Labor Day Camping Trip with Friends

For Labor Day weekend, we joined the Davis, Webster, and Newmeyer families for a camping trip.  I had started school the week before, so I did very little planning and pretty much just showed up exhausted with a scratchy voice.  They arrived on Friday night, but we waited until Saturday morning to make the trek down to San Diego's Sweetwater County Park. 

 

The weekend happened to be hotter than hot, so we were all pretty desperate for shade.  After hanging out for awhile, we drove into Lakeside (20 minutes away) to borrow the Buxton's pop-up and stop by Grandma Kay's for a short visit.  The drive gave Andrew time to take a good nap, but I forgot to take a single picture.  Both Tawni and Racheal took pictures are wrote great blogs about the trip back a month ago when we went (seriously, school consumes everything about my life).

 Photos starting on Sunday morning :)

Andrew and Elijiah found many interesting rocks to throw at each other!

 Just chilling in the big chair before it got too hot!

We had two sites, one for hanging out and eating and one for all our tents (we are light yellow on the left, Davis' are red, and Websters and orange).

 Mommy and Andrew playing!

 Dave and I took Reese, Jordan, and Andrew for a walk on the grass (seriously, if your site was one of the ones that backed up to this grassy park, this campground would be perfect in every way).  Jordan and Andrew had a lot of fun running after each other; Jordan loves Andrew, but she quickly decided that Reese was even better than Andrew.

 The other perk of this camp ground is the water splash park.  It's $3 a kiddo unless you're camping and then it's free.  It opens at 10 am and we were there and ready (it was already 91 degrees at that point).  Andrew immediately got wet and started playing in the water.

 Taylor and Nate

 Andrew yelling at Sam as he attempts to spray him (Sam just got Andrew over and over again).

 "Come on Dad, look at how cool this rainbow sprayer is!"

 "I'm going to give you a hug and get you all wet Mommy."

 Right next to the water park it a play structure.  Most of the kids spent more time here than in the water.  Sammy flew down the yellow slide (wet swim trucks will do that to you).

 Elijiah

 Back at camp, the little boys (Andrew, Nate, and Elijiah) spent a great amount of time watching Sophie (5 months old).  It was pretty funny.

 We tried to take a nap in the hot tent, but instead we just had Andrew steal the camera to take pictures of his own feet.  We ended up strapping him into his car seat for a drive/nap.  I slept in the backseat too :)

 After everyone took naps (and drove around Bonita to make it happen), we hung out with snacks under the pop-up (seriously, we would have died without it).

Racheal and Elijiah

 Tawni and Nate

 Matt with Sophie and Dave with Andrew

 Baby Sophie

 This picture makes me laugh.  Nate was on my lap first, playing and drinking with his squirt gun, but when Andrew saw that, he had to join us too.  Nate wasn't too happy to share.  His dirty looks captures it :)

 Feeding eight adults, six kids, and a baby at one time was a challenge.  Many props to Dave for cooking all the hamburgers and hot dogs on the fire.  Tawni and I usually prepared all the food inside the bug tent while Racheal watched all the kids outside.  We found another amazing use for our clip on high chair--it kept Andrew in one place!

 The rock base on our campsite wasn't the best for the little kids, so there was a lot of handholding.  Andrew face planted into the rocks several times, but thankfully we only had one small injury/scratch/bruise on his forehead.

 On Sunday night, we went to watch the bird lady show off her predator birds.

Jordan and Taylor watched on Justin's back

 Sam (in blue) and Andrew (on my lap) were very interested in the white barn owl as it hung up side down and flapped his wings.

 Sleeping at night wasn't as bad as I was expecting.  Our air mattress pretty much fills out entire tent, so Andrew slept in between us or on top of me for most of the night.  Dave took this photo Monday morning.

 Although we'd planned to be there most of the day on Monday, it was too hot.  We packed up and left the campground by 9 am.  As we packed, Andrew and Reese watched Mickey Mouse clubhouse on the iPad.

I love camping.  Next time, I think we'll go either early summer or later October so that it's cooler and I'm not in the first week of school haze. 

SLO Children's Museum

 After a day of adult sight-seeing and hand holding, Andrew has a blast at the SLO Children's Museum.  The museum itself is a three story building and each level is designed for different areas of interest.  The top story was my personal favorite.  The Jelly Bean Junction is specifically designed for four and under and all focused on trains.  The best part was that other than the elevator that took you in and out, there was no way to leave the section.  Escaping the play area is the hardest part of the other Children's Museums we've been too.

 There was a giant train to climb into and push buttons, which of course was Andrew's favorite.  This xylophone was on the front.  It made a lot of noise!

 The train table set up was nearly the size of my living room, with pop in holes throughout so that the kids could sit in the center.  Andrew enjoyed breaking the tracks apart and shoving all the trains into the train station.

 In the book reading part of the train station these windows looked down upon the other two levels and the outside portion of the museum.  Clearly, Andrew does not have a fear of heights.

 Down on the second floor, we played with the Firetruck and police cars.

 This climbing tower was pretty neat.  Andrew loved figuring out how to get taller and taller and mommy didn't have to worry about falling because it was totally caged in!

 He found the musical stage pretty quickly.  These drums and bongos got a lot of use between the four times he came back to them.

 Another, much larger, xylophone!

 Um, although Mommy really wanted to ride the horse, Andrew thought that it was horrible (that is not a laugh, that is a scream!).

 The police motorcycle was huge, but it didn't stop Andrew from climbing up to ride it himself.

Outside was several water toys, including a canal to build bridges and dams to stop the water flow.  We spent a tiny bit of time out there, but for the benefit of not becoming totally soaking wet, we weren't there very long. The first floor wasn't directed at Andrew's age so we just passed through.

All-in-all, this museum was a hit and totally worth of $6 per person.  I'm sure when we're in Arroyo Grande for Christmas with the Bennetts we'll make our way here again with the other great-grandkids :)

Tourist Day-Ayala, Pismo, San Luis Obispo

 On one of our days at Great Grandma's we went off on an all day adventure.  We started at Ayala Beach to see the sea lions and walk around the drive on pear.  Andrew was very, very excited about the sea lions!

 The coolest part of this location is that the sea lions and people are totally "free" to interact.  The gate above isn't locked and anyone can do down the stairs to where they are laying.  Dave is the only one in our family who attempted to get close, but came back immediately when they started barking at him!

 After the pier, we went to "The Farm" per Grandma's recommendation.  It was very cool!  The rooster roaming around immediately caught Andrew's attention.

 The goats were a bit scary at the beginning, that is until Andrew saw a cat and took off after it.

When it came to feeding the animals, Andrew was initially quite scared.  He quivered and said, "no" in his firm voice, yet he still tried to pick up the food and give it to the animals.  He would sort of hold it out about a foot away from their mouth and drop it.  The billy goats were pretty aggressive and scared him more.

 The lamas were nice and calm and he actually fed thim over and over again.  This one ended up getting pretty much our entire bag of food ($0.25).  As you can see from the below picture, Andrew was very serious as the food changed hands/mouth, but he loved that the lama ate it.

 The baby cows were adorable.  Andrew was sort of mooing at them.

 While we polished off an entire Fresh Apple pie, Andrew watched the horse rides with his noes and forehead pushed against the glass.

 After "The Farm" we made a stop at the Madonna Inn while Andrew slept and Grandpa read his book.

 We ate lunch at a great BBQ place and split up for the afternoon.  Grandma, Grandpa, and Aunt Melissa went back to Great Grandma's house and we headed to the San Luis Obispo's Children's Museum.

 

Such is life in September

Sorry for my lack of blogging. 

As the title of the blog suggests, September is here and my life is consumed with reality.  School, and all that it entails, is in full force, Andrew is back at school and sick already, and weekends are jammed with events.  I actually have a lot to blog about going all the way back to mid-August.  My goal is to actually blog at least once this week. 

Coming up:

1. San Luis Opispo with the Bennett's
2. ASB Class of 2016 Advisor/Football
3. Labor Day camping
4. Pretend City with Xavier
5. Sickies
6. Nashville for Shanda's birthday
7. Andrew's Back to School Night

Visiting Great Grandma Ruth

 The weekend before Andrew and I went back to school we drove to Arroyo Grande to visit Great Grandma Ruth (my dad's mom). We left in the middle of the day on Thursday, August 16th and Andrew slept the first 2.5 hours of the drive.  With Melissa and the iPad in the back seat with him, the rest of the drive was smooth.  Grandma bought a new condo in AG (leaving Bakersfield) and it was our first time there.

 Grandma loved hanging out with Andrew!

Andrew loved all the attention from everyone and especially loved that Great Grandma had stairs to climb up and down!

 

Here is a video of Andrew and GG playing with a frog that Daddy caught outside and brought inside

More posts to come with our other vacation days

 

17 Months

New Developmental Milestones this Month: Here are the new developmental things that he started doing this month:

• Physical: nothing physical is too physical for Andrew, we have a total little kid going on. He's getting better about uneven surfaces and climbing is still his favorite past time. 
• Teeth: after over two months of working on them, we finally have all 4 molars out.
• Right Bottom First Molar, September 6
• Left Bottom First Molar, August 31
• Cognitive/Language: points constantly and if we don't look, he yells Mama or Dada to get our attention, school has also promoted more jabbering (with a few less real words thrown in there), and we added two new signs (thank you and drink).
• Vocabulary/Words: We have 32 words in our vocabulary, adding hot, cold, three (as in 1-2-3-Go), Des (Desiree) and Grandma.  He has also become a copy cat with words, so we've heard others, but I won't count them until he says them independently.
• Old words are Mama, Dada, Dog, Duck, more, hi, no, byebye, ball, bunny (bun), banana, bird, tree, diaper (die), milk, night-night (ni-ni), Reese (eese), shoes, me, pretty, ears, eyes, kitty, turtle, book). 
• Psychosocial: totally showing defiance and frustration through temper tantrums, knows what he wants and where it is kept (he runs to the frig and hangs there until he gets the cheese, grapes, or whatever else he wants), very clear who mommy and daddy are and wants us over anyone else.

Physical Growth this Month/Doctors:  Obviously we had the whole tongue issue, but other than that craziness, an uneventful Kaiser month.  His tongue has healed nicely and other that a small indent on the tip, you can't even tell what happened. He does have a pretty visible scar on his chin right now.

• August 14 (date of tongue surgery): 24 lbs, 4.6 oz
• August 22: 24 lbs even, 32.5 inches (that's almost an inch in two weeks!) 

Sleeping: The first two weeks back to daycare Andrew had to be woken up to go to school (helpful for Daddy), but last week he went back to waking up around 6:30.  Hopefully we can get back to the 7 am time.  His naps are shorter at daycare than they were for the summer (right at 2 hours instead of 2.5-3). He puts himself to sleep after a cup of milk, slow dance and 'Jesus Loves You' song with Mommy.  And probably the cutest thing ever is that he now wraps his arm around my neck when we're singing.

Eating: Andrew pretty much eats everything that we eat and is getting better using a fork. Current favorites: grapes, meatballs (any kind), hot dogs, chicken nuggets, pizza, string cheese, blueberries, strawberries, bananas. Overall, he will always pick fruit first.  When he is hungry, he signs eat and smacks his lips and recently has started grabbing the diaper bag and pulling it to me for a snack that he knows are in there (yogurt fruit/veggie melts).

Diapers: Size 4s (792 used) during the day and night.
Clothing: 9-12 month still... getting tired of them (I feel like I saw this
Favorite Toys: water, books, balls singing and dancing, climbing on the chairs/mommy, and Little People animals

 Some pictures from Grandma and Grandpa Bennett's house on Sept. 8. 

Andrew's such a ham and LOVES mowing the lawn!