Huntington Gardens

We recently joined our dear friends, the Browns, at the beautiful Huntington Gardens in San Marino.  They remembered a camera, so follow the path here to see their pictures.  We enjoyed the children's garden and a lovely picnic.  It was a beautiful day shared with friends.

Freetime

On the day Katie and I took Jenny and her girls to the airport to fly back to California, we left our 4 at the triplets' daycare.  Avery was a little apprehensive but was comforted by two of their very special teachers.  Miss Debbie and Miss Rachel are both so sweet and nurturing and Avery ended up having a great day at school with her cousins. She learned about the letter T and made a rainbow with a yellow cupcake wrapper sun.

While the kids were at school, Katie and I enjoyed some time in a pretty little seaside town where we had sushi and went shopping.  We enjoyed lots of time in the car talking.  It was our first outing together without our kids in over 3 years and it was wonderful.

Here is a picture of Avery with Miss Debbie and Miss Rachel on the day we left for home when we dropped the triplets off at their great little school before we drove to the airport.  I was so sad, as always, to leave my sister and her family. They are so precious to us.

Peacocks and Deer

We went to Aunt Patty and Uncle Chip's house the last night Jenny and her girls were with us.  They have peacocks and deer who come visit their yard every day/night.  The peacocks were there when we first arrived but they really only come up to the house when it is quiet, not when there are 6 kids running around and talking.  We did get some beautiful peacock feathers and we got to see how the peacock trap works so they can give the peacocks to another family.

We went to see the horses, they have many horses and they are so sociable, as we walked toward their pasture they all came toward the fence to check us out and they stayed even after they could tell we weren't there to feed them.  Avery enjoyed petting one horse in particular.

  The deer did eventually come into the yard to eat.  They were so pretty and graceful.

We enjoyed yummy cookies that Aunt Patty had made for us.  One last picture on the swing, where's Elliott?

  

Arts and Crafts

One morning, Katie and Jenny were kind enough to let me go for a run down the country road.  Katie told me to run to the 2nd abandoned house and that is just what I did.  It was a lovely run with lots of different things to look at and puddles to run around.  

When I returned home I found that all the kids had done arts and crafts.  Lucia and Avery were the last to leave the table.  We were cleaning up stickers from the floor for days to come.

Travels

Avery and I recently flew with my dear friend Jenny and her girls Kylie (5) and Kira (2.5) to see my sister and her family on the farm.  We had a great flight out followed by a 2.5 hr drive from the airport.  It was a long day but well worth the travel to end up with Katie and her crew.  Our first day there was filled with adventure.  We went out to the barn to see the horses and feed the goats.  We rode out there on the EZ-go.  Avery is not a fan of the EZ-go, insisting ever after that we walk anywhere rather than jump on the EZ-go.

One Gun and Pistol in the pasture, across the pond is the house

Nearly all the kids saying hello to the goats

We got to watch one of the Jones' boys get Bessie ready for a cow show.  If the cow wins the show they get more money per pound when they sell her at the end of the show. 

 The kids got to see Bessie do her business big time, this was funny to us city folk.

L to R Kylie, Jenny and Kira, Avery, Auntie Kate, Mazie, Lucia and Elliott

On the ummm, tractor?  with Auntie Bee, Avery wanted no part of this activity but the others enjoyed checking it out

All the kids got to pick a bucket to bring some food to the goats, Avery picked the big red bucket

It was soooo heavy, thank goodness Auntie Bee came to help

Kylie checking out the goats

A girl and her bucket

Pretty little purple flowers in the grass, we don't see things like this in LA, at least not at our house.

After the barn activities, we went back to the house where a big trash pile was assembled for burning.  We had ourselves a lovely bonfire.

  

Mazie, Kira, Avery, Elliott, Lucia and Kylie (note it is impossible to get everyone looking at the same time), patiently waiting for the s'more making to begin

Avery's first s'more, she sat for a good 20-30 minutes enjoying her s'more bite by bite while everyone else ran around.

It was a great day.

Good Five

A few weeks ago Avery added yet another step to our bedtime routine.  She pulled out her little pink stool and asked us to pay attention.  She was pretending to be her teacher at school and we were her pupils.  She started to sing "Good morning everybody, how are you?" and then told us to hold up our hands like we were giving the air 5 and say back to her "good five".  We would sing this back and forth.  I could tell from her face that it wasn't exactly right, I mean what does 'good five' mean?  But she insisted this was the proper response.

Jon recently picked Avery up a little early from school and we were able to ask the daytime teacher how the song actually goes.  "Good morning everybody, how are you?"   "Just fine."  Oh, of course, that makes much better sense.  That night we tried to sing it the "right" way and Avery made us say "good five".  And she thinks it's really funny too.

Other funny words of note are stefacope for stethoscope.  Quincy is Renty and don't try to correct that one either.  Quincy answers to either name now.  And oatmeal is "oh-pee-moe".  Spot is "fpot" and twinkle is "fwinkle", as in "fwinkle fwinkle little stah".