Visit to the Aviary

For their monthly field trip, B and Steve took Blake today to the Tracy Aviary, a Salt Lake City institution that I remember visiting as a child.  Two bird shows, duck feeding, and lots of adventuring amongst feathered friends were all part of the day. 

The bird show...

Blake bravely and gently approaching the birds...

Pictures that Blake took...

Fun...and a little nap on the way home...a good day.

More culinary tales

Blake is learning the alphabet and is very good at recognizing letters.  This has provided some interesting events, such as at a recent dinner at a Chinese restaurant.  He likes the big adult menu at all restaurants and finds a letter he knows and says, "I want that."  This particular night, it was a "D".  A "D" for Duck.  I explained that it was a whole duck and he might not really want that, maybe noodles and chicken would be more suitable.  But no, he wanted duck.  I found a smaller 1/2 duck and low and behold, a few minutes later, there was our platter of Peking Duck.  The good news is that he ate it!

Other experiences with this type of thing include our visit to California where he insisted on having squid.  Okay, we thought.  Do you have fried calamari?  No, only fresh squid sauteed.  Well, here goes... And our platter of mini squid, pink, purple, and white showed up.  Believe it or not, both boys LOVED it and ate nearly the whole thing.

That same evening, Blake managed to eat all the fresh crab out of my cioppino soup.  And when we returned to Utah and were scouting out the fresh fish section of the grocery store, trying to decide between the usual fare of trout, salmon, or orange roughy, he saw the crab legs.  "I want crab legs," was the request. So, we got him a crab leg and he ate the entire thing that night.

These eating adventures now include trying lobster tails from the store (this took much bravery on my part), lots of sushi (he even likes the seaweed salad), and the classic memory of him ordering directly to the waiter at a local steakhouse, "I'd like a cow."

Each evening is basically a lesson in food sources.  We ask, "What would you like tonight, chicken, cow, pig or fish?"  Once, when we'd apparently had too many nights of meat, he turned to me and asked in a mildly exasperated voice, "When are you going to buy some fish?"

Granted our main sustenance is still noodles and peanut butter and jelly, but gosh, these eating adventures have been quite entertaining.  I tell him, "Good thing you are so smart so that you can earn enough money to support your culinary tastes."  And he has aptly observed, "So...to make money... you need to work on a computer."

I think he's right.

Eating

Most of you may know that Gavin is our eater.  When pregnant with Gavin, I remember being very hungry, much more than with baby #3 (thus far anyway).  Still the amount of food that this 20-month old can consume is sometime incredible to us.  Here is today's list of meals and snacks:

Gavin:
Breakfast:  1/2 piece french toast, 4 oz orange juice, at least 12 pieces of cut pineapple
Snack:  4 oz orange juice, 8 oz water
Lunch: 3/4 cup cooked pasta noodles, 3 pieces cooked cauliflower with cheese, 3 crackers with cream cheese (mostly just licked off the cream cheese), 4 oz water

6 oz bottle of milk before nap

Snack: 2 whole chocolate chip cookies, 3 oz water.
Dinner:  2 entire artichokes (leaves only, doesn't like the heart), 1/4 lb. cooked salmon filet, 3/4 cup cooked rice, 8 oz milk, followed by whole banana (the two boys actually consumed 2.5 large bananas after dinner)

6 oz bottle of milk before bed

Blake:
Breakfast:  whole piece french toast w/ syrup, 3 pieces of pineapple, 8 oz orange juice
Lunch: 3 pieces salami, 1/4 cup cooked noodles, 3 pieces cauliflower with no cheese, 2 chunks of raw cookie dough, 6 oz milk
Snack: 2 chocolate chip cookies, 8 oz milk
Dinner: 4 bites of salmon, 1/2 cup of rice, 6 artichoke leaves, 6 oz milk, 1.5 bananas + 4 more oz milk

Pics below from Easter, but are of an eating nature...

More beach time

I love the beach and I love going to the beach with kids.  But I love my husband even more at the beach.  The energy that he has to run races, fill buckets, dig holes, build castles, bury children in sand, and take them to the bathroom when needed, is absolutely amazing.  And you can triple sentiment that since most of our beach trips seem to follow a grueling triathlon race that Sebe has just completed.

We had a great time visiting Carlsbad Beach in Carlsbad, California.  We stayed in a lovely rental house across the street from the beach, which made spending the day on the sand truly possible.  The sun came out and, despite Gavin's initial uncertainty about getting wet and actually having water touch his toes, everyone had a great day.

a preview of the "sand slide"; see video below

The boys also made their own "sand slide" and spent a lot of time on that:

But this is my favorite, the typical day for Sebe at the beach.  I love you Sebe.

April's California trip

In early April, we all went to Oceanside, CA for a family trip and to watch Sebe compete in the Oceanside 1/2 Ironman race.  While Sebe swam, biked and ran through the California coast, the boys discovered some female friends on the sidelines.  These girls were a crack-up.  They were well-versed in snails and soon had the boys picking up snails, holding them, and admiring them.  Blake even whispered in my ear that he stepped on one. 

From the sidelines, we cheered for Sebe, ate Cheetos, and talked with the girls.

Sebe in the Park City Triathlon Club tri suit

While the predominant reason to go to California -- in our minds -- was the race, Blake had a very different idea.  It was all about Legoland.  We paid the whopping fees and checked everything out.  They have it figured out there.  The store is right at the entrance.  Blake demanded that we see the store, to make sure they had the sets that he had already decided he wanted (Lego Atlantis is the current favorite).  Of course, upon seeing them, he wanted to buy them.  We explained that we buy Legos at the end of the day, as we are leaving.  He said, "I am done.  I want to go now."  Somehow we managed to get past that and enjoyed our day at Legoland.  And he finally did get the haul that he wanted...

The good news for us is that he is still playing with these Legos and despite identifying many more sets that he would like to purchase, there have been no serious pleas.  It also helps that our local store has an awful selection, so there can't even be a weak-moment Mommy cave-in because there's nothing on his list to buy here!

Another highlight of the trip was a visit from Kirsten, Dave and cousin Hudson.  They came down from LA and the boys had fun digging in the sand.

L--R:  Blake (3.5 yrs), Hudson (2 yrs), Gavin (1.5 yrs)

Carlsbad Beach is pretty great

Focused

Next post... more beach time and some sunshine!

Where is Gavin?

And where is my camera when we need it?  I took the boys to the big pool in Kamas, Utah this afternoon.  We needed to get out.  Daddy has been away for three days, working in California, it's been raining here, and we were all getting tired of each other and our Legos.  So, off we went to the pool that has two waterslides, a lazy river, and fountains galore.

After two lifeguard saves on our last visit, flotation devices are now a must for these boys.  Water wings for Gavin and a shirt with built-in flotation for Blake seem to do the trick.  Gavin insisted on going down the huge 35-foot high slide and, 6-month pregnant me, had to oblige.  Thank goodness the baby in my tummy is now large enough to where it doesn't slosh around in there.  Blake has been doing the slide alone for several months now and Gavin actually wants to go alone, but I can't let that happen quite yet.

Keeping track of Gavin the locker room is actually harder than in the pool.  "Gavin is a goer" Blake and I like to say.  I'm often chasing after him out of a locker room, grocery store, driveway, etc.  I was relieved that today he only made one attempt to re-enter the pool alone while Blake and I were showering (fortunately I still had my suit on!).

Anyway, it was music to my ears to hear him slamming locker doors and puttering around inside the locker room while Blake and I got dressed.  If I can hear him, that's good enough.  But when I went to find him, I couldn't see him.  I checked the toilets, the curtained family changing area, and the three other locker areas.  No Gavin.  Where was he?

IN A LOCKER!!!!

He had shut himself in a locker.  I finally saw a toe and foot trying to emerge and discovered the rest of him snug as a bug in a rug. What a crack-up.  Of course, then Blake had to try it and there they both were, gleefully smiling out of their private hiding places.  Too funny.

We topped off the night with burgers, fries and shakes at the local diner.  As we were getting out of the car to eat, I had to put on Gavin's shoes and socks, (which had actually never made it on either before or after the pool).  Blake was waiting in his car-seat and said, "I'm repaired."
"What does that mean?" I asked.
"Well, 'repaired' means that I have my shoes and socks on and I'm ready to go," he replied in his usual matter-of-fact manner.
"Ah, you mean 'prepared'," I said.
Pause from Blake.
"Well, I call it 'repaired'," was the answer.  I actually did then explain that repair means to fix something that is broken, but looking back, I'm not sure that what he calls it is that important.  I'm just impressed that he can use a word and then define it for you if you don't quite understand the meaning.  And he was right!  Webster's definition of "prepared" from their student dictionary:  "1 : to make ready beforehand".

We'll see how quickly "prepared" replaces the "repaired" pronunciation.  I can't imagine it will take long.