Two Outings in a Row!

Outings! My favorite!

Sunday we went to the San Diego Safari Park (formerly the Wild Animal Park which is why my folder of photos is labeled WAP). After a full week of school and colorguard, Fenna requested a sleep in morning. I am never one to argue with laziness, bring it on!  I ordered our zoo passes online and printed the confirmation page. We left the house just before noon. Laziness accomplished without getting in the way of our fun day!

The Safari Park was crowded, but not so crowded that you couldn't get up to see the exhibits. The line for the tram was way too long though, we'll ride it another day. I got season passes for the three of us since a year long pass was only $10 more than buying a day pass, plus it's a tax write-off. Good deal.  We wandered all over the park; it was a beautiful day for walking. It was too hot to stop at the sculpture garden on the way home, so we'll add that to another zoo day. It will always be there.

Monday, the girls skipped school for another outing. Fenna had a Cystic Fibrosis doctor appointment in San Diego at 11am, so there was no point in sending them off to school when the appointment is right in the middle of the school day. We usually leave for school at 6:50am but didn't have to leave today until 9am. Another sleep in day!

We took the little girls to Katie's house to play and then Fenna and I made our way to the clinic.  I only got lost once. I thought I was on a street, but it turned out to be an exit ramp and I ended up back on the freeway. I managed to get off and twirl around and find my way back to where I needed to be. Fenna found the problem, on the map it looks as if the streets intersect, but in reality one street is a bridge over the other one. Ah, there is the problem: a two-dimensional map in a three-dimensional world. We found the clinic and used their valet parking to avoid being late or getting lost trying to find a parking space or getting lost afterward trying to remember where we parked. Valet parking rocks!

The appointment went well; the doctor and his staff are very nice. We will go see them again in 10 days or so at their other office in La Jolla. Another adventure with maps! I hope they have valet parking there too. I found a new love: the parking guy. I don't know where he took my van and I don't care. Love it!

I consulted the map and found the route back to Katie's house; Fenna concurred.  We were wrong. Map mishap #2, but we were able to get turned around. We took "the scenic route" back to Katie's house, but we got there just fine. It took us 20 minutes instead of 10, but I'm ok with that.

It was only 12:30 in the afternoon! We could go back and put the girls in school for a half an hour before dismissal, or we could do something fun since we are in San Diego and there are lots of things to do.  Hmmm.  We all voted for doing something fun. After pondering over our options, we settled on spending the afternoon roaming around Seaport Village.

The afternoon was beautiful! The weather was sunny but not hot with a light breeze. Couldn't ask for a better day! We had lunch and then we wandered around the mall. It was nice to just walk and enjoy the day. We sat in the park and watched the kite salesman fly several large colorful kites; we watched an aircraft carrier head out to sea, and we watched the seagulls scavenge for scraps around the picnic tables. Fenna wasn't shopping for souvenirs; I thought she might, but we all enjoyed window shopping quite a bit.

At 4pm, we said goodbye to Katie and Henry and we headed home. It is usually an  hour long drive, but we hit five-o'clock traffic and it took us 90 minutes. I wasn't sure if I was headed in the right direction to find the freeway or not, but I was traveling west and the ocean is east, so I figured west would get me there. Fenna gave me a look that said "Really? you are lost again?" so I confessed.  I have a GPS in the drawer under her seat, but I never use it because I can't figure it out. It always tells me that I'm in San Antonio, Texas. She reached under the seat, plugged it in and bingo, had it working!  How did she do that?  While she was plugging it in, I said, "If that is Grape Street right up there, I know where I am." It was. I wasn't very lost at all this time!  She kept the GPS on all the way home though. Funny kid!

Fenna had colorguard practice at 5:30 and needed to go home to change and grab her bag, I got her to colorguard, but we were about 15 minutes late. I told her the coach was gonna make her do an extra 50 crunches for being late, but she said he didn't.  Ha! Good thing, because she doesn't enjoy doing crunches.

Two outings in two days, not bad for a boring host mom! 


*More photos of our outings on my picasa page.

Boring Host Family - That's us!

We have done absolutely nothing fun since our "Dutch daughter" arrived. I promised her that we are fun, and all we've done is sit around the house twiddling our thumbs and updating our blogs.

She's been here for two weeks. The first week we went school shopping, registered for school and on the 11th, the girls started classes. We drove around town a bit to show her around, but mostly we stayed in and got to know one another better.

Fenna brought us lots of presents from Holland. Such fun! She brought magnets, pot holders, chocolates, candy, a beer bottle opener for Keith, toys for the babies, and pens with windmills on top for the girls. We are a big family and she had something for everyone, very generous!

Last weekend was probably a terribly boring weekend for our teenager who is anxious to explore and go places, but we stayed in all weekend. With my van needing new brakes, we were pretty limited. It was nice though (at least I thought so) because we just hung around home and visited. Keith took the van apart and fixed the brakes. They needed new rotors too, and in the back which is apparently more complicated and more worthy of garage-vocabulary (cussing).

Monday I had my ride back. We had a successful week of going to school and coming home again. On a normal day, I am going to make three school runs. Once to take Fenna to the high school at 7am, once to take Gracie to Kindergarten at 11am, and once to pick up Gracie and Fenna at 2:30.  The 2:30 run actually takes an entire hour.  On Mondays, I'll be making 4 school runs since the Kindergarten gets out early at 1:30.  On days when Fenna has evening colorguard practice, I'll make 5 runs to the school: the normal three plus take Fenna back to the school at 5:30 and pick her up at 8:30pm. Follow all that?  Ok, next week we're going to add in a Late-start day just for confusion.  I am once again the Mom-Taxi!  It's just too hot to make them walk.

As awful as it sounds, I don't mind too much yet. I knew what I was signing up for when I offered to be a host parent. The hour long afternoon pick up can also serve as nap time for Charlie and Libby if they would stop giggling at each other and fall asleep. One of these days they will. Charlie can face forward in his carseat now so I can rearrange the kid seating without having to flip carseats around, that should work well if I need to separate them in the vehicle.

I have three carseats in the van. The Evenflo Triumph can hold Libby or Charlie and can be flipped around backward if needed. The Graco Nautilus can hold Libby or Charlie or Gracie! It's the best seat in the house!  Then I have a little Graco booster seat that can only hold Gracie. It's just an elevated seat, so the seat belt must be used on that one. The other carseats have the 5 point harnesses, but Gracie uses the seat belt even if she sits in the Nautilus. I explained the seating rules to Fenna and she looked at me like I was speaking Greek; not that it matters because I don't expect her to strap in the kids, but I offered up the trivia.

This past week was focused only on school.  The girls and Keith went to school, I drove the taxi and the little ones tagged along and asked where everyone went.

On Tuesday we had Charlie's birthday party. I guess we have done one fun thing!  It really was a great party - best one yet!  We started the day by looking at pictures of Gracie and Libby's first birthdays - might as well knock out the jealous monster before it rears it's ugly head.  They both turned one and celebrated, had gifts, and now it's Charlie's turn. The child is one popular baby! We had the party at 3pm after toddlers nap and big kids come home from school.  We had 21 adults and 17 children here! Full house! It was so much fun.

The only other semi-exciting thing we did was have family over yesterday.  Relatives from South Dakota are vacationing nearby, so they stopped in for a short visit.  Fenna got to meet them too. She had just come home fresh from an 8 hour colorguard practice in the hot sun, so we didn't make her pose for a picture with her "new cousins", but it was nice that she got to meet them.

So, that's it.  That's all we've done so far. I'm feeling a burning desire to get out of the house and take these kids on an outing - so that's what we are doing today! Yay! We decided last night what our plan would be for the day. First and most important: sleep in, then we'll pack up a picnic and strap the kids in and go to the San Diego Zoo's Safari Park. I got season passes for myself, Fenna and Gracie. The total was $10 less than if I had paid for one-day tickets, plus the memberships are tax deductible.  It is still too hot to go to Queen Califia's Magic Sculpture Garden in Escondido, but we will go there another time (it is close to the Safari Park and makes for a fun little extra stop).  I am looking forward to our fun day ahead.  Happy Fun Sunday!