Our Thomas Adventure

Friday we headed up to Felton to once again check out Thomas.  He still pretty much rules in this house although probably only another year or two sadly.
    It was a bit of an adventure getting there.  We went down to breakfast and were thinking we had plenty of time.  However a check of the clock said it was 9:09 and our train left at 9:30!  So we hauled buns to the car and ended up taking the long way.  I was sure we were going to miss it.  We hit the parking lot at 9:23.  I threw the tickets at Judd, he jumped out, got the boys out and started running towards the loading area.  I finshed parking, threw all our stuff in our bag, sunscreen, snacks, jackets, money etc... and started running.  About 10 other families were all running pell mell towards Thomas! We got to the loading area just as they were starting to board.
We scored train 1 this year.

The only bad thing about that is you are looking at Thomas's behind the whole way and you can't really see him.

We are ready!

what mom?

There he is, in all his glory!

Of course the real highlight of the day is playing with all the Thomas stuff.  Although they really need to re-think the way they set this up.  There are never enough trains for all the kids and its pretty much a shrieking, meltdown nightmare.

There's a new sheriff in town.

I hope this is no indication of his future.

Logan spents hours in the bounce house.  One plus of being 6, your bounce house is not very full so you get to stay in longer and bounce more.

Percy!

We had to do all the photos afterwards.

Logan got Harold the Helicopter.  Ronan didn't want his face painted.

More train playing.  Ronan was most upset when some other kid would try to put a train on his track.  "I just want to play by myself!"  Sorry bud, you've come to the wrong place for that.

He crashed hard when we got back to the room

Judd took this (obviously).  Is it any wonder I never get any sleep on these trips?

Sunday we headed for the Boardwalk.  The boys rode their hearts out.
Flew planes

and Orcas

Chillin on the dragons

Outta my way!

speed boats

then of course we had to get some ice cream

Riding the skywalk back

5 minutes after getting in the car

crashed out.

Next adventure, Legoland!

Another visit from the Tooth Fairy

Logan's 2nd tooth on the bottom has been wiggly for some time.  It was barely hanging on last night and I didn't want to have it fall out this weekend while we were gone so I said "let me pull it out".  He was a little scared but surprised that it didn't hurt at all.  Seriously, it was nearly sideways.  I'm not sure how it was staying in there. 

Anyway he got another nice shiny $1 coin and is plotting ways to spend it with the other one and the $4 he earned sticking labels on water bottles for Dad.

We are headed up to Santa Cruz tonight for another Thomas adventure.  I'm sure there will be tales to tell.

Time for an update

This week has been a mixed bag. 
Harley has been battling renal failure for several months now.  We seemed to have it stabilized but she took a definite turn for the worse this past week.  After we came home from our camping trip I noticed she was not eating much, if anything.  She was also "hiding".  She still seemed comfortable enough and was drinking but she was just "off" a bit.  Then I noticed in addition to not eating and having to force her medicine down her rather than her eating, her belly seemed really distended.  She was pretty skinny to start with but had gained back a little bit of weight but she looked like the starving kid photos.  Skeletal limbs and a huge belly.  So we dropped her off at Dr. O's on Thursday to see what was up.  Turns out it was a tumor.  A very large one.  It had totally enveloped one kidney and was blocking off her intestines.  So anything she managed to get down couldn't go anywhere.  She was also severely jaundiced.  So we had to do what was best for her and put her to sleep.  Hannah is really confused and looking all over the house for her.  The boys have the grand idea that we can just get a kitten and all will be well.  Sorry boys, I just can't go there yet. 
I miss you my little girlie.  Your funny little rowr, your extra big purr and round apple head.  I miss you snuggling in my lap while I'm reading and laying between me and the laptop.  You brought such joy and comfort, I'm sorry I didn't see how bad it was until it was too late.

On a better note, well somewhat anyway.  Today was swim lessons and we told the boys if they listened well and tried hard we would go to the fair afterwards.  We were supposed to go on Thursday after work but since that was the day we had to put Harley down we obviously did not go.  Ronan did AWESOME.  He worked really hard and did a great job.  Logan however pretty much refused to cooperate with anything.  So he and Daddy went home and Ronan and I went to the fair.  And boy oh boy was there a temper tantrum after that was announced.  Logan did not think I'd really not take him.  Ronan had a blast, we rode lots of ride and played some games.  The lady running the dart game thought he was the cutest thing ever and let him throw about 10 darts for free.  "he's so cute" she kept saying.   He rode to motorcycle ride twice.

He liked the train too.  we also rode the carousel, the ferris wheel, a roller coaster (which I thought he would not like) the dizzy dragons and the berry go round.  Oh and the airplanes.

We had lots of fun.  We didn't get to see anything  but the midway of course.  He played darts, a fishing game (won 3 little stuffies) and the goldfish bowl game.  Which of course resulted in another fair fish.  He named it Johnny.  Its very teeny.  I hope he survives.  I think I'll have to get one of those tank dividers until he gets a little bigger.

Also earlier in the week they had the annual cattle drive to start off the fair.  It was supposed to start at 10 but I guess the cows didn't get the memo.  It was about 10:30 before we saw anyone.  While we waited the boys took photos.  Logan took this one.

Ronan took this one.

Finally here they came.  I was I admit a little disappointed.  I guess I assumed it would look like TV or movies.  Not a tiny bunch of cows surrounded by 70 horses.  You could barely see the cows in there.  The most exciting part was before they even got there one little brown cow decided he'd had enough and took off for greener pastures.  We saw him high tailing it down the street with a cowboy in hot pursuit.  Afterwards we saw the cowboy come back sans cow.  So we don't know if the cow got away or if they rounded him up into a trailer that was stashed down the street.

and my friend Cheryl had her 3rd son, and I got his quilt top finished a mere 5 days after he was born.  Gwen is now quilting it so he will have it before he's 40!

We shall try for a family fair day tomorrow dependent of course on tantrums.

4th of July and Camping adventure

For the 4th we headed down to Cayucos to Grammas to watch the parade, have a BBQ  and check out the sand sculptures.  the boys played in the water a bit.  I really don't understand why they hike up their shorts when wading in the waves.

Then we came home and later headed down to the park for the fireworks.

we passed the time taking pictures of each other.  Logan took this one.

And this one

Ronan took this.  Needs to work on his positioning a bit

then later that week we headed up to Three Rivers for some camping.  This was our campsite view this time.

Chillin in the inner tubes

the front desk gave the boys a scavenger hunt sheet and we went around and found all the things on it.  When they were done they got to pick a prize out of the box.  they both chose these camping sticker books.

We had to play on the swing a bit.  Ronan took a dive off of it but luckily didn't injure himself.

I asked for a nice picture.  I got this

Then Ronan said, take a picture of me by this rock.

Taking the camper down.

!

Our big adventure was going up to the park and hiking the Giant Tree trail.  Its a flat about 1/2 mile loop around the meadow.  We parked at the museum parking and unfortunately missed the guided walk but decided to walk it anyway.  we saw a bunch of people lined up on the side of the road peering into the meadow.  we checked it out and there was a baby bear cub gamboling about.  And wouldn't you know it the camera was in the camper and our phones were in the car!  LOSER.  So we headed out and got about halfway around when the boys needed a drink and a snack.  We sat on a bench and proceeded to break out the Gaterade and Trail Mix.  Then Logan goes "Look"  we look to the right and a big ole bear is strolling out onto the trail.  He didn't look particularly happy so we decided to retreat.  We met a few other families on the way back and informed them of said bear.  We then saw him start across the meadow so we started back down the trail only to turn the corner and see him back on the trail headed for us.  We backtracked again and again he went into the meadow.  Back down we went and ran into some other folks that said the Bear Wrangler said it was a male and it was mating season so it was pretty grumpy and they were trying to herd him back into the forest and away from the meadow.  At this point Ronan was done with the bear, pretty much convinced he was going to be a snack so we once again headed back down the trail.  Then because Ronan was scared, Logan got scared. 

(Note, since I didn't have the camera I stole this picture - don't tell anyone!)

We then saw the mama bear wandering in the meadow pretty much on a collision course with us so we proceeded cautiously.  We made it back to the parking area and she was walking up the hill, stopping to turn over rocks and limbs looking for food.  We crossed the street and headed back to the museum trail.  At this point we hear a blood curdling scream and had to laugh "someone finally saw the bear!"  We went back to the campsite and headed to the swimming hole.  We floated down the river several times then went to bed.

Ah the giant trees, I so love it there.

Sunday we packed up and headed for home.  About 5 miles outside of Kettleman City the drivers side tire on the trailer blew, literally.  It was in complete shreds.    We then had to unpack the back of the car to get the jack and tools out and Judd had to take his life in his hands and change the tire on the side of I5 with semi's blazing by at 70.  He was all kinds of messed up when he was done.  The trailer is so low to the ground its hard to get any leverage on the jack to raise it up and really hard to get the lug nuts off.  But he managed without damaging himself too much but he is a rainbow of bruises and scrapes. Got the spare on and its very low on air.  Good thing he had the sense to buy the multi tool thingie,  Its a battery charger, compressor and something else.  It took a while but it did get the spare to the right tire pressure.  whew!

We made it home and had some stories to tell.

Making an appointment to get all new trailer tires and a better jack

Tooth Fairy Visited

We discovered the wiggly tooth when we visited Dr C to check out his grey tooth.  Its been about 3 weeks and last night it finally came out.  He ran up the stairs yelling "My TOOTH, My TOOTH".   
So we put it in a little baggie so it wouldn't get lost in the bed.

This morning he was yelling "She took it, she took my tooth".  The TF left him a shiny gold $1 coin, and had placed a brush, floss, smile sticker on the bag. 

He was pretty excited. 

We also discovered that the 2nd bottom one is wiggly now.  Guess the TF is going to have to stock up on gold $1 coins!

Exciting stuff

Ok this is not exciting but I took it with my phone.  Its the boys posing by the sign on the MS Dixie

this is pretty exciting.  We came home to this.  although nothing has happened that I can see since this, at least maybe someday they are going to fix the road. (and it keeps the neighbor from parking behind our driveway- bonus!)

we bought one of those ice cream balls and took it with us.  Logan lasted about 5 minutes and he was done.  The ice cream is pretty good but if you want really solid ice cream it takes some work.  10 min gets you soft serve style.  But at least you know there isn't anything icky in it, fresh and creamy.

This is the excitement in the title.  We took the boys to the first movie in the movie theater.  They did pretty good.  We got popcorn and M&M's.  We went and saw Cars 2.  I am a bit disappointed.  Visually its excellent.  The story however, not so great.  Logan didn't like it and Ronan said it was ok.  He likes the first one better. When I was looking up movie times one review said "its a James Bond film with cartoon cars"  and that pretty much nailed it.  there were some funny bits but it was certainly not as kid friendly as the first.