Swimming with the rays

We visted San Ramon in March to meet Josh's fiance. While there, we visited Monterey Bay Aquarium. Here, Brayton and I are looking out from a sting ray exhibit. 

Once there was a snowman, snowman, snowman ...

... in in the sun he melted, melted, melted. In the sun he melted small, small, small.

It never snows in Southern California ...

We thought we gave up the snow when we left New York. I guess not. This is a picture from March. There was actually enough snow to build a snowman. He lasted about two hours. 

Local boy races shark - takes second place

Brayton is eight years old! With that age comes the joy of Cub Scouts. And the big event for Cub Scouts is, of course, the annual Pinewood Derby. Give me a few minutes to finish this after the kids are in bed. 

One boring month

Would you believe nothing of any interest at all happened in February? Me neither. I have been neglecting the blog so let's see what happens this month.

The cat came back

Leia, the cat pictured between Meri and Jessica, recently returned from a two week disappearance. We had bascially given her up for dead. The neighbor said he lost a cat to coyotes once. We have never seen signs of coyotes but there was not a single sign of Leia anywhere so maybe that was plausible. Leia and her brother Luke (imported from New York) have always been house cats. Leia would occassionally go out the back door but would always stay very close to the door and would run inside if spooked by anything. I guess one day she decided to have an adventure. We put up signs, talked to neighbors, and visited the pound and there was still no sign of her. Two weeks later we thought we would never see her again. Last Thursday, however, as I was heading into the house after getting home from work, I spied a black, calico cat at corner of the house. Could it be? Sure enough, after I eased up to her (she was definitely acting skittish), I was able to pick her up and bring her inside. She had lost weight but she had no other signs of distress. So far she has been silent about where she was for all that time. Luke was not excited to see her. He has been hising and growling at her since her return. This evidence supports one of my theories: Luke ran her out. Kind of like Uncle Scar and Simba in the Lion King: "Run away and never return". My other theory is that aliens abducted her and now we have a robot cat with a little alien inside. So far we have not caught alien Leia using the computer so maybe that theory is no good. Leia has been seeking extra attention from everybody since her return. Luke had been enjoying that attention during her absence so maybe that is why Luke is unhappy. 

Mmmmm ... ice cream

I think she want some more ice cream. Here is a picture from our recent trip to the San Diego Wild Animal Park. I have some more to post. 

Under the golden gate

I just saw this picture on our screen saver and thought that it needs to be here. This is us atop Fort Point right under the south end of the Golden Gate Bridge. We visited San Francisco when we were in San Ramon for Thanksgiving. As you can see, it is fairly windy in that location. We quickly returned the the lower levels of the fort after the photo. 

Sisters

 
 

Jessica, beadmaster

 
 

Never too early to practice

 
 

Another satisfied Christmas dollhouse customer

 
 

Orion welcomes his Christmas fish, Bubbles, to the family

 

One satisfied Christmas celebrator

The happiest place on earth

Part two of our awesome adventure with Grandma and Grandpa Baird took place at the happiest place on earth: Disneyland. The nickname led us to wonder if you were not being happy there, would you be asked to leave? I do not think because I saw more than one unhappy child there. For the most part everyone was happy. I was amazed how clean the park was. Normally touching anything at the amusment park is a scary proposition but not at Disney.


Above is a picture of Ethan, Orion, and Meri sitting by Grandpa in the shuttle bus to Disneyland. Can you sense the anticipation?


Above is a photo of various members of the expedition on the Autotopia ride. I am in the car on the left with Ethan. Ylfelynn's brother is in the car on the right with one of his sons. Another nephew is in the car behind him with Grandpa. This ride was fun because the whole party (all 17 people) got to ride at the same time.


Here is some of the group eating both inside and outside the Village Haus restaurant. I know the guide books say that Disney food is overpriced and they are right. But it was a convenient, hot meal when we needed it. I have no regrets.

I think everybody has a great time. The favorite ride was Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. I managed to achieve a high score of 142,000 and the rank L4 on my second ride. Next time, I am shooting for L5. This was Ylfelynn's first visit to Disneyland and based on her feelings for the place, I expect we will visit again.

A trip back in time to ... medieval times

This weekend we had a fabulous treat. Actually several. One of those was dinner at Medieval Times in Buena Park, CA. Ylfelynn's parents treated us and her two brothers and their families to dinner here. What a great experience! The picture to the left shows our view from our table. It is probably had to tell from the picture, but there are no utensils on the table. We ate with our hands just like in medieval times.

As you can see from this picture, it was quite a production. I was surprised by the number of people involved. I have to wonder if there were ever this many knights, squires, etc. in any one place in medieval times.

This is the dreaded Green Knight in whose section we sat. We, of course, cheered him and booed the other knights. Our guy did not do so well and I think in the end he fell to another knight's axe or polearm or something. The medieval times must have been hard on knights.

This was our kids' reaction to much of the show. They all tend to be really sensitive to loud noises (probably inherited from me). Orion is on the far end and he is wearing ear plugs. Jessica, surprisingly enough, probably enjoyed it the most. Meri actually fell asleep with her hands over her ears. I wonder if little peasant children had to deal with stuff like this in medieval times. I heartily recommend a trip to Medieval Times if you are ever near one.

But as for myself, to me he doth not stink

I have finally found a use for that scripture (Alma 19:5). Ethan's cast was removed (see cast installation) on 9 November. I thought he would be suffering from a raging case of stink arm because I had smell some strong odors emanating from the cast before. Apparently, the scent was all in the cast because I smelled his arm right after it came off (why is it we can never resist smelling a bad smell? "Wow, that really stinks - hey you, smell this! It's really bad, huh?"). I thought of the above scripture when I discovered that there was no stink arm. Ethan is definitely enjoying having his right arm back, though he continues to draw with his left hand (he is right-handed but quickly adapted to the cast). You can see the skin on his arm looks a little funny, but after a couple of days, it looked fine. His arm did not even shrink that much, though he had a funny wrist angle for a little while.

Take me out to the airshow

Here are photos from the Edwards Air Force base 2005 Open House. Brayton, Orion, and I attended. Below is a picture of Brayton and Orion boarding one of NASA's shuttle-carrying 747s (seen on the right).


And here is a picture of the boys in the back of a C-17 Globemaster III.

It was an impressive show. Here is a link to some more pictures from the airshow.

Halloween followup followup

This is what your hair looks like when you put it down after wearing Princess Leia buns for several hours.

Halloween followup

Later that evening ... 

This is Halloween ...

Another Halloween successfully carried out. No one ate too much candy and barfed. Lest you think that is an idle parental threat ("don't eat too much - you don't want to throw up!"), two years ago, Orion actually did. As you can see in the photograph, we have Ethan on the left as an alien (Ylfelynn made the costume from fabric Ethan picked out). Meri is decked out as a cat. Orion is the skeleton. Brayton has donned a Harry Potter costume complete with the requisite scar on his forehead. Jessica is (as evidenced by the hairdo) dressed as Princess Leia (also Ylfelynn-made). It is a pity we could not find a mini blaster for her to hold. Unbeknownst to us, Harry left his wand at school that day so the Halloween evening festivities were slightly marred by some anxious searching. Tuesday morning, the wand was waiting for him at his desk. Halloween night we visited several neighbors and then hit the church for some trunk-or-treating. 

Reading time

The two resident princesses

Lunch with the littles

Never too young to pitch in

Jessica's room was recently painted. White walls are now some shade of pink (how do they come up with names for so many different shades of pink paint?). Jessica herself pitched in. In fact, everyone except Ethan "helped" out (I think Ethan was feeling cast-impaired). Actually, Brayton painted a sizeable portion of the room. Pretty soon we should be able to turn the entire job over to him.

Broken bones part 2

Continuing with the broken arm story: Ethan was supposed to go in to see the ortho doctor a couple of days after urgent care. Our loser HMO provider, High Desert Medical Group, messed up the paperwork. They said they would call in a couple of days to set up the appointment. I thought that was strange that a medical provider would provide that kind of service and I asked again if that was the case. Well, it wasn't. By Monday, we knew he needed to get in soon. Ylfelynn tried calling, got the run-around, and left a message. Same thing on Tuesday. I call on Wednesday and got the run-around. I call back again and finally talked to a competent person. She expressed dismay that something went wrong and scheduled Ethan for that afternoon. I left work to get Ethan out of school and take him to the ortho guy. I thought we would pop in for a quick cast and be done. No. In the 7 days that had elapsed since the initial break, Ethan's radius had healed enough to require surgery to reset it. So about an hour later, we were checking the hospital for outpatient surgery (we did not even have enought time to go home first). Eventually, they knocked Ethan out, reset the bone, and installed a cast. No pins were necessary. I think the worst part for Ethan was when he was waking up and the oxygen he had been breathing made his nose all stuffed up. We did not even get his Tylenol III prescription filled. He has felt great ever since. The doctor said the cast would probably be on for four weeks. A good thing that's not too long - today I was already noticing the stink arm smell emanating from the cast. Stupid medical provider - don't ever leave anything in their hands. By the way his wrist x-ray looked something like this.

The birthday and the bone

Everyone should get to leave work early on their birthday. I did. It was not the graciousness of my boss nor any sneaking out on my part though. Ethan really wanted me to be home early so he took a fall. Just kidding ... I don't think it was on purpose. During an outing to the park on Wednesday (parent-teacher conferences = no school) 28 September (33 years subsequent to my birth) Ethan said goodbye to the monkey bars he was hanging on and gave a high five to the sand. A couple of hours later, I was gone from work and sitting in the urgent care center. You may recall my previous adventures there. Anyway, here he is that evening with temporary cast in place. He never really cried until the doctor said that he would need a cast. You can see that it is his right hand. He loves to draw and write and is right-handed. He knew it would be tough to have a cast on. He is getting fairly good with his left hand now. Stay tuned for the next chapter: the permanent cast.

Ri the guy

For some inexplicable reason, I don't think there is a picture of Orion (Ri for short) on this blog. This post is to remedy that situation. Obviously, he is plenty cute and should have pictures posted all the time. Here he is on the playground being very serious.

And then ... there was two.

I attended an interesting meeting this evening. Three of the local wards of the Lancaster East Stake met together at the stake center. After the meeting, there were only two wards. Our former ward, the Joshua ward, was dissolved and combined with the other two wards. This was due to rapidly declining memberships of the wards mostly from people taking advantage of the high real estate values by selling and moving out of state. We are now part of the El Dorado ward. Next Sunday, we will attend church in a different building (closer to our house than the one we had been attending) with an entirely new ward. The new boundary cuts through all three wards so everybody has an opportunity to meet new friends. The entire Joshua ward was released from their callings this evening so we are calling-less. We shall see if we get a call this week. I am hoping to be the ward bulletin person.

I guess it works

For Fathers Day this year, I received a hammock. The hammock stand was not included. I favored a nice wood stand like this. Reality, however, set in and we ordered this steel stand for a steal. I immediately took the assembled hammock system for a test flight and the photo shows that it works. This is not a staged photo - I am actually sleeping and the photo was shot without my knowledge or consent.