The kids and dad

The kids and I were on our own for five days so that Christie could take a well deserved vacation. My mom (grandma to the kids) stayed with us and was a big help on Wednesday – Friday. We had a great time and kids seemed to be on their best behavior – I am not sure how I got so lucky.

On Friday night, Torin and Zoe said that they wanted sushi so we went our favorite local sushi place. Beck must have ate half of the bowl of Edamame, Torin drank all of his miso soup, and Zoe ate several different rolls because she said that she wanted to try some new things.

On Saturday morning, I got everyone in the car and we got donuts and went Bluebird park in Laguna Beach with their friend Delaney (we are not going to tell mom about the donuts). Zoe didn’t actually finish her donut because she said that it was too sweet if you can believe that. Zoe and Torin spent most of their time on this thing spinning round and round.

He finished off Saturday with another trip to the park in the afternoon just to make sure that they were completely exhausted.

On Sunday we went to Ben’s birthday party. I got everyone dressed and we were able to leave the house almost on time. I was even able to comb everyone’s hair as you can see in this picture:

At Ben’s party there was a snake guy that brought a bunch of snake, spiders, lizards and a tortise. Torin was scared and spent most of the time outside. Zoe was a little shy but she was able to touch everything but she made sure that no snakes were put around her neck. Here is a picture of holding part of a python:

I was able to get all three kids to sleep every night by 7:30 which gave me a nice break every night. We had a great time. Maybe we will do it again in another year.

Easter 2007

We had a great easter and we were busy. It started on Saturday night with coloring eggs. Torin and Zoe each had four eggs. Torin wanted to try to color each egg with as much color as possible. Zoe wanted to color her eggs pink and cover them with stickers.

It then took some convincing to get Zoe to go to sleep. I think that it was a combination of excitement and fear of the easter bunny that kept her from sleeping. She first asked a lot of questions about how the easter bunny was going to get to our house and if he was going to come into our house. At one point, she asked me to put a note on the door telling the easter bunny not to come into our house.

On Sunday we had the easter egg hunt in the morning, we then met grandma and grandpa for brunch at Ponte Winery in Temecula, and then we finished the day with dinner with some friends at the house.

We will have the pictures up soon.

Torin – Future Rock Star

Torin was able to practice his drum skills last week on stage at The Bellyup. Torin’s uncle David was in town with his band, Son Volt. We went to watch the sound check and have dinner with David. At first, Torin was afraid to go on stage and sit at the drums (he thought that the guitar players were scary) but once he finally got on stage it was hard to get him off. Every time that they finished a song during sound check Torin would ask me if it was his turn. David gave Torin a pair of drumsticks so now everything is a drum.

More pictures are on Flickr.

Strawberry picking at Tanaka Farms

Zoe’s class went on a field trip to Tanaka Farms last week. She picked (and ate) strawberries and several other fruits and vegetables.