It's been a wonderfully crazy busy month since I last posted, but I'll try to get you up to speed!

Nana!
The weekend after Grandma and Granddad were here, Nana came to visit for a weekend and stayed for a week! We enjoyed our first day of adventures (Fisherman's Wharf and the neighborhood swimming pool), but the next day Nana woke up with debilitating back pain. We missed out on the other planned adventures, but we got lots of good quality time with Nana--reading books, playing games, watching movies, and just hanging out while Nana healed enough to get on an airplane home.

San Diego

The day after Nana left, we took advantage of one of Daddy's breaks and headed to San Diego again! We took the scenic route along the coast this time, and the highlight of the drive was definitely stopping to see the elephant seals. Those beasts are massive and absolutely hilarious! (Ok, a big highlight for me and Daddy was also stopping to see a friend from our college days, but the girls didn't care much about that.) Our first morning in San Diego was spent wandering around Balboa Park (eavesdropping on a taiko drum class, peering into the fish pond, touring the botanical building, admiring the early 1900s architecture, running around a sculpture garden, viewing an exhibition of Japanese ink drawings, and searching the butterfly garden for the butterflies). We spent the afternoon in Old Town poking around historic buildings/museums (Wells Fargo museum with working telegraph

machines; a horse-drawn transportation museum; a one-room schoolhouse; a letterpress print shop; a textile store that showed the process from cleaning and carding the wool, to spinning and dying yarn, to weaving the fabric; and the mayor's and sheriff's offices and jail), winding our way through contemporary shops and marketplaces, and of course, enjoying the food (root beer and jerky for snack--the entourage says kangaroo is indeed delicious--and Mexican food for dinner). On day two we spent the entire day at Aquatica! They had a blast--especially once the big girls conquered a few I've-never-done-this-before fears. In addition to all the slides and a couple of trips on the lazy river, they really loved the wave pool! (I know we live right on the ocean, but that water's too cold to get in without a wetsuit.) We took a slightly shorter less scenic route on the way home and entertained ourselves with a newly-purchased set of Brain Quest trivia cards--very popular!

Aunt E!
A couple of days after we returned from San Diego, Aunt E came to visit! She joined us for some of our usual activities like story time at the library, meeting up with some friends at the neighborhood pool, and spending an afternoon at the beach.

On this particular weekend she was also able to join us for Goose's first race (more on that below!) and for a gem show at the local fairgrounds (lots of uncut and polished stones with labels, stone sculptures, jewelry, and fossils display as well as demonstrations of polishing, wiring, and silversmithing; a kids section featured sifting for fossils they could keep, inexpensive grab bags of polished stones, a "sandbox" full of iron filings and magnets to play with, and displays about dinosaurs and types of rock). Aunt E also did a missionary talk at church on Sunday, and the girls were very proud to have their aunt up on stage to tell stories about the mission field.

Scottish Games & Festival
The weekend after Aunt E's visit, we made a day trip to another Scottish festival, so Daddy could compete in the Highland games again. So much fun! It was a tough field (all his throws were uphill), but he placed third overall in his category! This was a much smaller festival than the others we've been to, but the girls still had a great time perusing the vendor's booths and making our requisite visit with the queen.

Tidbits
In the midst of all this excitement other fun things are still happening! Here are the highlights:

• Goose ran her first 5k! She now has a personal record of 41:47, and was particularly excited when she realized she even beat some of the grown ups across the finish line! 

• Bug finished second grade math! She is absolutely thrilled with this accomplishment and was very excited to jump into third grade math and start learning things like multiplication.

• Monkey painted her first canvas! We bought her a "coloring page" canvas and a set of acrylic paints for her birthday, and finally got around to pulling them out. She had great fun and even has paint leftover for additional projects.

• Some great friends of ours from a previous duty station moved here a few weeks ago. We've had so much fun reestablishing the in-person friendships and introducing them to their new home.
• All three girls started Awana last month at church. It's a new program this year, and we're all still trying to get the hang of it (I'm helping with the T&T group--upper elementary) but so far so good!
• Inspired by Bug's recently reading The Invention of Hugo Cabret, we now have a new special interest: silent films. The girls love them, and we've watched at least half a dozen so far (mostly shorts). Bug even started a notebook in which she writes the title of each film and draws a representative sketch.
• It rained! Those of you not experiencing a serious drought may not understand, but this was cause for dropping our lessons, grabbing our umbrellas, and running outside in search of newly formed puddles to jump in.