USS Midway

Since I made a goal to become more of a tourist in my own city and enjoy all that living in San Diego has to offer, the boys and I made a trek the other day down to San Diego Bay to see all the boats that are there (and possibly catch a glimpse of the gray whale that's decided to hang out there). It was a beautiful day...not too hot and not too cold, so it was perfect to be that close to the water. I put the boys in the stroller and just kind of walked along the waterfront looking at all the different boats that are there. Keegan saw the USS Midway and wanted to go up and see the airplanes that were on the "BIG boat". Since I had never been on it (and it was stroller friendly), I decided to take the tour. It was a lot of fun, and there were places where you could actually climb up into the cockpits of some of the airplanes or sit in one of the helicopters. For as much as he talked about the airplanes, when it came down to actually climbing up into one, Keegan became a little scaredy-cat. He was fine just looking at them, and then driving the "cars" that they had on the deck as well . At one point, as we were walking around (and after having just listened to how they land the planes on the deck) one of the volunteers asked Keegan if he was ready to land a plane there and, of course, being the super-confident kid that he is, he nodded his head and said yes. Someday, maybe, we'll just have to see, I guess.

I was a little disappointed in some of it, mostly because the majority of what you can see is on the flight deck and in the hangar area. There weren't a lot of other areas that you could go and see (at least not easily with the stroller) but I didn't mind it too much since a few years ago AJ and I were able to go and see another aircraft carrier that a friend used to be on and have a more private tour when everyone was on shore leave. Plus, Keegan and Camden didn't seem to mind much at all.

She's Crafty...

Since I've managed to slack a little on the whole blogging thing, I figure I better catch people up on what I've been doing so that you don't think that I'm a complete slacker on all things blogging and journaling.

Lately, I've been trying to be better about working on my goals for the year, and one of them that I had was using my mom's sewing machine (since I've had it for 2+ years at this point) to make things for the boys and for me and for family and just for fun. I've managed to make (although I wouldn't say master) a couple of pairs of pajama pants for both of the boys, with a couple more still left to go. Then, I made these for my niece's birthday (Julie, I guess you are getting the preview of K's pj's ahead of time after all):


They are a kimono style pajama, and for my first time ever making this pattern, I don't think they turned out too bad (hopefully my niece will like them). It took me a little longer than I wish that they had, but it was a lot of fun picking out the fabric and making them.

I've also started making jewelry again (and can I just say, thank goodness for a library that has a lot of different books on the subject so that I can get ideas for free!!). This bracelet was for another niece's birthday:

It's got little princess charms on it (since she is currently obsessed with all things princess, as every young girl should be in my opinion). I've also made a couple others that I'm trying to decide if I want to try and sell somewhere or if I'll just give them away to friends and family as gifts or just because.

When Family Comes to Play

My sister Cynthia and her two kids were here last week for a visit (they got to spend the first part of their trip at Disneyland and in the O.C. before they made it down south to visit us). I'm so glad that the weather cooperated, seeing as how they were predicting rain for the first couple of days that they were here in San Diego. It was a really low-key kind of visit. Keegan got some great cousin play-time in and her kids got to just kind of run around and be free after having to stick close to their mom and dad at some of the busier attractions.

After a little bit of excitement on their first full day here (AJ managed to jack hammer through our water main shutting off all water to the house for most of a day - I hoping that doesn't scare any further family members or friends from coming to visit...I promise, we have the water back on and AJ's been really careful with the jack hammer ever since) things kind of settled down. We played at Mission Bay (not in the water...just at the gigantic playground there), we went and saw some tide pools where Keegan and Finn got to see a big starfish and a couple of smaller crabs, while Berlin and Camden and I hung out on the safer sandy part, and we just kind of hung out around the house watching Disney movies (all the princess ones if Berlin was picking and Peter Pan if Keegan had the choice), which is sometimes nice after a couple of crazy days.

It was so great to have family come and visit, and it made me wish that we were all a little bit closer geographically (or that we could figure out how to teleport or travel through fireplaces) in order to make visits easier to do. Keegan misses having cousins to talk to (even if they had no clue what he was saying) and I miss having my sister here to visit with.

And since no post is complete without at least one picture to look at, here are a couple from their time here (you can see more here).