Grandpa and Grandpa S. visit

Grandma and Grandpa S. came to visit a couple of weeks ago. (Yes I am a little behind on this blog! Sorry!) We had a great time.

The weather was pretty warm so we spent quite a bit of time at the pool. At first Sean was a little afraid of the water but now he loves it. He has to do everything on his own though - he does not like to be carried around the pool, he just likes to hang out on the stairs where he doesn't need someone holding him.

Sean has quite a collection of trains going, and he likes to build bridges, tunnels, garages, and houses for them out of his Duplo Legos.

There are some turkeys who live in the neighborhood, and we saw them one morning scurrying around.

I cleared some bushes near our place and put some of our plants in the ground. We have lettuce, parsley, basil, tomatoes, zucchini, chives, and sunflowers growing. It is so dry here that even with daily watering, the plants grow very slowly. We are still waiting on the tomatoes, zucchini, and sunflowers; but we've been eating the herbs and lettuce.

We made a couple of trips into the city. We climbed Telegraph Hill and played around on the lawn near Coit Tower.

And of course we took a cable car ride!

Sean enjoyed climbing on the stairs at Union Square.

At Ghirardelli Square, Sean explained to everyone how the machinery works.

On the way home from the city we stopped at an overlook. There was no guardrail near the steep hill so I made Sean stay on the bench. He was not happy about that. I must say I'd rather he pout than scream though!

Here is the Golden Gate Bridge (aka the "GGB") with the fog and the city.

We also went to Muir Woods. Here we are at the gift shop. Sean is not really into stuffed animals, but he did like to see how many of them he could hold!

The famous "camera smile" at Muir Woods.

A real smile. Much better!

We had lots of fun with Grandma and Grandpa. Thanks for coming to see us!

Catching up

It's been a while since I've last posted. After going through last month's pictures, I now remember why. We were pretty busy.

In late June, I took Sean to the Sonoma-Marin Fair. Here Sean is riding the carousel. He was very interested in watching the mechanism that makes the horses go up and down. We also took a train ride and a few other rides. It was nice because all of the rides were free after you paid $15 to get in. We did a lot of stuff so I think it was worth it.

There was also an area set up for kids to learn about where food comes from. There was a "farm stand" with pretend chickens and eggs, a cow you could milk, some other fake food, a cash register and scale. Sean really liked this part and would have stayed much longer if we could have!

Next, our nice California vacation/semester abroad/deployment was rudely interrupted by a huge storm in Hamilton that caused our basement to flood. We learned that we can make it home to Ohio on 24 hours' notice. Sean and I flew home so that I could take care of the ruined basement. I had lots of great help from our families (THANK YOU TO EVERYONE!), help from Sean's beloved bike (he kept himself entertained with it while I set everything out to dry and ripped out the basement carpet), and no help from the insurance company (is anyone surprised?).

Anyway here is my biker babe at the old house, perfectly content to sit on his bike all day.

And here is our lovely basement. It's not so lovely anymore. The floor is completely covered in sticky glue. This is what we have to look forward to when we return. I am not complaining, however; some people lost much more than we did. And, it's only stuff and we're not really that attached to our stuff. It was just a hard way to learn a simple lesson: do not leave any papers, books, dartboards, posters, clothes, cardboard boxes, or LPs on your basement floor while you are gone!!!

Back to more pleasant thoughts. The biker babe again. He actually helped me pull out some of those weeds.

The trip did have some good points too. We were home for the fourth of July, so we went to the parade in Hamilton. Sean had a great time; he just didn't want his picture taken.

We also stopped at Ikea to browse and play around with the props and the toys. I think Sean needs his own office.

Back in California, we resumed snacktime out on the patio. This picture reminds me of my cousin's son, Jacob. Does anyone else think so? This picture also make Sean look like a floating head because his shirt blends in with the chair. :)

We made it back to California in time to meet up with my most awesome friend from ND, Elizabeth (another E.B.!), who was in CA visiting family. She finally got to meet Sean (well technically she met him while he was in utero, 2.5 years ago), and we got to meet Lyle. He's such a cutie and a chilled out baby! Sean was very excited to meet Lyle, I think because he wanted to play with the presents we bought for him. :)

I was reading to Lyle while Sean was napping. Then Sean woke up and joined us. This lasted for a few minutes until Sean got completely annoyed by Lyle waving his arms around and touching Sean.

Cheers!