The Zoo, the apartment complex, and others...

So I'm getting caught up folder by folder, these pictures are from the oldest folder since I last updated:

We got this floatie car for Edward for the pool. He really loved playing in it in the apartment, but not so much in the pool.


It got a hole in it on the second day and hasn't been used since :-P

One night we went to the hot tub because we didn't make it to the pool during the day. Looking above and beyond the apartment buildings I noticed letters appearing in the sky! It was so weird to watch. It spelled out "SEEK THE SIX". I didn't get pictures right away since I didn't have the camera with me at the hot tub. Here they are fading away...


I think the sky-writing was for Comic-Con that was going on that night. While I had the camera out, I took some pictures of the apartment complex.

Our pathway to the pool.


So these are sort of dorky pictures for me to have taken. They're some of the reasons I like staying here (aside from the pool). Overall I love our house, but a few things about apartment-living simplify life. Our mail is just steps away from our front door (our whole married life I've had to drive somewhere to get the mail), and just through the door in this picture is the laundromat. It's not the closeness of the laundromat that makes life easier (although I'm glad it is close and not as far as it is from other units), it's that I can get 3 or 4 loads going at a time and be done with it all at once! I would be more irritated with having to use a laundromat if we had to pay for it, but we're being reimbursed by Mike's employer.

and this simple trash can on the way to our door is convienient for tossing trash from the van on our way in...
...Speaking of trash, I also love that there's a trash room to dump our garbage (see the chute in the picture). At home we have to go to the dump and it can be a big ordeal if we don't keep up on it. (I also love that it says RUBBISH on the chute...it reminds me of my Grandma Dayes)

We have been so lame as far as doing any of the big attractions around here. We had big plans when we first got here, but so far we've only made it to the zoo. We've done plenty fun stuff, like movies, the pool, the beach, parks, etc., so I'm not heartbroken. Plus, hopefully we'll be able to come back in the years to come, so we'll always have another chance. We are planning to do one other big thing, and that's Legoland. I didn't want to do Disneyland this time because I'd be tied down with Edward, and Colette wouldn't be big enough for most rides. I've been to Disneyland twice...at 4 and 14. It was lame at 4 because I was too short for so many rides (It wasn't all bad, I loved the small world river thingy, but I distinctly remember being turned away from many rides).

So, here are some pictures from the zoo. My camera's battery died not too long into it. We didn't stay as long as we probably should have. We didn't see some of the main things we wanted to...Adrienne wanted to see the koalas, giraffes and the pandas. The panda line was ridiculously long, so unfortunately we didn't get to see them. We didn't see the giraffes either, but we did see a whole lot of sleeping koalas :-) On to the pictures...Of course the first one we got is the girls with the flamingos.

At least Adrienne got to be a giraffe.





The girls saw a lot of kids walking around with their faces painted. I said they could get theirs done before I ever checked on a price. I really should have checked on a price!! They already had their choices and Adrienne was sitting on the stool before I asked! The girls were so excited, so I went through with it, even though it was $15 for each of them!! We paid more for the face painting than their admission!






So we had to take lots of pictures to get our money's worth :-) Unfortunately my camera died shortly after this.

I didn't mention that we met up with some friends at the zoo. Apparently we didn't get any pictures of them. It was Mike's co-worker Dave, and his wife Ellen. Ellen has been so great to us while we've been here. She's been like a surrogate grandmother for the girls. And she helped me out when I got sick...TWICE! What a lifesaver. If you're reading this Ellen, even though it's been awhile...thank you again!

Well that may be all for tonight. I have 3 more folders to post pictures from. One of them is A LOT of pictures...the one from the Utah trip. This will probably take me all weekend. So keep checking back!

Old Pictures

Well, I'm back. I'm going to try to catch everyone up about the last 3 weeks in the next few days. There are so many pictures to put up and I think that's why I've procrastinated for so long. On a totally unrelated note, I found some old pictures on Mike's computer that I wanted to share. They're not chronological.

Here is Colette, about one week old. Mike is holding her:

I don't have a lot of pictures of Mike on here, and he's not the most photogenic person. So I thought this was a pretty good one of him. We're at Pacific Beach in Washington.

The next few pictures are also at Pacific Beach. Adrienne and Colette (Adrienne's 3, and Colette's about 6 months old (?), I can't remember exactly.

Colette again...

Adrienne...

Colette yet again...there were a lot of really great ones of her:

That's all from Pacific Beach. The next few are from Hawaii when Adrienne was 2, and I was pregnant with Colette. This is at the Polynesian Cultural Center.

This was taken first thing after she woke up...

Back from Hawaii now...obviously, since Colette is back in the picture.

I think this was Christmas 2004...

Not sure when this was...she's maybe 1 1/2?

Another of Adrienne, also probably 1 1/2. This was for Easter.

Whew

Man, what a day. Started out pretty good, but now I am so ready to crash.

The kids and I drove from San Diego to St. George, Utah today. I'll have to write more later. I'm at a motel lobby right now.

We made stops a little past L.A., and then in Las Vegas. Then I got sick in Las Vegas and barely made it to St. George a few hours later.

We were supposed to be staying with a family friend, Kaye Bair. I'm bummed, but I decided it would be better to stay in a motel so the kids can run and around and I don't have to worry about them while I'm getting over whatever this is.

Hopefully it clears up fast because I was supposed to be driving to Provo/SLC tomorrow morning. I might hang out here for awhile instead.

For those of you that don't know, I went to Dixie here for one quarter forever ago...11 years now.

Anyway, I had a lot more I wanted to write about when I got back to this, but no time now. By the time I get back to it again I'll have even more!

I'm here for my niece's wedding on Friday! More to come!

More from Coronado

This is going to be all over the place since I just want to get this post up and not put it off any longer because of trying to get it all organized and stuff.

I just saw the new Batman movie tonight. Wow, so good. Last night Mike and I decided we wanted to see it today and since it was such late notice to try and get a babysitter we tried something new - Mike watched the kids while I went to see an early showing, then he met me at the theater and I took the kids home while he went to watch it (he's there now).

Speaking of movies...I saw an older movie the other night, it was "Mumford" and I thought it was pretty good! At home I can't seem to get myself to sit still to watch a movie unless I'm actually at the theater, but that's one good thing about being here. I'm hoping that I'll learn something from this trip about taking time to take a break and play with the kids more. We've also seen a few movies at this really cool theater that's on the base, that's FREE, and they even have pretty current stuff! We saw "Iron Man", the Narnia movie, Mike and the girls saw "Kung Fu Panda" (I was sick), Mike saw the Zohan movie (not for the kids and I was still sick), and then he went and re-saw the Hulk movie with some co-workers the other night. He'll probably be there every day after we leave. Don't know if I mentioned that, but we'll be driving back Labor Day weekend, and he'll be driving back down here in his car and will be staying at least until Thanksgiving, maybe as long as Christmas. He'll be back a few times to visit and we'll have a webcam set up so he can still interact with the kids. Anyway, back to the theater, I took a picture to show how cool the place is:

Another thing that I wanted to do here was read some books. So far I've only read one, but better than nothing I suppose. I kept meaning to read something but never wanting to attempt to visit the library with three kids I kept putting it off. Finally I looked for one of the books I wanted to re-read online and found it. I read Animal Farm again. It was required reading in 11th grade, and I thought it was okay, but there was a lot that I didn't get. So it was much better a second time, especially with Wikipedia at my fingertips. Anyone that was required to read it in school and maybe wasn't crazy about it then should give it another try. It's also really short, I think I read it in a few days just casually reading. Now I want to read A Tale of Two Cities next.

I took some pictures of Adrienne to show her tan lines. She looks like she's anorexic, but it's just the angle or something...you'll see in the next picture


See. Her hair's getting lighter from the sun too. My hair used to get sun-bleached every year as a kid too. I just noticed Colette napping on the couch in the background. She quit naps as soon as we got here, but occasionally she falls asleep on the couch.

I have a lot of foody stuff to blog about this time. My diet is 11 days on and 3 days off. This past weekend were my three days and I made these shish kabobs that I really liked (curry flavor, one of my favorites), with this carribean rice from Zatarains. I shought it looked nice with all the color. Maybe I'm weird for taking pictures, but oh well.


One of my most favorite foods are gyros. There's a gyro place literally a 5 minute walk away. So that was the first thing I had on my first day off. They had these popsicles there that were the best I've ever had. I'll have to go back and find out the name and see if they're sold anywhere else.

In an attempt to add some more nutrition to the girls' usual peanut butter sandwich, I came up with the "banana dog". They like it, can't say I would.

Saturday I was craving smores and so I came up with a way to make them at home - I got a graham cracker crust, mini marshmallows, and Hershey's chocolate chips. Combined and baked and YUM! Just as good as at the campsite.

Then Sunday I made waffles and the recipe I used was very very very good. It tasted like german pancakes in waffle form. Here's the link

That's a good way to segue to my next random topic. I bought the George Foreman Next Grilleration, and I have to say I LOVE IT. It's fast because it grills both sides at once, easy to clean up (removeable and machine washable plates) and it's diverse- it has waffle plates, so it eliminates another appliance. It's also what I made the kabobs on. I've grilled halibut, chicken, steak, hamburgers...it's AWESOME.

Told you this post would be random. Here's a picture of Colette when she fell asleep one afternoon. She just looked so cute. Sorry about the lack of clothing :-)


It's hard to get pictures of the girls at the pool because I have Edward (Mike is a pooper when it comes to fun in the sun), but here are a few:


Colette likes to float around on her back in her floatie suit, and also likes to get in the middle of the groups of teenagers that congregate sometimes and they fawn all over her. Adrienne is teaching herself to swim and is doing really well!

Here are some pictures from a walk to a park that's in walking distance of the apartments, and the boardwalk leading to the park from the apartments. The woman in the pictures is my friend that lives here in Coronado, her name is Susan. I mentioned her a few posts back...she's the one that got Edward to sleep at the beach. In this first picture i wanted to show how close this park is to the Coronado bridge (you can see it in the distance behind the trees).


Edward and his blond hair. We went to our church Sunday and this boy that was probably about 10 or 11 came up to Edward and was rubbing his hair and saying something in Spanish (which none of us understands), and then walked away. We think he was saying something about his blond hair. Our church is 5 miles from the US-Mexico border, and it seemed like people almost expected you to speak Spanish since that is what was spoken in the chatter I overheard.




I need to get a better shot of the Coronado bridge, but it is something else. It was so freaky to drive on the first time, I about had a panic attack. It's two miles long.



Not sure which ship this is, but it was passing by while we were on our walk


There's a place nearby that rents out neat-looking bikes, tandem bikes, and these little cart thingys that you pedal:


What'd I say, all over the place, eh? So, I actually have more, but that will have to do for now or I'll never get anything up. G'night!

Oh, one more thing

Here are a few funny pics of the girls playing "pillow-head fight", they just made it up.

Quick Catch-up

Well it would be hopeless for me to catch up on everything, so I'll just nutshell it: We really like it here in San Diego (actually Coronado Island) and we go to the pool almost everyday, although only stay about 1-1 1/2 hours because I have the three kids alone. It's weird to see the girls with tan lines...they've never had them before.

Mike and I celebrated our 8th anniversary last week on the 1st! A co-worker of Mike's and his wife volunteered to watch the kids so we could go out...that was so nice of them! We had a nice anniversary.

Fourth of July was fun, but we were stuck on base for 1 1/2 hours getting out and that wasn't fun. If we ever stay here again during the 4th of July we'll just walk to the beach that's right by our apartment! (we're on 2nd, and 1st is on the beach) The fireworks were pretty cool, we could see 4 displays and they were all synchronized. It sort of reminded me of home looking out on the water at the fireworks since we usually go to Port Orchard or Silverdale Waterfront.

We're having fun, but I do miss our house sometimes! We were still just getting acquainted with it and finishing up projects.

The people here are really nice...I have to say, nicer than Washingtonians. I've made a bunch of friends, and everywhere you go people like to chit-chat. They're even anonymously kind...I went to the post office and it was metered parking - there was still 8 minutes left and I thought it was enough...when I got back I saw there was 13 minutes on the meter!

We still haven't done any big outings like SeaWorld or the Zoo or anything, but we will be starting this weekend. I'll get pictures then.

Well, to change the subject...Colette lately has had a problem with calling names, like "poo-poo-head", or "stupid". I don't know why, nobody else in the family does that. But I think I got through to her the other day. She called Adrienne stupid and I asked her how she would feel if I called her stupid. She said she would like it :-) So I said, "Hi stupid Colette" and she just smiled. Then I said, "You're weird" and she didn't like being called "weird" so I called her on it. Now she calls me - "not-a-poo-poo-head" or "flower-head" or "not-an-ugly-man".

So I mentioned in my post about Seven+ that I had lost some weight. I put up this post in December about a month after I had Edward. At that time I was about 5 lbs from pre-Edward weight...which took way too long to reach. I didn't get there until mid-May. At the end of May I started my diet and I've lost 25 lbs since then!...and the reason I bring it up is because I am now at my pre-Colette weight! So that's exciting and I am now halfway to my ultimate goal of getting to my pre-Adrienne weight before Edward's 1st birthday (11/8/08). I have a ticker at the bottom of the page if anyone cares to check in on my progress :-)

So one more thing to add to my typical random post - I remembered about this clip from an old "Family Fortunes" episode (UK version of "Family Feud"), it just cracks me up!: