guinness, we walked further west to the old Kilmainham Gaol. Will and Evie promptly passed out in the stroller. We had questioned whether we wanted to bring the beast of a stroller, but I'm pretty glad that we did.



Or we would have spent a lot more time in Ireland doing what Lorne's doing in that picture there.



The jail is one of the first to have this design, which is now pretty common. They remodeled it sometime in the 1800s when prisoner reform was a big thing. The jail was decommissioned in 1924, after the Irish Republic became its own nation. Most figures in Irish independence were jailed here at some point.



After the jail we took the bus back downtown and ate dinner. The chef (and perhaps owner) sensed our son's impending hunger meltdown and headed it off at the pass with a bowl of marshmallows and a glass of milk. This was one of Will's favorite parts of our trip.



"I'm just kind of hugging the bowl, but not really, because I don't want them to spill."



We picked up some souvenirs on the way out (though no one bought one of the Obama or O'Bama t-shirts) and headed back to the hotel.

On Monday, we went to the airport and flew home. Again, the kids were pretty awesome, except for a brief Will meltdown over Angry Birds somewhere over the Atlantic. He was so loud that the flight attendant came up and talked to Will for a little bit and calmed him down. That was nice. Super, super, ridiculously embarrassing. But nice. Anyway, here are some pictures from our five hour layover in Chicago.



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