Mission Trail Park

I guess I'm making up for lost time, as I have another entry today :)  This morning we went to Mission Trails Park, it is a nature preserve near our neighborhood.  Cooper loves to go, though it is a leash only park.  Elena loves to go running along the trail.  When we drive by the coastal mountains in the park, she tells me she wants to hike to the top.  She's in training and learning to scale everything including the scroll work our security door.

 With all the rain recently, the flowers are still in bloom.

 Off and running.  Elena loves running on the trail.

 

Checking for baby tadpoles in the pond.  It only has water during the rainy season.  Though April starts our dry season, it just rained Friday.

My hiking crew!

Play date :)

For nearly every day of the past month, Elena has been asking for a play date.  Sometimes she wants to have friends over or go to their home or have a picnic.  She has a few friends from school and daughters of my friends that she always asks to see.  Today, Claire came over with her little sister Norah and in Elena speak "Ms. Geet" (aka as Galit).

 All three girls had a great time.  I forgot to take pictures while they were playing...so I took a few before they left.  Below they are busy tickling each other with toes.  Norah was giggling as the big girls were gentle.

Garden Inspection

 Look at these two mischievous faces....what are they are up to?

Checking out the garden...

and picking lettuce to munch!  Yummy!

School Pictures {Tease}

The Children's Center has student photos every year in March.  I was surprised when Elena's teacher said she was a ham in front of the camera.  She usually won't take a nice picture for me or her teacher but you can see she was super happy to take pictures.  These photos are copywrite protected, so please do not attempt printing.  We have to order more pictures but I couldn't resist sharing with you until then.

The pictures printed from the studio look much better than my version...but this just a tease after all ;)

Happy Easter

Happy Easter!

Dominoes and blueberry scones with Pop-Pop and Grandma Lorraine!

 Easter egg hunt!  The first one.  I think she's had a dozen hunts--this was a big hit last year too.

 This is the first time I have seen this "cheese" smile.  What a character!

 Elena was so excited for her jellybeans!

A caterpillar was trapped in a pot dish.  He was rescued and Elena just wanted to hold him.  She was so excited.  Elena and Daddy placed him in the shade with lots of weeds to munch.

Butterfly Jungle

We have had a wonderful 3 day weekend.  Friday and Saturday were relaxing/reading days (I started and finished 2 books!).  Today we went to the Butterfly Jungle at the San Diego Safari Park.  I love being a member and able to just pop up there for a few hours.

 Here we are waiting in line.  This is how excited Elena is for the butterflies!

The butterflies fly all around you and they are everywhere.

 

One landed on Carl's shirt, I had one on my bare arm (it felt a bit itchy).  When this one opened it's wings, it was bright blue, so awesome!  Elena was sad no butterflies were landing on her.  She kept holding her arm out as we walked through the exhibit.

She watched some big kids put their fingers near the butterflies and watched as butterflies walked on.  Of course seeing they were successful, she was determined to try too.  I was careful Elena only put her fingers near the butterfly and not actually touch them (you are not supposed to touch them).  You can see she's a bit sad but she did have a nice time in the exhibit.

Outside of the butterfly jungle, we had two other exciting highlights today.  The lions were out and walking around--2 females and 1 male.  It was quite exciting.  Usually the lions are laying down with heads up or sleeping.  Our other excitement was at the warthog area.  They are pinned in with the bat eared fox; the warthogs like to give the foxes a hard time.  It was quite funny to watch the warthog walk over and disturb where the foxes were trying to sneak a nap.  The warthogs and Elena have something in common ;)

Another San Diego Sunday

 I guess I'm making up for some lost time, 3 posts in one week, whew!

This morning we met Pop-Pop and Grandma 'Raine for breakfast.  Although we live close, it feels like we've hardly seen them the last few months.  Breakfast was nice and Elena was super excited to see them.

 After breakfast, we headed out to our favorite beach, La Jolla Shores.  Weather forecast said a storm was coming through but only the ocean waves showed signs of the storm.  It was nice to have a morning at the quite beach.

  Of course, Elena loved taking off her shoes.  Even the parents at Elena's school know her as The Barefoot Elena.  Anytime she can wiggle her socks and shoes off, she will.  Ahh, barefoot toes in the cool sand, it feels so good!  :)

 

Hope you have a wonderful day!

Happy Spring

 We missed the Spring equinox, well I was out of town securing some professional development.  The conference was great, though I would have enjoyed my time more if I had not been sick :(  3.5 days away from home, it was my first trip away from Elena.  She was good for Carl but started acting out when I got home so we have been doing a lot of Elena and Mommy activities including bubbles!

Here are a few pictures of Elena blowing, chasing and catching bubbles.  Of course, she was also popping them.

Hail in San Diego?!

Hail, hail, hail!  Can you believe it??  Yes, our weather has been quite strange this year.  This is our 3rd hail storm in the past few weeks.  The hail wasn't too big (no damage to the cars) but enough accumulated to play in it.

 And that is exactly what Elena wanted to do... 

"Please, please, please! Let's go outside!!"

 Wahoo!  (She's jumping for joy)

 "Look!  I'm holding it!"

 We had a good pile up on the street.  Elena enjoyed picking it up and throwing it in the stream of melting hail.  Look at the size of that snow ball in her hands!

 Elena had so much fun.  She was sad to go inside but finally realized her hands were cold :O

Here is a shot of our backyard covered in hail.  

Hope the garden Carl planted last weekend bounces back.

Since returning from Hawai'i in September, life became a bit more hectic and my work - home life balance has been off.  Work picked up, well that is an understatement, my workload doubled when I came back from vacation.  I also began acupuncture weekly to get my back pain under control.  And to tip the scale, Cooper became seriously ill right before Halloween.  I tried to keep posting but gave up at some point, I'm sorry if you have checked in on a regular basis to see no updates.  Cooper is doing better, my workload is being reduced so now I'm trying to get this blog back up and running.

 Today Carl worked on planting our garden.  We are hoping the weird weather is over--we have had hail twice in the past couple of weeks and one morning it was 28 degrees when we woke up at 6am and was 80 later in the day. Whew!

 While Carl was busy in the garden, Elena played in her "house" and  jumped from the top of the slide.  Sometimes I wish she was a bit more cautious.  Yesterday at a birthday party, a parent said she loved her adventurous spirit and hoped it would rub off on her son.  Maybe the these friends can meet in the middle and learn from each other.

Elena loved playing with the water and she even asked for a bigger "pool."

Time for a Big Bed

 I finally committed to a big bed for Elena, I've only been looking for one since October.  I tried getting something used but it just wasn't working out so I ordered a bed from the same company as her crib.  I love the craftsmanship, quality and lack of chemicals.  Elena loves that I can now snuggle with her in bed.

 Elena's transition to the new bed was quite smooth.  She slept in it last night and I disassembled and removed the crib today.  She absolutely loves the old Pokemon sheets; once Cyrus and Kailah slept on them last weekend, Elena had to have them on her bed.

 

Elena loves to sleep at the edge of the bed, such a silly girl!