One Special Girl

Grace has had a busy week - Monday was her dress rehersal, Tuesday was her recital, and Thursday she "graduated" from preschool!

Grace did a great job at her recital - I think she was born to perform! She gets so excited when it's time to "go up-stage" and do her dances. She doesn't think twice about the number of people in the audience, she just does her thing.

Grace's class was honored for their commitment, and for being Ms. Loren's "advanced" class. The girls are all 4-6 years old, so I don't know how advanced they are, but it was still an honor to be chosen to be in that class.

Always a princess!

Tristan giving Grace a flower and admiring her shiny new medal.

Grace really enjoyed her preschool teachers, even though she wasn't there very long, and was really upset one night last week that school was going to be over soon and she wouldn't be able to see Ms. Johnson anymore. I reassured her that Ms. Johnson would be there next year and she would be able to see her quite a bit when school started again - that seemed to make it okay.

Receiving her "diploma" from Ms. Johnson

In addition to everything else, Grace has taken up soccer (at least for the next 6 weeks)... She is involved in a Mini-Sports class that teaches her the basics of the game. David and I decided that we would like to expose the kids to many different activities and let them choose one or two that they'd like to participate in. Ballet is a no brainer for Grace, and we'll let her decide if she wants to join a soccer team after this six week class is over.

Tristan is still a little young for the Mini-Sports, but the coach was nice enough to include him in the class - something he really enjoyed!

San Diego Wild Animal Park

One of our visits while we were in California was to the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park. It is a park where the majority of their animals roam free. They still have some "on display" in smaller areas, but it was really neat to see all of the animals "in the wild" together.

I have one of these hanging in my dining room...

Counting her eggs

No, this is not a baby oryx!

One of the last 7 Southern (?) White Rhinos

An Okapi, quite the interesting looking animal

A few wild animals cooling off in the water

They also have an aviary where you can feed the Larakeets. The kids got a kick out of the birds landing on them and drinking the nectar from the cups they held out. They weren't as timid as I had expected them to be. I figured one would come near them and they'd head for the hills - shows you what I know...

After feeding the Larakeets, our little birdies decided they needed a rest.

The carousel is always a hit.

Disneyland

Well, I guess it's time for me to get back to blogging... I've been busy getting everything back in order after our trip to California, and didn't have time to post anything while we were gone.

We spent April 27-May 6th in California, spending time at Disneyland and many of the attractions in San Diego. Since I have thousands (literally, I'm afraid) of pictures, I'm going to cover one venue per blog...

Happy Birthday to Me!

We spent my 36th birthday at Disneyland - the happiest place on earth, indeed! What a great day! The kids thought it was pretty special to be able to take Mommy to Disneyland for her birthday. We spent 3 days there, and could have easily stayed a few more. No one wanted to leave. The kids (all 4 of us) rode on everything from the mild "It's A Small World" to the wild Space Mountain (for those of you who've never had that joyous experience, it's a high-speed roller coaster in the pitch black dark with "stars" all around you, and you never know what direction you're headed next until it happens). Here's some of the highlights:

At Mickey's house

Saying "Hi" to a bunch of the characters in the parade

A couple of jail birds trying to escape

The kids loved the roller coasters - now they put their arms in the air for everything (including in the stroller at the Zoo)!

Flyin' in Dumbo with Daddy

Our Prince Charming

Grace with Princess Ariel and Cinderella - she was beside herself when meeting these lovely ladies

Cinderella was great - she took both of the kids aside and talked to them, even showed Grace how to take a picture like a "real" princess.

Mid-day two. A lady walked by and asked if we had a camera so she could take our picture... she thought the kids napping in the middle of Disneyland was a classic shot.

Sleeping Beauty's castle

Grace using her new pose that Cinderella taught her.

Disneyland/California Adventure is truly an experience not to be missed. David was not keen on the idea of this trip, but after walking into the park the first day he changed his mind, and even he can't wait to go back!

An Update on the Update

Well, I've been on the job almost 3 weeks now, and so far am loving it! Something touches my heart just about every day. It is such a pleasure to work in a place where the children are taught to love their God and their country! Every day Grace says 3 pledges and sings 3 songs as part of her morning routine: The Pledge of Allegiance/The Star Spangled Banner, The Pledge to the Christian Flag/Onward Christian Soldier, and The Pledge to the Bible/Thy Word. I was able to sit in on the school's chapel time today, and was about moved to tears to be standing there listening to about 250 students say/sing these things and realized that most schools don't even say the Pledge of Allegiance these days much less allow prayer or anything outwardly Christian into their halls. I am so thankful that both of our children will be attending this school next year. I know we may not be able to put the kids through private school forever, but I hope to keep them in there as long as possible so they can arm themselves with the Truth and be able to stand firm when faced with difficult decisions and peer pressure.


Grace is loving her new teacher and her new class. She is such an adaptable child, I know I worry needlessly about how she will handle change. I think she enjoys the different variety of activities they do during the day, and I know she loves the Bible stories she hears, because she listens to them! She is able to tell me so much of what she learns during the day - the Thursday before Easter, it was the crucifixion story, yesterday it was the story of Joseph and the coat of many colors. And the details she remembers! It just blows my mind!! Today she came to me and said, "Mommy, we need to pray for Flutter our little butterfly. He fell off the paper, and we need to pray to God and ask Him for Flutter to live." (They have several caterpillars in jars, and when they make their cocoon, they transfer them into this mesh "treehouse" and wait for them to hatch from their cocoons) I like this school a lot better too - every day she brings home a paper that shows they actually did some school work instead of just doing art or playing all day. The teachers love her too, and keep telling me how good she is - and I just want to ask them "Are you sure you're talking about my kid?"


Tristan has been having a great time at "school" the last week and a half - I think he likes seeing and playing with other kids. About the only time he got to do that was at his gymnastics class and at Sunday School. Guess I shouldn't have been so selfish with my baby the last 10 months! He always comes home with some sort of art project, and is so proud of what he did that day. "Mommy, look what I did today!" "See?!?!" I think he'll really enjoy going to preschool in the Fall.


David is doing well also. He is recovering well from his surgery on his eye socket - is still a little black and blue, but looks a lot better. He went to a doctor today and is in the process of getting some x-rays to "make sure they got it out and there's no metal in his head" so he can finally get another MRI done and we can see what the next step is in treating his back. Hopefully that will happen this week.

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In other news, after David's follow up last Monday, we took the kids to the zoo in Tucson. They are so tolerant when we go up there, and we have never done anything for them while there (its always doctor appts and shopping), so we decided that we needed to let them have a little fun. Here's a few pictures from that day:







There were some monkeys there that were absolutely entertaining - speed swinging around their enclosure! The kids loved it.

























Then there were the giraffes - you can actually feed them at certain times of the day (which we had to promise to do next time, since David and I didn't have any cash on hand).

Finally, there was this really odd two headed tortoise: