Fun with Cousins

Kelly spent the night with her cousins and had lots of fun. They played American Girls, swam and stayed up really late.


Kelly loves to swim, so it's no surprise seeing her in the pool at Uncle Mike and Aunt Kelly's.


Here they are, from left to right, we have Leia, Emily, Tommy, Christion, Annie, Luke, Uncle Jonathan (rear) and our Kelly.


Kelly loves Leia.


Here are the girls in their pjs. I hope Kelly didn't keep them up too late!

Kelly's in Pennsylvania!

Yes, it's true, our little girl is visiting our family in PA-all thanks to her Daddy! Tom worked very hard to find a "hop" to the east coast and praise God, they managed to get a flight. On Friday they left from March Air Reserve Base and flew to McGuire Air Force Base in New Jersey.

Kelly is having a blast. She finally got to see her baby horse, Pinky, and Mom-Mom's new puppy. Swimming in Mom-Mom and Pop Pop's pool has been one of the many highlights of her trip. Here she is swimming with cousin, Asher. More pics will come once I can get my mom to email me some.

Kelly's Vegetable Garden

About a month ago when Kelly's grandmom, uncle and cousin were visiting they planted some vegetables. They planted watermelon, dill, basil, squash, tomato, cantaloupe and honeydew. Kelly has been faithful watering them every day, and her work has paid off. Here are a few of the plants that have made progress.


This is one of the first veggies to grow-the zucchini squash. Look how big it is! We'll be picking it very soon.


Here is our other squash plant. I think it is yellow squash.


The plant in front is basil. It has really filled out and grown up. The plant in back is banana pepper. We added this one later.

More Baby Horse Pictures

So my Mom sent more pictures of the baby horse today. Thought I'd share them since they're so cute.





Kelly's miniature horse, Sierra finally had her baby! Introducing Sierra Pink Lady (I think that's the name Kelly chose). It looks like she's all head, but isn't she adorable??!!!

Today we took Kelly to the movie theater, something we hardly ever do. We saw Kit Kittredge, an American Girl Movie. It was a great family movie, and I definitely recommend taking your kids to see it.

Swim Lessons

The last two weeks Kelly has been taking swim lessons at the base pool. Just two years ago she wouldn't put her head under the water. Now she loves to jump in the pool, go down the slide and jump off the diving board.


Here she is practicing her freestyle.


Kelly jumped off the diving board more times than I could count.



Another fun part of swim lessons was going down the slide.


Here is Kelly with her swim teacher, Rachel.

Slingshot Buddies

A while back Tom brought a slingshot home from the swap meet for Kelly. Last night they went and bought ammo. Kelly decided she would call Tom and herself "slingshot buddies". Tonight they had some father-daughter bonding time shooting them.


Here are the "slingshot buddies".


Kelly did pretty well shooting after a few practice rounds.


Tom takes a shot.


Here is the target they shot at. Kelly made it all by herself.

Our New Juicer

After months of waiting and watching we finally found the juicer we wanted. Tom and Kelly rode their bikes to Henry's and brought home lots of fruit and veggies. For our first try we made a "Cocktail Alert", which was half a pineapple, an apple, a celery stalk and a carrot. Our second concoction was pineapple and strawberries. Both turned out yummy. In addition to the great taste, we had lots of fun making them.



Tom and Kelly put the fruits and veggies down the hopper.


The pulp comes out the side and the juice flows out the bottom.


Mandi tests the finished product-it was delicious!


Kelly even likes it-yum!

Our Last Night

On our last night together we went to our favorite Chinese restaurant for dinner then headed to the pier to catch the sunset.


This was our last walk on the pier.


A beautiful sunset topped off the night.

San Elijo Tidepools

Today we drove down Pacific Coast Highway 101 to San Elijo State Beach to visit the tidepools.


This rock was the perfect spot to dip your feet. It had a small pool about 3 feet deep.


The kids looked at small crabs that flitted all over the beach.


Annie holds up a dead lobster that had washed up on the beach.


Kelly holds one of the tiny crabs she found.


The kids climbed up this cool rock.

After we came back from our walk down the beach we had lunch on the rocks and let the kids play.


Annie checks out what's on the bottom.


Kelly enjoys jumping off the rocks.



The kids have fun swimming in the ocean

Kelly had her ears pierced!

Since Kelly found two pearls that were about the same size, we had them made into earrings. That brought on a conversation about Kelly getting her ears pierced. Her cousin Annie, who is visiting had hers done last year, so Kelly finally decided to have hers done too. We took her to Claire's and she chose her earrings. She was nervous as the girl prepared everything, and afterward she said it hurt, but she didn't cry. The excitement was almost unbearable, as if our little girl was getting ready for her first date. She sure is growing up (sniff)!


Here she is getting her ears cleaned and marked.


Before...


During...


After!

Fun at the Fair

We visited the San Diego County Fair on Saturday and enjoyed the food and sights. While we were there each of the kids picked an oyster to find a pearl. Cousin Annie went first and she found 3! Kelly went next and there were 2! Jonathan chose two oysters and found 2 black pearls. The kids were really happy with their choices.


Here they are waiting to see how many pearls are in Annie's oyster.


Annie had 3!!! The jeweler cleans and polishes the pearls in regular table salt.


And here's Kelly picking her oyster.

The parrot rescue people let the kids hold the parrot.

We had fun walking around the animal buildings. We saw all types of goats, sheep and cows.

Kelly and Annie had front row seats at the pig races.

The potbellied pigs were the funniest to watch.