Ryan Words

Ryan has recently gone from calling Reagan "Nee Nee" to calling her "Eggan". He calls himself "Eye-an" instead of "Ein" now too. He made a recent and obvious switch over the last week to pronouncing things better, but skipping the first sound a lot more often, like"eep" for sleep. We rub his back before he goes to sleep and he always says "ub-ack" when it's time for that. He's in love with his Croc shoes, "ock oohs". The list goes on and on, it's pretty funny and really hard to understand when there's no context and he starts talking about something at random.

October Beach Day!

We're in what's probably our last heat wave around here (to make up for the coldest summer on record I guess) so we went to the beach! It was warmer than the day we went in June, totally perfect weather, no sweatshirts needed this time.

We planned to get there at 10:30, but ended up almost 2 hrs late due to Ryan waking up with an infected penis ... which has never happened before ... so of course it happened the one day we planned a beach trip. Saw the doctor at 9:30, who of course advised against sand play, then hemmed and hawed about it with Allison, who was car pooling with us, and decided to triple layer him on the bottom half and be extra careful since we couldn't bring ourselves to not go after all the lunch and beach packing. I picked up his antibiotic on the way out, gave him the first dose and kept it in the cooler. It all worked out and I managed to keep him sand free down there .. mission accomplished. We had another doctor check this morning and it was already looking much improved by last night, so no mommy guilt about the beach trip... yay!

Here's Ryan and Jack playing monster trucks in the sand. There is a strange thing with boys and vehicles that I don't get. Ryan sleeps with cars or trucks in his hands like they're teddy bears. He also hugs a teddy bear though :-) At least 2 of my friends with boys also talk about them sleeping with their cars in the bed.

Jack, Ella, Ryan, and Reagan playing in the sand

Daddy Weekend

While on my girlfriend getaway cruise, Cam and the kids had a lot of fun. They went to the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley, to a park with peacocks and a big hiking hill, and dinner at our friend's house (whose Mom was with me on the cruise).

Ryan told me over the phone all about how they saw mama peacocks but not any baby peacocks:

"Hi Mommy! baby peacock ... nooooo .... mama peacock" He said it clear as day, it was hilarious.

A roller coaster building exhibit at the science museum:

Sprinkler Fun

warning: shrill 4-yr old girl screams ahead

Swimmer in the Making

After swim lessons all summer, check out Reagan's skills:

Tarantulas

Cameron has been trying to find the Tarantulas on Mt. Diablo every fall (mating season when they are supposedly everywhere, crossing the roads, etc. I say "supposedly" because I will never be witnessing this for myself). Well, on September 18, he saw 6 of them. Here's a perspective of their size relative to Cam's size 12 bike shoe.

In case that's not creepy enough for you, here's some video:

Girl's Weekend

For the first time since having kids - that would be 4 1/2 yrs now - I went away with girlfriends! We went on a 3-night Carnival Cruise to Ensenada, Mexico from LA ... the cheapest cruise on the planet and the only one over a weekend that wasn't far away. We drove down on Friday, Oct 1 and back on Monday, Oct 4. We had a great time, closed down both dancing joints - one a fantastic band (whose drummer looked like David Spade, said he gets told that every night) and the dance club next door until 4 am one night. We went to the spa raffle on the first night and I actually won a facial!

From left: Michelle, Allison, Nicci, and me

On the down side, we walked out of the broadway style show it was so bad, and the food was extremely mediocre ... think cheap buffet ... 3 of us got diarrhea!

We shared an interior stateroom and thought that would be the toughest part, but it was totally fine and we'd definitely save money by doing that again. Only $262.62/person ... room & food for 3 days, diarrhea for only one ... what a deal! :-)

Michelle noting how vertically challenged she is to be able to sit fully upright on the top bunk.

Allison and I posing with the ship in Ensenada