Santa Barbera County Fair

If you're wondering about the title of this blog, they misspelled it on the ferris wheel... it didn't make us very confident in the workmanship.





Wednesday night we went to the fair with the Moores. Fun was had by all the kids, and I think most of the adults, though it was kind of tiring, and I was really freezing by the end of the night. Emma and Elliot were adorable on this tractor/train ride, and were sitting right in the front car, making honking and choo-choo sounds the entire time, and saying, "Woah, tractor!" and stuff like that. They had a blast. Elliot also went on the swings, which ended up going a little faster than I thought. Oops. He started out smiling, then after a couple rounds, had somewhat of a disgusted expression on his face, and towards the end was crying a little bit. He must have gotten really dizzy because he was staring at the middle/hub thing the whole time, and didn't even look out despite my excited-mother-ly attempts to get his attention and cheer him on. I played a carnival game and won him a stuffed whale, which he loved right up until the time he threw it on the ground. We're not sure quite when that was, but it was lost forever. The one time I won a carnival game! Sheesh! (also one of Elliot's favorite words now). He loved the fair food - chili cheese fries and cotton candy. Oh, and right when we got there, we went to see the pigs. At first he loved them - loves Charlotte's Web (new version) - and then he heard some of them squeal really loud and got scared of them. From that point on, he was afraid to look at them and would cry and close his eyes and turn his face away when I tried to show him any animal besides rabbits and chickens. Even the pony rides, which his grandfather will attest he loved at the strawberry festival, he refused to go on after waiting 20 minutes in line. I even had to hold him the whole time we were in the petting zoo. Hopefully he will get over it by the time he sees the horses in Montana! We are leaving on Monday and so excited. On with the adventure! p.s... the last picture is the post-fair recovery picture. :)

El Quatro de Julio

We enjoyed spending the 4th of July with our fun church family. Here are the kids watching the fireworks. They were really enjoying them, and it was a joy to behold. Elliot, unfortunately, thought they were too loud and covered his ears and wanted us to hold him the whole time. I think he was already feeling sensitive, though, after falling off of Donna's huge concrete turtle and bashing up his face on it's head, plus taking more than a few tumbles over the threshold of their doorway. It was a rough night for him, but he handled it okay. Overall it was a really fun night. Go USA!

Eden

Our yard continues to become a more and more beautiful place. We enjoy it every day, and wonder why we ever leave our home. It's nothing short of miraculous how an empty, weedy patch of dirt can be transformed so quickly into a haven, a peaceful place teeming with life, a new living room, dining room, play area. The sunflowers are blooming a lot right now, so of course I had to take all our pictures standing in front of them. Some of them have started to fall over with the slightest wind now that they are so heavily flower laden. I have to check every day for any that may need to be tied to the fence for support. It's so lovely to always have a bouquet on the kitchen table, and one to bring to a friend's house. Same with the veggies. Although the lettuce needs to be re-planted, the zuchinni and yellow crook neck squash are going crazy, and soon we will have plenty of tomatoes, too. It's amazing how much food we are getting out of 50 square feet of veggie beds. Now I know why kids needed the summers off to help their parents harvest! I gather a big basket of stuff every three or four days! Right now I have pumpkins starting off for the fall, too. I can't wait to see those get big. One variety is called "Cinderella's Carriage". So cute. Anyway, as you can see, we are enjoying life very much...Elliot loves looking at the flowers, bees, worms, and spiders he finds in the garden. He has been spending every day in swim trunks (when he's not naked), and in and out of the wading pool. We could not ask for a better place to be raising and enjoying our son. Thank you, God, for this little piece of Eden.

Copy Dog

He does whatever Chewie does. This includes running around with the dog toys in his mouth and picking them up off the ground with his teeth, eating the dog food, and drinking out of the dog water bowl by putting his face in it. He's also recently decided that throwing dried up dog poop is just as fun as throwing rocks! Yay.

The Good Life

My very own little lounge lizard (as my mom used to say about me). Elliot only lounged long enough for me to take the picture, though. Then he got up and resumed his toddler duties of running around doing ten things in two minutes.

10 year reunion

Last Saturday, Erik and I went to my ten year high school reunion. I can't believe it's been ten years already! Our friends Annie and Beau met us at our hotel room, from which we had a great secret view (through shutters) of all the people checking into the hotel and arriving for the reunion. It was like being in high school all over again in some respects -- the giddy excitement, but without all the insecurity. We ended up having a blast, despite an awkward beginning. Erik was behaving very badly, going up to people and saying, "Oh my God, I haven't seen you in so long! Yeah, class of '97!", but everyone just thought he was hilarious (though I was a tad bit embarrassed). By the end of the night, all the little cliques had homogonized into one group of dancing friends, just having fun. Over all, it was a healing, and totally fun experience. I'm interested to see how changed people will be at the twenty year mark. Wow, by then we'll all be getting close to 40! Except me... I think I'll just stop aging now. :)

Au de Spank!

Hello friends and family. I don't have any new pictures to post for today, but I thought I would give an update of Elliot's new words and funny things that have happened.

So, new words are coming more and more often. Hopefully soon he'll get to where he just repeats everything, and takes off language wise. But here are the latest words:

Dolphin, lizard (oh-youd), crab (pwab), whale, moon (bone), shark, seal, animal, lion, van, kid, hair, mouth, nose, hurt, cold, on, off, in, out, up, down, bug, cat, dog (very clearly), yes, oh yes!, all right!, woo hoo!, okay, pita, turkey, grape, pants, jump (pwump), spank, sand, beach, mess, yucky, dirty, shell, splash, throw, lotion, buns, one, two, three, five, six, seven, eight, nine, way (as in out of my), sun, sunflower, wagon, push, ........I'm sure there are more, but that's all I can think of right now.

I forgot to mention the funniest thing at El Cap (besides Jennifer getting pooped on by a seagull). Elliot was playing naked on the beach and put his rear end right in Erik's face, then said, "Au de Spank!" as he spanked himself, and then took off running!

A week or so earlier, Erik had a funny experience in Starbucks when Elliot came into the men's room with him. He was showing Elliot how it's done, when Elliot reached out and grabbed the stream of pee. Then he said, "hot!", as Erik was trying to figure out what to do. So funny!

Today Erik got his hair cut for the first time since I've known him, and probably the first time in 15 years or more. They put a bunch of gel in his hair and it made his hair stiff. I was surprised that Elliot noticed the difference, but he did -- he kept calling it a hat! We thought it was hilarious.

Elliot counts to three correctly now, and if I say four, he can keep going till nine. He did that yesterday unexpectedly. I didn't even know he knew the rest of the numbers! Mostly Elliot spends his time running around the back yard nude, and in and out of the wading pool. It's so run to watch him enjoying the yard, looking at all the flowers and bees and rolling around in the water. Life is great. Hope you are all doing well, too. xo

The Payoff

This is the reward for the work I did in March of re-doing and seeding an empty flower bed. It is the reward of the hard work done by Erik and Bill and me last summer, and Mary's babysitting. It is the reward of my high school Ornamental Horticulture class, from which I retained an astonishing amount of information, and of my mother, who taught me how to grow things. Every day I am amazed at the garden and how much it has grown. It's so wonderful to have a place like this to enjoy with my family. Every time I leave to go to the beach or on an outing, I think, "Why am I leaving? It's so nice right here!" I feel so blessed to have this little remnant of paradise here in my back yard. Thank you so much, God! And thank you to my family for making it happen on the nitty gritty, road basie, concretey end of things. I appreciate it every single day!

Whipper Snipped

First professional haircut at Whipper Snippers. He watched Finding Nemo very intently while she cut his hair. It turned out really really cute. We will be doing this from now on, I think!

El Cap

First family camping trip! We got a sloped site banked by poison oak, but we still had fun. The first day we were there, after setting up camp, we headed down to the beach. Elliot played in the water and sand with his daddy while I fell asleep on the beach blanket. When I woke up, there were tons of dolphins playing and jumping out of the water in twos and threes. Just a tiny breeze to curb the heat, and kids and families enjoying the beach. Beautiful! We froze that night because we didn't bring enough blankets, and the next day got really windy in the afternoon, but despite that, we still had a fun and exciting time. Maybe Jalama next year? Maybe Plasket Creek? We brought the body board, and Erik went in for about 30 seconds and caught one wave, after which he immediately came back to the blanket. It was too cold for him. The beach was very tarry, and so was the water.

Good Cop

Elliot hates it when I play guitar. He screams at me and hits the guitar. I basically can't play when he is awake because this happens every time. Erik, on the other hand........Elliot dances to his music and sits nicely and plays with him. They are so adorable together. It has been great to see how much Elliot has bonded to him this time that Erik has been home. Whenever he leaves to go surf, Elliot misses him and searches the house for him about every half hour. He cries when he leaves, wants him when he's sad, and for sure prefers daddy to put him to sleep and wake him up. I'm much more likely to trigger a tantrum or some angry struggling. But all this is okay with me, because I see how much fun he is having with his dad.

First Rodeo

This was a first Rodeo for both of them! We went on Friday night. After about 30 seconds of "sitting" with Elliot, which really means jumping around and grabbing him and pulling him back and holding his had while he jumps off the bleachers, I realized he was going to need a snack to keep him occupied. Kettle corn worked for a couple minutes. He didn't like the cotton candy. He liked watching the horsies, which he still refers to as "shi-shi", and the chuck wagon as it went around. He loved watching the guy parachuting down at the beginning, and continued to search the sky for more airplanes and guys the rest of the night whenever he thought of it. We all had a fun time this year at the Rodeo. Now we are looking forward to when he is old enough to sign him up for mutton bustin'! We also had a great visit with Brooke and Darin, and are so looking forward to meeting their daughter when she is born!

The Macaroni Express

First you load it up with Macaroni and Cheese and then you go make some deliveries. Some for the mouth, some for the dog, and of course a couple piles on the table and floor. That's what he must have been thinking while I was taking these pictures. He was carefully lining up the macaroni lengthwise in the bed of the truck and zooming it around the table. Occasionally he would stop, eat it's contents, and refill at the station/bowl.

It's so fun to watch him learn new and exciting and messy things each day! At least this is better than picking up dog poop or drinking out of the dog water dish. :)

Elliot has finally learned how to say "car" or "Cars", with a thick accent. He also likes to say "another one" and "the other one", as well as "oh my goodness", which sounds more like "deh-dess". Sometimes he shortens it to "Oh, dess!" He also says scone, "bone" or "mone", church, and Starbucks, "Ah-bucks", honey bee - "ah duh bee", and push. I think that's about it for words that he's learned recently. He's been doing some really funny dances with lots of arm and shoulder movements.

What an adventure....all aboard!

A good day to die

Sunday was.... if you were a gopher or a mole! While weeding my vegetable garden I heard a rustling and, looking over, saw some weeds swoosh away and disappear down a gopher hole. I caught it out of the corner of my eye, but I needed to be certain. I didn't want my hopes of killing to be disappointed. So I pulled out some nice, fresh weeds, and stuck them root end first into the gopher hole with the leafy part sticking out. I went about my gardening. Just as I was going to leave the garden and go make lunch, the rustling resumed. I looked, and the weeds I had placed were gone. "Now I have you", I thought. "You are mine. Your blood is my property!" I got the hose, placed it in the hole and turned it on. It only took a few seconds for the fiend to stick his head up, gasping for breath. The only problem was that he didn't come all the way out -- just stuck his head and upper body out. So for a few minutes I played "Whack-a-Mole", only the live gopher version. I'd hit with the shovel, and he would duck back in. When I tired of that, I scooped into the dirt and got him out. Then I smashed him with a few whacks of the shovel. Elliot was just a couple feet away throughout this process. Hopefully it wasn't too traumatizing. He seemed interested. Then he held my hand and we cheered triumphantly while we took the corpse to the trash can. Later that day, at Mary and Bill's house, Bill caught a mole (he's constantly battling them just as I am the gophers) and I truly shared in his joy. My husband was so proud of my reaction when, instead of screaming or being grossed out, I cheered. It was a good day to die.

A Heritage From the Lord

Unless the Lord builds the house,
its builders labor in vain.
Unless the Lord watches over the city,
the watchmen stand guard in vain.
In vain you rise early
and stay up late,
toiling for food to eat --
for while they sleep he provides food for those he
loves.

Sons are a heritage from the Lord,
children a reward from him.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one's youth.
Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame when
they contend with their
enemies in the gate.

Psalm 127

That says it all.

Welcome!

Hi friends and family. I'm semi-new to the world of blogging, but pretty excited about it. I'm going to be posting pictures and updates here throughout the summer, so if you are interested in seeing cute pictures of Elliot and seeing what we've been up to, this is the place. Hopefully there will be lots of exciting adventures. Erik will be coming home in a couple of weeks, and we will be going camping in June. My 10 year high school reunion is also in June, and we hope to do a little more yard work and perhaps a bit of traveling this summer as well. Elliot is growing and changing every day, so I will have lots to say about him. Love!

Eva