Zany Zoo Day

A couple Saturdays ago we decided it was time to take Claire to the zoo for the first time. We were almost there and realized we’d forgotten our camera. So we stopped at Albertson’s to grab something for lunch and sure enough they had disposable cameras. Archaic, right!? But we couldn’t miss getting this first on film, even if it sucked. The camera cost $8, after finding out that Target and Costco no longer develop old school film, we got these pics put onto a CD by Walgreens for $8.48. That was the worst $16 we have ever spent. Note to self: make sure we ALWAYS have the camera. As you are looking at the pics try to not focus on the absolutely horrible quality of the photo, instead pay attention to the adorable subjects.

It was a beautiful, bright sunny day (and as the day wore on, way too hot). 

Claire wasn’t sure what to think at first, for the most part she was just observing and taking it all in. But every single exhibit we would walk up to she would gasp and exclaim, “Wa-wa”. Yes, you read correctly, we drove 50 miles, paid $21 and Claire was most excited about the different forms of water in the exhibits. Claire look at this leopard, “wa-wa”. Claire look at these toucans, “wa-wa”. Claire look at the alligator, “wa-wa”. After a little while she seemed to get a little more into the animals. It was so fun showing her all these animals that she had only seen in her books and maybe on PBS.

 

She was quite interested in the petting zoo. She would brush the goats, then put a little dirt on them and then brush it off. She probably would have done that all day had we let her. I’m sure the goats would have revolted before too long. It was pretty hot by then though so they probably didn’t care much. Claire of course threw a fit when it was time for us to move on, ahhh terrible two’s.

 

Claire had her first elephant ear she loved it. I think she ate more of it then either of us did.

We bravely decided to let Claire out of her stroller for a bit, oh boy did she run like a mad woman. She ate it a couple times, but she would pick herself right back up without so much as a thought of a tear.

 

And about an hour later, she was done. That of course only lasted maybe 45 minutes.

Dan , Lacey & Baby Keira met us there for a little bit. What a sweet little baby that girl is! We ate some ice cream and walked (well Dan & Lacey walked, we took turns chasing after our monkey), it was so nice to catch up with our friends. We should have gotten our picture taken all together but we just didn’t even think about.

 

And lastly this was probably Claire’s favorite part of the whole entire zoo…. the waterfall! For those of you that haven’t been in several years, you should go, all the  renovations look absolutely amazing!

 

All in all, we had a wonderful time! I’m sure it will become more fun and magical the older she gets. I love revealing the world to her and watching her face light up and the her little wheels start turning. She’s so smart and fun right now. If it weren’t for the horrendous tantrums, I would want her to stay this age forever.

A lot of Firsts this Summer

We've been doing some super fun things with Claire lately, and so much so that we're never home to blog about it. She's at this super fun (and often times frustrating) age where everything she sees, encounters, touches, etc, is absolutely amazing to her. We love to see her eyes light up and to watch her explore and help her learn all about this world around her.

I'm not quite sure what took us so long but we took Claire to the beach for the first time a couple weekends ago.

Utter amazement, she's probably thinking, "this is the coolest place I've ever seen, why have my parents never brought me here before!" We could not keep that girl out of the frigid water.

Note to self: Take family photo before Claire gets all wet and sandy next time. ;)



This is what we got when we told her to smile, cheese it up Claire.


No ball left behind!

Probably the best part about this whole summer has been having Claire's cousin's in town from Colorado. Oh boy, does she loves those kids. She's still working on saying Rayden, but Kolten she calls "Kole-Kole", and both Zenna and Savannah are "Nenna", way to be efficient Claire. We met up with my parents, Grandma & Granddad and Jay and the kids (plus Rayden's friend); hilariousness/chaos ensued.

Claire made a mad dash any chance she got and grabbed everyone's ball at least once and slam dunked it in the hole; maybe mini-golf wasn't the best idea.

The water was very fascinating, a little later she (very) purposely chucked our ball in the water.

Grandma Debi w/ all her grandkids plus one (Rayden's friend in the hat)

She was very interested in the arcade games, she just squealed and ran from one to another.

Me trying to teach an 1.5 and 3 year old how to stomp on the spiders, I don't think we did very well.

We stuffed ourselves with pizza and ice cream, and laughed way too hard at those silly kids. We removed Claire twice from running on top of the skee ball machines. A better time could not have been had. Claire crashed sooooo hard on the way home.

And then last week we went to a Volcanoes vs. Emeralds baseball game (sadly, we forgot our camera). Levi's cousin works for the Emeralds and invited us out and we had a blast. It was of course Claire's 1st baseball game, but mine also. Claire plastered herself in cotton candy and continually clapped for the wrong team. Thank goodness for the playground behind the bleachers, Claire could only sit still as long as the cotton candy lasted which wasn't nearly long enough.

I love summer! Why does it have to end!?

-Elizabeth

Call Mr. Yuk-- Oh and I Smell Smoke!

Well, today was an interesting day to say the least.  It started off with an incident that began similar to The Vaseline Incident.

I haven’t seen these poison control Mr. Yuk stickers since I was a kid, but I think they ought to think about bringing them back.  Clairey added diaper rash cream to the long list of her pica items (including biting a hole in the drywall, Vaseline, and her favorite-hair barrettes).

Before Elizabeth left for work, she had asked me to fix some invitations she had been working with on the computer before she got home for lunch.  So, I parked Claire in front of some Yo Gabba Gabba! (which will be getting its own vitriol laden post I’m sure…) and started to work on the invitations.  I wasn’t in the bedroom 2-3 minutes and I started to hear a slurping noise, which was odd since I hadn’t given her anything to snack on yet.

As it turns out, she had eaten approximately half of a brand new tube of Boudreaux's Butt Paste diaper rash cream.  You don’t think about it until it happens, but the cutesy little ‘trying to be funny and humorously push the envelope on product names’ takes a turn for the macabre when you have to relay it to the lady at the poison control center.  She said it shouldn’t kill her (oh good, thanks for even putting that in my mind), but that she would probably be pretty sick and to keep her hydrated.  Claire threw up about an hour later, a white tarlike glop mixed with the red juice she had been drinking and a handful of grapes.  It was basically a pile of bird crap.  She proceeded to throw up 4-5 more times and has had diarrhea most of the evening.  Poor kid.  That’s what happens when you eat things meant for your butt, I guess.  Hope she’s better tomorrow.

It is so hard with Claire, there is not even a single minute you can take your eye off of her and she is into trouble.  It makes getting my schoolwork, job applications, paperwork, projects, and housework next to impossible to work on.  If she could only focus her energy constructively, she would have cured cancer by now, I’m sure of it.  I think she sits and plots things in her head that she will do the instant we blink.

Then while I was finishing baking our breaded pork chops, I started to smell smoke.  This isn’t a rare smell in our neighborhood.  Go ahead and Google Maps “Restaurants near Auburn and Lancaster Drive in Salem, OR” and you will get 15,641 results.  We smell every grill, every fast food burger, every restaurant, and every taco stand in Salem.  This was different though, it smelled like a campfire.  I went outside to look around, and noticed that our next door neighbor’s house (about 20 feet away from our house) was on fire!

There was a wooden platform of some kind that was leaning against their house with flames flowing out around the sides, so I didn’t know if the fire was coming from the house or just from this wood.  I yelled to Elizabeth to call 9-1-1, which she did on my 3rd request while I was spraying at it with the fire extinguisher.  This is the 2nd time we have called 9-1-1 in the past 2 days, and it’s funny the little nervous tremble she gets in her voice while she is on the phone with them.

The fire department got here so fast, they kicked over the burning platform to reveal it was burning on its own.  However, they said if left much longer it would have definitely started the siding of the house on fire.  They took their axes and chainsaws and cut a huge hole in the side of the house to make sure no fire got into the walls.  One of the firemen running back along the house saw the burning wood and said “Oh $(%-- that’s it!?”.  Classy.

The fire inspector took my information and a statement after the smoke had cleared, and said that it was most likely the cigarette butts they were discarding in a plastic can that caused it, and that they can smolder for days before igniting something like that.  You learn something new every day.  A lesson to the smokers out there.

In regular news, we spent Sunday at the Long Family Reunion in Yamhill.  My mom was in charge this year and did an EXCELLENT job!  Although it was not as well attended as other years, it was awesome.  Any given year there are a couple hundred people that attend, we’re related to most of Yamhill and Washington Counties.  It’s a shame to see family feuds stand in the way of people coming, and even worse- when two people/families feud, they both don’t come to avoid the other.  Their loss I guess, great food and visiting!

You can seriously see the mischief in her eyes.

Then the morning of the 4th, we went to the St. Paul Parade.  Claire thought she had died and gone to heaven, all you do is wave and you get candy?!?!   We took a trip over the Wheatland Ferry, which we all love.  Then we went to Elizabeth’s aunt’s house, and we ended our evening at home spotting all of the illegal fireworks in the sky around our neighborhood.  Claire waved goodbye to each burst of light in the sky as it slowly faded away.

All in all, a great holiday weekend.