San Diego ... Meet the Gormans!

We went to San Diego for our final summer vacation.

Honestly, the kids were excited for it but ... Frank and I were ... well ... a little burned out on vacations!  Seriously.  You might not think it's possible, but we were a little bit less than enthusiastic for this final vacation.

Lucky for us, beautiful San Diego changed our minds.  Within 48 hours of landing we were happy and relaxed and having a great vacation. 

We had a busy trip.  Uncle Chris, Aunt Lori, and Baby Henry came to visit us from Scottsdale.  Mr. Joe came to see us from L.A.  We went to Legoland.  We went to the aquarium.  We visited Aunt Joan in Dana Point.  We made s'mores on the beach.  And we, of course, spent all of our free time on the beach and at the pool.  

It ended up being lots of fun ... all the way until the flight home when some horrible family sat behind us and coughed relentlessly on our backs.  Frank, Sarah and Nate sat in front of the Typhoid Mary Family and they all ended up sick within 24 hours of landing.  

Poor poor Frankie spent this whole week knocked up with a terrible flu (swine, perhaps?) and Sarah and Nate are fighting off some nasty colds.  Arrrggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

You can see our vacation pictures if you CLICK HERE.  This link will take you to the first page (of 6 San Diego pages).  Feel free to click around to see the rest.

Happy day!

Happy day!

Iggy, Sweet Iggy!

Sarah got her wish and rode Iggy in the horse show. 

It was a very happy day.

Also, she recently moved up to a new level in her classes and was the most junior rider in her heat.  Still, she managed to get a third place and a very lovely compliment from the judge.  

She left there a very happy little lady!

You can see more horse pictures HERE.

Day at the Creek

A few weeks ago my kids, my friend, her daughter Rachel, and I went to a local farm for a picnic and some fun in the creek.  It was a beautiful day and we all had a great time.

The kids spent most of their time trying to find creatures in the water and were quite successful!

Have you ever seen such a HUGE crawfish?????  We thought they caught a lobster!

Our day ended when one of Rachel's shoes fell off and swam down the stream faster than we could move.  We chased it for a while ... with no success ... and ended up calling it a day.

Sarah Wishes for Iggy

Sarah's back in horse camp this week.  Tomorrow they will have a little horse show to celebrate the end of the week.  She has been crossing her fingers that she will get to ride a horse named Iggy in the show.  

To be clear, she isn't just wishing for any random horse who just happens to be named Iggy. There really is a horse named Iggy and she loves him and her every thought is filled with wishes to be assigned Iggy as her show horse.

This morning she came to me and told me that she could barely sleep last night because she is so anxious to find out the horse assignments.  Then she went on to tell me that she dreamed about Iggy.  I love this part .....

Sarah dreamed that her trainers laid out stars in the shape of the constellations on the ground and then she got to ride on Iggy all around the constellations.

Isn't that sweet??

PS.  I just picked her up from camp and she DID get assigned Iggy.  Tomorrow will be a very good day.

PPS.  That's not Iggy in the picture.  I'll take his picture tomorrow.

Polly Wanna Cracker?

My Aunt Betty is a million years old and living in a nursing home in Missouri.  It seems that she is somewhat unhappy with the cost of living there.  She fights back by stealing from the dining room -- as many crackers as she can shove into her pockets. 

Hundreds of packets of contraband wheat crackers have been stuffed into her pockets, taken back to her room, carefully packaged into gallon-sized plastic bags, and sent home with my mom to be distributed to ... well ... to me, Chris, and Liz.  Aunt Betty hands them off with a "this will help them in this terrible economy" speech.

For some reason (I assume it's because she can't possibly use a million cracker packets), my mom saves the bags and follows through on her cracker distribution promises.

Every time we visit St. Louis my mom gives the bags to MY KIDS.  My mom is smart.  She knows that I will try my darnedest to leave the crackers behind.  My kids, on the other hand, are pleased as punch to get such a big bag of loot.  

Yesterday, I cleaned out my pantry and found FIVE FULL BAGS of crackers lurking in all kinds of places.  So ... anyone have any good recipes that require LOTS of whole wheat crackers?  Anyone WANT some crackers?  Please ... help ....................

She's a Climber

All three of my people are in camp this week.  Three different camps in three different places with three different drop-off and pick-up times.  I'm spending my days looking at my watch and trying to remember which kid to pick up at which time.  So far, it's working.

Sarah is back in horse camp and Nate is going to day camp ... but the real excitement this week is Paige.  Paige is going to rock climbing camp and she loves it.  Loves it, I say.  It's quite a thing to see.

Here are a few pictures.  If you'd like to see more, you can 

CLICK THIS LINK.

Cheers!

-Becky

Our First Shiner

Nate fell at the pool and now he has an impressive looking black eye.

The story is not that simple.  In reality, we were swimming, he was annoying his sister, he wouldn't stop, we called him out for a time out, he was cold, I wrapped him up sausage-style in his towel, he argued with us about sitting for his time out, I started counting (which, for some reason always makes my kids hop to), he turned to go sit down, tripped, fell, couldn't get his hands out to break his fall and landed flat on this face.

Bad mommy.

He was still wearing his goggles -- luckily -- and they took most of the punishment, but his poor little eye was instantly swollen and a bit bloody.  I cleaned him up with promises of much more impressive wounds in the morning.

For the next few days I annoyed him with a daily photo shoot.  We have to document the wound, don't we?  

Today, six days later, he's looking less wounded.  This is probably the first day that it is getting better rather than worse.  He says that his eye feels funny and that he has to "blink gently" but I think he'll be fine in no time.

He does, however, blame me for my faulty blanketing.  He said that if he would have had his hands out he would have been able to do a front break fall and, therefore, save his face.  I think he might be right, but I also think that the goggles saved the day.  I'm quite positive that his face would be crashed up if he didn't have them on.

That's my story; that's my problem.

Day 1:

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Today:

Wishes Are For Coming True

On Wednesday, I found an eyelash on Nate's cheek.  I put it on my finger and told him to make a wish.  I said, "Blow it away and you'll have good luck."  He said, "I wish to play the Wii", blew the eyelash away, and walked away.

Fifteen minutes later, while I was working on some pictures, he came back and our conversation went something like this:

Nate:  "How's it coming along?"  

Me:  "My pictures?  Slowly." 

Nate:  "No.  My wish!  How is my wish coming along?"

He was so cute and sincere ... but I didn't want to let him play the Wii.  I asked him what makes him think his wish will come.  He looked at me and said, "Because that's what wishes are for.  Wishes are for coming true."  

How can you resist that logic??  How could I want to be the mommy that tells him that HIS wish is not coming true?

Nate got his wish.  Lucky Nate.