It was only 79 degrees today! That is in Fahrenheit people, this was fabulous! We had a low in the upper 50s! We opened our windows! We went outside and didn’t sweat profusely! We didn’t run the A/C at all today! Amber said it was 73 degrees in the house this morning! 73!
I know that is a lot of exclamation points, but this is a big deal. It felt so nice. The last time we had a day with a lower high (funny sounding isn’t it?) was May 12th. And the last time we had a low below 60 was May 4th. This is a little gift from late October early November. This “cold” front (more of a pleasant front if you ask me) is expected to keep us in the low 80s through the rest of the week.
So happy birthday Dave! Today we are almost as cool as you.
We made it. We survived our trip to Ventura. Originally planned as just a quick visit to see Amber’s sister Ashley get married we decided to extend the trip and try to squeeze a bit more out of those pricey plane tickets.
The trip started out great. The kids were fabulous on the flight into LAX which was thankfully nonstop. When we got to the rental car place things took a turn for the worse. I quickly realized that I didn’t have my wallet. Which was in my backpack with my laptop and cell phone. I didn’t leave them on the shuttle bus, I left them in the overhead compartment. With all the hustle of getting us off the plane, not losing any kids, and dragging a car seat I clean forgot it. I called Southwest who had already turned the plane around. After several hours on the phone I got them to hold my backpack in Oakland. I dropped Amber and the kids off at the hotel and drove nonstop from Ventura to Oakland. I am here to tell you that you can drive 85 mph the entire 371 miles of this trip and not get pulled over. I drove so quickly because the baggage place closed at 10p. When I left the GPS was telling me I would arrive at 10:03pm. I arrived at 9:34p, got my stuff, turned around and headed back to Ventura much more slowly. I slept for a couple hours someplace in the middle and made it back to the hotel by 6:30a.
Later that day we had the wedding rehearsal. I always kind of wondered why they do a rehearsal, but now I know. Many plans were changed (or made for the first time) during the rehearsal. By the end they pretty much had it worked out. The location was nice and the weather was fabulous. 70F for a high temperature. That is cooler than our usual night time lows. The wedding went off without a hitch. People did what they were supposed to do. Wesley carried the rings and only got a little lost on his walk down the isle. Congratulations to Ashley and Greg!
The rest of the trip was ours. We had a few plans, but left lots of downtime too. The kids had plans of their own. Mostly not sleeping for more than 60 minutes at a time all night long. We were wiped out and wishing we could go home by the second or third night. But, being too cheap to pay the $300 fee to change our flight we persevered. We spent time visiting the places Amber remembered as a kid. We played at a couple of parks she used to play at, ate at a few restaurants she used to eat at and visited with a few friends and family. It was really nice getting to see everything that she remembered from when she lived there as a kid.
Our two big planned trips were to the Santa Barbara Zoo and the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. Both were fabulous. The zoo trip was great. The average time at the zoo is about 2.5 hours. We spent about five. We fed giraffes, rode the train, slid down the “ant hill” a couple hundred times, and visited the penguins and snakes on at least three occasions. It was a great trip and the kids had a blast.
The aquarium was also excellent. It is only ten years old and the exhibits are really nice. We spent a lot of time at the touch tanks where we touched a couple of different kinds of sharks and rays. Wesley was in love with the touch tanks. We spent most of our visit there. Jillian liked any of the tanks that went floor to ceiling. She was enthralled with the fish swimming right up to her. Of course we saw a few hundred “Nemos” which made Wesley happy. We also visited their Lorikeet exhibit and fed the little birds some nectar. The kids were a little apprehensive, but Wesley did eventually touch one of them.
All in all a great trip. The flight home was a nightmare and we left our umbrella stroller on the shuttle bus (I guess we were destined to lose something), but we made it all in one piece. We spent the whole day (and most of the weekend) recuperating and uploading pictures. Almost 800 in all. There is lots more to tell and of course if it were up to me I’d make you look at every last picture of my kids, but I’ll stop now before I bore you too much.
Pictures from our trip:
Note: You’ll see more pictures if you are logged into Flickr and marked as a “Friend” or “Family” contact of ours in Flickr. You’ll see many fewer photos if you aren’t, which may be a good thing depending on how many pictures you can handle.
Tags: Amber, Aquarium, California, Jillian, Joshua, Santa Barbara, vacation, Ventura, Wedding, Wesley, Zoo
This is what happens when you post pictures of your daughter at the cardiologist on Flickr and then don’t get around to writing about like you thought you would: Everybody and their mother assumes the worst.
Jillian has an innocent murmur. Basically that means it is small, harmless, and actually pretty common. Our doctor recommended we see a specialist mostly because of her size. The murmur (basically a leak between parts of the heart) won’t affect her in any way.
Here she is getting an EKG. She did pretty well except she wanted to pull off one of the tabs:
Here she is getting her blood pressure taken with the world’s tiniest sphygmomanometer:
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What we don’t have any photos of is the 30-40 minute long ultrasound session. She had to sit very, very still for a very long time. It went better than I would have expected. Wesley would have jumped off the table, run down the hall, and hopped in the elevator after 5 minutes.
All told we were there for about 90 minutes. The result: You have a beautiful, active, baby with a common innocent murmur. It isn’t affecting her size. Next, we are off the to nutritionist. Who will probably say the same thing when we tell them she eats as much food as Wesley and often more.
Tags: cardiologist, Jillian, murmur
Wesley and I shared dessert a couple of days ago. I got us each three Oreo cookies and then we split a glass of milk with a wide opening perfect for dipping. He crammed the first cookie into his mouth and then watched me like I was a mad man as I dipped my first Oreo into the milk and then ate it. Of course he followed suit. Then I showed him the twist, which he thought was the best thing ever. On his third cookie he almost shoved it in his mouth, but stopped. Carefully twisted it apart, ate out the cream. Thought for a minute and then put the pieces back together and dunked them in the milk. He very carefully copied me exactly.
I hope I never forget that. He sees everything, hears everything, and wants to emulate everything we do. He’ll copy my generosity, my honesty, my deceit and my anger. I need to be more aware and live my life the way I want him to live his.