County Fair

The weekend before last was the County Fair. I was very surprised to find out that our county has a whole 4H competition complete with pigs, cows, goats, all kind of livestock! We even watched part of the auction for the pigs and cows. LT enjoyed all the typical fair things - food on a stick, pony rides, and meeting the state troopers.

It turns out this was probably the last Santa Clara County Fair. They haven't turned a profit in years and needed 90,000 attendees to break even. They only got about 40,000 they said. The end of an era, I suppose.

A Study in Dry Erase

Here the artist details his work.

1. A Snail. With legs.


2. A Stingray with a Long Tongue, as pointed out by the artist.


3. A Pokey Meany Fish.


4. The artist working on a canvas.


5. A Porcupine with 5 Legs.

Barry Bonds Jr

We've created a baseball monster. It all started with an innocent trip to an A's game a few weeks back. Now he goes around singing "Let's go Oakland." Then we ran into a baseball set at the Discovery Channel Store's Going Out of Business Sale. Next thing you know, LT wants to play baseball every chance he gets. Daddy came up with a genious plan and drew homeplate and the pitcher's mound on the driveway with sidewalk chalk, complete with foot spots. Then Mommy got a spot as catcher. (Wait a minute!?!? LT is really enjoying it. Maybe I will even look for a Tball league for him next year.

Note: the stray satellite dish and umbrella stand are soon to be disposed off.
Note (if Uncle Gregg is reading): We went with Dish Network. Loving it!

Home Sweet Home

You may be wondering where we have been... well, we bought a house, went for a long weekend for a wedding, moved, sold a house, had visitors, all in the span of 2 weeks. Now we are in unpacking misery. Only about 4 inside boxes left! Plus then the odds & ends laying about looking for their perfect spot.

We are really enjoying the new house. Just last night we went to a community even that has a band playing at the downtown elementary school. LT and I jogged over - it's only about 1 mile - and we met up with some friends and had pizza and strawberries and sat in the grassy field and had a great time. LT got a ride back with Daddy and I pushed back the empty jogging stroller and enjoyed the nice neighborhood to walk through. I only got a couple weird looks.



Oh, and a PS - the house was tented for termites before we moved in while we were away on that long weekend!

Local News: It rained!

LT likes to read the paper for the "sunshine" (and the kids' paper, or comics) because that's what's always on the weather page. Newsflash, it rained in San Jose yesterday; 1/100th of an inch to be exact. Apparently, that was the first time ever in recorded history that it has rained on July 18th in San Jose.

http://www.mercurynews.com/news/ci_6411870
Fortunately, the five day forecast shows all sunshine ahead. Phew.

Zoo Park

A trip to our local "Zoo Park."






OOPS! I just realized I had this post saved as a "draft" from the 18th and never posted. It's stll pretty accurate for every trip to the zoo park. We just went again with Grandma last weekend (the 28th) and did all the same things.

What not to do

What not to do when going 50MPH.

Human train tunnel

A picture from a few weeks ago. Notice the Thomas the Train underwear. Coincidence? Probably not.

Kefirbeard

Ranks right up there with the famed Yogoatee

New home pictures

After an intense two week home search and one failed bid on a beautiful eichler (I still like it), we found a lovely remodeled bungalow (60 years new) in a nice quiet neighborhood within a block of two parks. We're in contract and should be moving in about a month.

Not new home

We found a house, but first, a house we did not buy.

In the second picture, that same pattern is on the wall, on the roller shade, AND on the ceiling!

7 seconds

I had this video of LT "driving crazy" that I wanted to post, but somehow I only uploaded 7 seconds. It's still fun.

Crazy Driver!

Haven't had much time to post recently because we've decided to move! We've been running around like crazy getting the house ready to sell.

LT has put in his list for the new house:

Yard
Basketball goal
Soccer goal like JT's that says "GOAL" when you score
Playground

And so on...

I've been moving stuff into the garage so today he added his basketball, soccerball and bike into the pile to be sure we didn't forget it. :D

Wish us luck!

Toddler Topgun

We made a brief visit to San Diego this weekend and had a very nice time. Today LT and I were very tired since we got up at 5am to catch our return flight. LT was so tired that he was asking to take a nap at 9:30 AM. I told him that Miss Karen would surely let him take a nap, so the first thing he said when she opened the door was "Please take a nap." Miss Karen looked a little confused and asked "Now?" So I gave her the low down.

Our toddler topgunners were aboard the USS Midway. It turned out that visiting an aircraft carrier is actually really interesting! Who knew! We stayed 2-1/2 hours and I could have easily stayed more. Seabee LT was frightened by the "scary" cardboard cutouts of the Navy officers. hahahah

ZooZooZoo

BLT Sr had a kayaking class on Sunday, so LT and I headed up to the Oakland Zoo with my old friend G. She and I went to Italy together in 1999. How has it been 8 years already!??!

Following in the footsteps of Daddy...

Oops, I realized I didn't pick the best pictue. BLT is using his Fisher Price camera.

And some excellent results! These next two are BLT's actual pictures!



BLT really enjoying these small doors at the reptile house. He was not as interested as the inside. And he really hated the insect house!


Oakland Zoo is the only zoo in the area with elephants (SF Zoo and our little Happy Hallow don't have any). We enjoyed them!

Blur

It's hard to capture a 2-1/2 year old on film! LT loves to "make laps" at the playground.

This fountain was poorly designed with a bunch of rocks in the bottom and then a small plaque that says "Please do not throw the rocks." Try explaining that to every single child who comes by. LT was picking the rocks up and dropping them. I said,

"LT no thowing rocks."
"Mommy, I'm not throwing them, I'm dropping them."

Fair enough!

Cupcake Cafe

Yesterday after I picked up Lucas, we stopped by the library to pick up a cookbook. I wanted to get this vegetarian cookbook I checked out before so we could have a remake of the squash curry in roti. While in the cookbook section, LT found the book he was looking for. It was not a vegetarian cookbook. It was a cupcake cookbook. We left with that one. (Someone else must have checked out the vegetarian cookbook!) LT and I then cooked up some very delicious carrot cupcakes with flowers on top. Amazingly, we had all the ingredients actually at our house already. He instited on the flowers on top because that's what's on the cover of the book! When we put them in the oven he said "Are they going to turn into cupcakes? Are there going to be a flower on top?" :D

You can compare with the cover - I think we did a good job!

Censored

It's the simple pleasures in life. Like... little potties! Little sinks!

"Mommy, it's little, it's little like me!"
"Mommy, the sink is little, too!"
"Mommy, the paper towel is little!"
"And, look! A little trash can! Little like me!"

I don't think he will mind going back to Ikea again. Good thing since our end table was missing a piece.

I've been swamped with work since we've been back and have been working every night after LT goes to bed. Ugh!! Hasn't left much time for blogging. Note to self: start taking more pictures!

First "joke"

This took place this morning as I was getting LT dressed.

LT: Knock on the door.
Me: What?
LT: Knock on the door.
Me: (I make a knocking sound on the table)
LT: Orange!
Me: ???
LT: Orange!
Me: Oh, knock, knock?
LT: Orange! Knock knock... banana.
Me: Who's there?
LT: It's not banana... ha ha... it's orange

I thought he must've learned it (poorly) from an older kid at daycare. A bit later, I asked him, "Who likes to say banana?" He says, "Me... and Isaac [a five year old]. He's funny!"

China

We're back! We're tired! We're recovering!

Lots of pictures have been posted at the family website. If you don't know the address, post a comment and I'll email it to you.

Somebunny Loves You

Look! It's the Easter Toddler!

We've been super busy so we haven't been taking many pictures or making many updates ... but we'll be taking a lot of pictures the next two weeks! Look for them soon!