warm pool water woo hoo!

blue smile after blue raspberry icee at the SD wild animal park

Sunday we barbecued with the guys from work. The apartment complexes here have grills at their pools so we were able to a have all the fixins. Reese LOVED the pool. He jumped in off the edge and splashed around and put his face in. I think going swimming in a pool that isn't freezing a la all Washington pools was really exciting for him. And we've been able to avoid sunburn so far. But we did lose his cute sun hat at the wildlife park, so I'll avoid swimming around the noonish high sun until we get a replacement hat.
Tomorrow we are moving from our dumpy (moldy and stinky) apartment to one that we here is really nice and it's got laundry in it and it's walking distance to Costco and Ikea and the trolley. That's important since Reese and I have no car and would no doubt get a little stir crazy. My new Kathy Reichs book comes out tomorrow so we'll hit Barnes and Noble while wait for check in time at the new place. Then hopefully Reese will nap nicely so I can start reading my new book.

San Diego Wild Life Park

We hit the Wild Life Park today where you ride the tram around for a tour of the animal habitats and then there are some walk around areas too.

The boy riding the bronze rhino

on the carousel

taking an icee break

the petting zoo

getting his hand painted to make a handprint monkey picture

We forget the names of everything but this is some kind of buffalo type animal. Our safari guide pointed out they are black which provides no camouflage whatsoever because are the bad asses of Africa and have no problem taking on (and beating) a pride of lions.

the tram is fun

some lady rhinos sitting butt to butt and a giraffe

a giraffe youth and a baby, which was 5 ft tall at birth

This is one of only 8 living Northern White Rhinos left in the world. This park has 2 and the Czech Republic has 6. The 2 groups are working together on a mating plan to try to avoid allowing this animal to be come extinct. Their horns have made them vulnerable to poachers and unfortunately their natural habitats are in countries that have been filled with "political unrest" for so long animal conservation is a low priority.

These guys in the antelope family have an elliptical "follow me" symbol on their butts so they can keep track of each other as the herd travels.

you'll have to enlarge this one to see the mama and baby rhino (a different breed than the almost extinct one)

lions--I guess they already ate the people that go to this truck

overview of the park

almost as a big as a gorilla

pelican--these get 20 pounds

hatching from a stork egg

a meerkat--don't feed they bite

It was so disgustingly hot today. We were pretty uncomfortable, but had fun. Reese made a hand print monkey to hang on his bedroom wall and got a tshirt and book about baby giraffes.

Yummy Lemons

One of the other wives came down to visit too, so Reese and I hung out at their place yesterday. We ate at a diner in walking distance from their apartment. Reese stole Miss Cheryl's lemon and gave it a nibble.Yucky

the second try was even more yucky.

San Diego

So we are situated and have grocery shopped. Reese really like the low cabinets he can open so he helped put stuff away. He's very happy the trash can cabinet isn't latched like it is at home.
The water in San Diego is apparently undrinkable so Kyle's apartment has 2 jugs of Culligan water--no dispenser mind you so you have to just chug a lug. Reese is getting the hang of it!

albino peacock

Reese's NICU neighbor just emailed me these photos. I have no idea where this albino peacock lives but it is super cool.

Also a cool little tidbit: my friend Ginny lives on the Northshore of Oahu, Hawaii and in one single work day she saw Diane Lane, Woody Harrelson and Sean Penn. She had to give Sean Penn change and their hands touched. MY friend touched Sean Penn..super cool.

Catch Up

Let's back up a bit: Tuesday we rode the ferry to Seattle to go to Reese's surgery followup at Swedish. He found the round spin chairs on the upper deck endlessly amusing. Doesn't he look like a bog boy?

Then Wednesday to Friday we went to Spokane to take Uncle Travis to school. Here is the boy mere seconds after a nap with some crazy hair.

Saturday was so HOT. We went to Mimi's swimming pool. Then he checked out the deck.

and the radio.

Tuesday we left for San Diego. Reese rode the airporter for the first time.

He chatted with all his fellow passengers.

We got to visit the cockpit becasue it was Reese's first flight. The pilots said hi and the flight attendant held him for a photo--he was a little unhappy with a stranger hoisting him up.

Sitting in the EMPTY chair next to me--woo hoo--reading his book.

Finally in his car seat in Daddy's rental Mustang.

long time no talk

So the problem is that I've been so busy keeping busy so Reese doesn't notice the lack of Kyle's presence that I haven't taken any photos and I feel a sense of wrongness by not including photos. We have done lots of fun things in the last 2 weeks. 2 days of play with Briar and Delaney (sprinkler girls in our yard). We had dinner with John Paul and Ethan --a yummy pizza cooked by the brand new mom. We had a surgery check up in Seattle--I do not ever wish to drive in the city again. Reese had his initial Holly Ridge assessment. We went to Spokane to take Uncle Travis to school. Mimi took photos but doesn't know how to get them onto her computer in order to email them so they will likely never grace the pages of this blog. We went swimming. I feel like every single day has been busy. I am almost done packing for San Diego and surely I will remember to take a photo of Reese's first plane ride!!!

Busy Saturday

Saturday was Busy Busy---we went to Uncle Dylan's band's gig. Reese was very well behaved even through the RAIN!

This is the closest close up of Dylan playing drums

Reese really likes Uncle Travis' girlfriend, Amy

The whole band--they have no name yet

The band playing All Along the Watchtower

We had dinner at Noah's Ark--see the cute smiley fries

Then off to Tacoma mall for school shopping. Reese and Amy got Build A Bears. He found the fluff filler machine pretty interesting.

Uncle Travis helped Reese push the putton to control the fill.

He's helping the bear lady sew up his moose. We have to come up with a name for the moose.