Father's Day

For Father's Day, we met up with the Hodgson family and had brunch at The Linkery at Tim's request.

Rachel and Papa enjoyed playing trains together on the table. I am so glad I brought something for Rachel to do because she was very antsy at brunch.

Tim had an all meat brunch and loved it.

We headed over to the Hodgson house and Rachel played some dunk basketball. I love how she opens her mouth wide to shoot.

Tim and Bryce enjoyed some scotch that Tim bought for him for Father's Day.

Tim is such a wonderful daddy to Rachel. Happy Father's Day Tim!

The Fair

I made it out to the Fair twice this year. The first time I went for free for Furlough Fridays at the Fair and Rachel and Heather came with me.

We spent a lot of time visiting animals and also dancing. We stopped for a little rest and it was one of Rachel's favorite parts of the day...and she didn't spend much time resting.

She loves to dance and still mostly just turns in circles. I don't know how she doesn't get super dizzy every time she dances.

Her other favorite part of the day was riding the pony. She still talks about it today.

The guy asked me if I needed to be in there walking with her and I said have her try it without me. She absolutely loved it. When it was photo time, they stopped the horse and told her to look at the camera, which she did. They didn't even have to ask her to smile because she was smiling the whole time.

On the drive home, I captured a bit of her singing. He two favorite songs to sing right now are: Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star and The Wheels on the Bus. I still need to get video of Twinkle, Twinkle. Here is a little bit of The Wheels on the Bus.

Here is what various things on the bus say in Rachel's world:

Mama says shhh shhh shhh

Daddy says pbbbt (farting noise)

Wheels go round and round

Horn goes beep beep beep

Nana says chatter chatter chatter

Papa says (snoring sound)

Rachel says play play play

Becky and Grant say arr arr arr (seal noise)

Sam says click click click (camera sound)

Matt says tap tap tap (keyboard sound)

Various animals make their own sounds

Sometimes she mixes and matches these sounds, but most of the time, these are the words and randomly she sticks in "all through town" at the end.

Tim and I went on the following Wednesday evening and saw The Beach Boys play. The best part of it for me was finding out that John Stamos was playing with them. He played multiple instruments as well as sang with them. I had the biggest crush on him growing up from Full House.

Sea World

Rachel and I went to Sea World a couple of weeks ago. She was begging me to go back to see Shamu. First we went on the little kids rides. Then we headed over to see Shamu.

She was so happy to see him. She clapped the whole time. She was bummed that in the new Shamu show they don't chant "Shamu, Shamu" and wave their arms up and down. She kept asking for it.

We also went to see the new exhibit, Turtle Reef.

She thought it was cool to see Tuck. Tuck is a turtle from Wonder Pets, and in her mind he is one of her best friends.

Anytime she can get into anything with a steering wheel, she jumps in immediately. She loved driving this boat, but was so sad she had to get out quickly because a bunch of kids were waiting to get in too.

We finished the trip at the 3-D Sesame Street movie. She was getting pretty tired by this point, but was pretty well behaved. She only wore the 3-D glasses a little bit, but enjoyed the blasts of air, seat shaking, water sprays, etc. Many other kids had to be taken out by their parents because they were crying and scared, but not this little one. At first she seemed a bit confused, but really seemed to like it after awhile.

A Day at Home

We spend very few days at home the whole day. Our place is so small it is always nice to get out at least for a little bit. A couple of weeks ago, Rachel and I stayed at home the whole day and it was nice to relax.

We started the morning off with a little rollerblading. Tim got her some skates that fit her and she can now stand on the carpet on her own without falling over. We still need to work on the whole trying not to skate like a baby giraffe thing.

It was a warm day and so I pulled out her crab pool from last year and as I was trying to blow it up, she wouldn't stay out of it. I could tell she was really excited to use it.

She had a really good time. She kept pulling her hat really low over her eyes. I would pull it up so she could see and she would immediately pull it back down. While she was swimming, I was talking to my mom on the phone. Next thing I know, she had company in her pool.

Our neighbor Logan could hear us talking and peeked through the cracks in the wood fence. He saw her in the pool, went and got his swimsuit on and let himself into our yard and jumped right in. Rachel was so excited to have a friend to swim with.

Escondido Children's Museum

We have a membership to the Children's Museum and went there for an afternoon outing a couple of weeks ago.

She likes playing outside in the water.

She tried to turn the thing you roll the balls on into a Rachel slide.

Her favorite indoor activity is the kitchen.

She was so funny with the stroller. She put a hat on herself as well as one on Handy Manny who was riding in the stroller and was racing around the whole place. We will definitely visit there a bunch more this summer.

June 12

Typing a blog with a two year old climbing all over over me and rubbing her head up against mine is very difficult. I will return to this blog during nap time (if she takes one...she has been very difficult to put down this past week).

Okay, so she is down for a nap. I took her paci away almost 2 weeks ago. She was really good for 4 days or so after I explained to her that she doesn't need it anymore and that it was all gone. Then the past week or so, she bawls every time I put her down. She is crying that I am leaving her and wants me to go to sleep with her. She has always been pretty good about going to sleep. She has always told us when she is tired. But this past week, she tells us that she is not tired...ever. I think she is having a hard time soothing herself to sleep without the paci. I let her choose a toy to take with her to bed and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. Sooo, I just put her down 20 minutes ago, gave her 2 books to read, which she did read, and then she went to sleep without a peep. Let's hope for that again tonight!

So June 12 was Grant's 2nd birthday celebration as well as a bbq at my moms since my sister was in town. We weren't able to make it to both since they were at the same time, but Becky sent me a picture of Grant from his party.

They had a mud party for him. I guess he didn't really dig getting dirty too much (this mud was put on him by his daddy), but his cousins sure did love it.

Meanwhile, at the Pearson house in Aguanga, we had a slightly cleaner party of our own.

I think it is always nice for my sister to catch up with my relatives since she hasn't been able to make it to family celebrations.

Poor Rachel got another head injury at my moms. She ran straight into a table and got a pretty good knot and bruise on her forehead.

She had a great time playing in the bird bath.

You can kind of see the knot in this picture under her bangs.

She loves playing at Gamma and Cappa's house. There is always so much to discover.

June 11

I am quite a bit behind on my blogging. I hope to catch up over the next couple of days. The weekend of June 11-12 was quite busy. On the morning of June 11, Rachel, Tim's mom and I all went to Claire's wedding shower. Claire and Tim have been friends for many years and went to school together.

Rachel and I spent quite a bit of the shower outside while everyone else was inside. She placed her stuff down at the table and played there for at least 30 minutes.

We had a great lunch out on their patio overlooking Rancho Santa Fe. I had to leave as soon as we finished lunch and before the table of desserts that looked amazing. I wish I would have taken a picture of it. Rachel kept walking up to it and kept her hands off (for the most part) even though is was so tempting. Rachel and Heather stayed at the shower while I heading off to the Johnson/Johnson wedding in Fallbrook.

Brianne's best friend growing up was Amanda Johnson and she got married to Travis Johnson (no relation to each other before the wedding...at least we hope not). I always made fun of Amanda because when she was growing up she always said she was going to take her maiden name of Johnson and make it her middle name and then her married name would be her new last name. That doesn't work so well when they are the same name. She would be Amanda Johnson Johnson.

Amanda looked absolutely beautiful.

Amanda came in on a boat and then her and Travis left on the boat.

Mr. and Mrs. Johnson (She doesn't even have to go and get a new drivers license.)

A good time was had by all. There was an open bar and many people took advantage of it, including Brianne, who doesn't normally drink. She put chocolate on her tooth and we took a picture of it.

There was a lot of dancing. Lacey even got Tyler out there for a little bit.

The whole family...minus Tim and Chris who couldn't make it. Brianne and I were each other's dates.

Brianne and I with the bride and groom.

There is a story behind this picture. We were reenacting a moment after Brianne's wedding where Amanda had had a few drinks and couldn't keep her eyes open during a picture. We had taken a few pictures and in every one, Amanda's eyes were closed. The only way we could get an open eye picture was with her holding them open. Congratulations Amanda and Travis!!!