"I call this game fun in a box" said the cat

Saturday afternoon Claire and Robert got a new sofa. It came in a box and boy was there fun to be had! Poor Bob pretty much wore himself out in his roles as tornado, wind, waves for the pirate ship, etc.

Sunday afternoon C & came over asking if Anthony could come play with the box again. They made it quite clear that Bob was expected to come too!

Monterey Bay Aquarium

Saturday we finally took Anthony to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. It wore him out pretty quickly, but I think he had a good time!

We breezed through the members' entrance (thanks to Bob's coworker who has a super-duper membership and lent us his guest passes), admired the scuba diver in the tank, the octopus and then to the touching area. Honestly, the touching stuff made Anthony pretty nervous. He enjoyed the empty abalone shells, but he would NOT touch the abalone that was IN the shell. He did eventually get brave enough to touch a sea urchin.

We then headed over to the BIG tank just in time for feeding. We ended up right in front and enjoyed the show. I enjoyed watching the turtle lumber around eating abalone, but I think Anthony liked the big schools of fish swimming past the best.

Poor Anthony was pretty worn out by the time we got to the sea horse exhibit. I was determined to see it as it closes after this weekend. The next day, though, he did a great job talking up everything he had seen at the aquarium.

He slept the whole way home. A nice change from the drive there when he started asking, "Are we there yet?" at the 15 minute mark.

New Washer and Dryer

I finally declared that Bob's old washer and dryer were done. The washer sounded like a jet plane taking off and the dryer was trying to set our house on fire.

The new machines arrived today. Anthony and I both were excited to see them in action. bob offered to bring popcorn.

Wormy Worm

Anthony was SO EXCITED about his first real garden project--a zucchini plant that yielded a single squash, that I decided we needed another project for fall.

We headed out to the nursery and came home with carrot seeds and sugar-snap pea seeds. Anthony had a great time planting them in our self-watering planter. Of course, now he examines the planter hourly trying to understand why they haven't sprouted yet. Patience, my boy, they tell me its a virtue.

While we were working in the yard, Anthony found a small worm. He named it Wormy Worm and carried it around for at least an hour while telling me how much he loved it.

The next morning I had a realization. He tells Bob and I that he loves us with the same degree of affection that he had for Wormy Worm.

Swimming in the river

I just like the picture, clearly this isn't of us swimming in the river.

Andrea and I scored AMAZING campsites in Wawona, right on the bank of the Merced River. Every afternoon we went for a "refreshing" swim in the river. Refreshing, of course, is a polite way of saying cold.

Anthony really enjoyed playing in the water, even though he kept calling it a pool!

A highlight of our trip

Yet poor Anthony isn't in the picture. Nor do we have audio of him exclaiming "awesome" or yelling high to everyone and everything we saw on our stagecoach ride. ("Hi people", "Hi sign", "Hi mud")

I estimate that I've made at least 19 trips to Yosemite. At some point I decided that I wanted to do something new on each trip. This time our new adventure was to visit the Pioneer Village in Wawona. I'm not sure I even knew it was there before we started planning this trip.

Honestly, I wasn't too impressed. The buildings were authentic and furnished inside. But the doors were all shut so all you could do was peer into the windows of a dark room. The boys enjoyed playing in the powder stores/jail. It was DARK in there.

The real highlight was the "stagecoach" ride. It wasn't a stagecoach, it was a buggy. The boys still enjoyed it. A 15 minute ride was nice, but it felt like an uncomfortable way to travel.

How big is the Giant Sequoia?

On our walk through the Mariposa Sequoia grove Anthony repeatedly compared his height to that of the Giant Sequoia. Needless to say, he was off by a bit.

Bike Races

Bob says that the bike races were his favorite part of the trip. All three boys brought their bikes and would race them up and down the road in front of our campsite. The order of winning was pretty predictable--Kurt was usually the first, aided by a chain ring. Poor Erik on his tricycle with the teeny wheels brought up the rear. They clearly had a great time!

Famous Last Words

When we pulled into Yosemite I actually had the nerve to comment that Anthony finally arrived at the park without being carsick. (He'd been there twice before and both times had gotten sick before we even made it to the entrance.)

This morning we all loaded into my sister's brand new minivan and drove down into the valley. Let's just say that Anthony broke it in. I had packed MANY changes of clothes for him, but they were all back at camp. I rinsed out his clothes, but he wandered around in his Elmo underpants for awhile while we waited for his shorts to dry a bit and to get to a gift shop for a new t-shirt.

Now we know. Again.

Fun with Friends

Yesterday was a great day. Bob's former housemates Ercilia and John were both in town with their families. Its been over a year since we've seen Ercilia and we haven't seen Kerry since our wedding and we hadn't even met their two youngest kids!

Anthony and Zach were instant best friends. Zach even took Anthony on the roller coaster; Anthony's first time riding without a parent. (He isn't quite tall enough to ride by himself, but Zach is old/tall enough to be his chaperone.)

They all came over to our house for dinner. I was afraid the bigger kids would be bored. We just don't have many big kid toys. They all climbed around on the jungle gym, played with Anthony's toys... It was a blast.

The six adults ate dinner outside, the six kids ate dinner inside. It was a little reminescent of our first party at the house when we discovered that ALL the kids were inside unsupervised. It was a really great day.

We're kind of suffering today to make up for it. We didn't get Anthony in bed until 10:00. (We knew it was futile while his friends were here.) He's a wee bit tired today.

Obon Festival

We took Bob's mom to the Mountain View Buddhist Temple's Obon Festival when she was visiting last month. We arrived just in time to see the Taiko drum performance.

Anthony found the big drum a little intimidating. He had a great time pounding the smaller one, though.

I think his favorite part of the festival was the shaved ice!

Trip to the dentist

Anthony had a good check-up. Bob reported that there was some "negotiation" about getting his teeth cleaned and flossed. He did cooperate at the end and even got his fluoride treatment, which he hated as before.

He is head over heels in love with his new toothbrush. It has a suction cup at the end and he's been running around sticking it to everything!