Katy had her piano recital today. You can watch the video here. It is a little shakey because Sam was sitting on my lap while I was taking the video. Margaret behaved very well during the recital. She sat through the entire thing without really complaining. Sam had the most fun.
After the recital, all the children went and jumped on the trampoline.
We had pictures taken with Santa today. Sam went first and he was a bit afraid. Just added more pictures. There was a photographer there from the local ImageSnap place (you are supposed to go buy lots of prints). We just bought all the pictures on a CD.
Today was also the day to trim the tree. It was Margaret’s turn to put the star on the top. Once that was done, I went and turned it around to face the right direction. Mostly, the children and Elizabeth do the trimming, I just watch. This year, I think we set a new record. The first ball that was touched was dropped and broken. We then decided that maybe sam shouldn’t hang the breakable stuff. Here is a movie of Sam dancing and playing his guitar to Christmas music.
Dear santa I would like a dog.
Margaret had her first try at riding a two wheeler today. We took the traning wheels and pedals off her bike and she practiced balancing for a while. Then she wanted to put the pedals back on and she did pretty well with that as well. A few more times and she will be riding all over the place. Sam took his tricycle down and was going all around with it.
Dear Santa,
For Cristmas I want a benbag chair,a whightboard,or a bitty baby twin doll,(you can find it in the Amarican Girl catalog,at the back.)
Today we had a gingerbreaad house party. Four friends of Katy’s and Margaret’s came over an they all made gingerbread houses. Elizabeth made the houses from kits, but the kids glued a bunch of candy to them with icing. They all had fun. Also, check out Sam’s new Bolivian vest. Friends of ours gave it to him. He has only taken it off for baths. He slept in it the first night.
The whole reason for this trip was to see the change of command on the Nimitz. The son of a friend of my dad’s from college was getting command, Capt. Ted Branch. The ceremony was about an hour long and our kids were wonderful. They were all dress up and behaved very well. After the ceremony on the deck of the carrier, we had lunch on the hangar deck and then had a tour of the carrier. It was very interesting. Katy liked riding the elevators most of all. Sam liked driving the boat as well as the fact that the arms on the chairs in the radar control room went up and down.
After the ceremony today, the kids came back and played on the beach some more. Here are those pictures together with the ones from yesterday.
Spent the day at the San Diego Wildlife Park. The park is huge, there is really no way to cover the whole thing in a day. It is really nice with lots of open spaces and lots of different kinds of animals. However, for me I think about 3 different types of antelope is enough.
They have a train that takes you on a big tour around most of the park that you can’t actually walk to and see. This is really nice, they have a tour guide that tells you a lot about the animals. Ours had the worst attitude of any tree hugger I have ever met. She mostly just complained about how this animal is extinct, how bad that is, and how it is somehow my fault.
The park needs to get rid of a few tree huggers and hire some good capitalists. There were almost no signs from the freeway to the park, everything at the park that involved money took absolutely forever. I was also amazed how much erosion was in the park. The pretty valley that the park is in seems to be pretty arid. Anywhere that there were animals, there seemed to be lots of erosion. I guess if you care about animals, you don’t really care about the soil.
When we got back, the kids played on the beach for a little while. We are staying at the Navy Lodge on North Island NAS. It is about $35 a night and right on the beach. Here are a few pictures.
Today was Legoland. Everyone had a great time. Katy and Margaret rode all of the roller coasters. They are becoming pros at it. It rained last night, and the Santa Ana mountains were covered in snow – it must have been one of the coldest days of the year in Carlsbad. We froze. Rusty wore a blanket like a cape part of the time we were at Legoland. My cousin, Jeremy, and his daughter, and Julie, Rusty’s high school classmate, and her two children, joined us in Legoland. All the children ran around together. We opened the park at 10 and closed it at 5 so it was another long day.
Now we are on North Island NAS with Rusty’s parents. Tomorrow we’ll visit the San Diego Wild Animal Park. And hopefully we won’t freeze.
