Bike!

This is for you, mom and dad.  He's rediscovered his bike and I think he's about got it mastered....still a tad timid, but he's finding his balance.  :)

For Nana and Gogo

Just a smattering of photos taken over the past few days for the grandparents to enjoy.  Here you go, Nana and Gogo!  Wish you could be here with us every day!

This morning I walked into Quinn's room to find him reading a book to himself:

Best hiding spot yet!

Q's latest obsession is dinosaurs, so we thought a trip to the Natural History Museum would be fun for him.  First we saw some live critters...bugs, frogs, big spiders, snakes and a tiger salamander:

Then we checked out a cool cave with cave paintings.  (Though Dad surprising the kid at the window was much more exciting than the cave paintings.)

 Q just had to kiss the sea cow

Finally...checking out the dinosaurs:

A dinosaur hatching:

Happy Birthday Emily!

 In celebration of Emily turning 31 we had a few friends over for dinner.  The menu: Corn casserole, mashed taters with green peas, pistachio salad, and key lime mango cheescake.  Here's to EE's first birthday in SD!

Hot ?Summer? Days!

Ok, so now that Summer is officially over it's HOT HOT HOT here!  We had some recent rains that reminded me of back home.  On one of those rainy afternoons we decided to go for a hike with Merlin at Mission Trails Park.  Quinn got to wear his raincoat and LOVED the rain and all that goes along with it (splashing in puddles and catching raindrops on his tongue).

 

It was nice to get Merlin out.  The poor pup is a tad neglected these days.  :(

Another of Quinn's latest favorite activities is painting.  But part of the fun is definitely painting himself!

Festival of Sail

This weekend is the festival of sail at the maritime museum in San Diego.  We decided to make it our morning adventure.  Quinn and Jeffrey donned their matching hats to walk to the trolley station at SDSU.  

Q thoroughly enjoyed his first real train ride!

Once the train made it downtown we began the seemingly long walk to the tall ship area.  Q was just so excited about the water and every single boat he saw that it was slow going.  

Throughout the time we were there there were ships in the bay having mock battles.  Here is one of the fighting ships just after it fired its cannons at us.

There were tons of visiting ships that can be toured.  Here Quinn is driving the deepest-diving American submarine!

And of course we toured the HMS Surprise, which was complete with decked out British military men.

The Star of India is the world's oldest active sailing vessel.  It was built in 1863 and still makes yearly trips.

One of the highlights of our day was a boat ride!  We went out on the Pilot, a 1914 pilot boat that used to guide the big ships in and out of San Diego Bay.

A view of the tall ships and downtown

Fishing with some buds

The ever lovely Star of India

Cooking Pancakes

I recently wrote about our Sunday morning tradition of going out for breakfast at the Livingroom Cafe.  Well, we also have a Saturday morning tradition of pancakes.  I left the mix unattended this morning and found Q mixing the ingredients together.  Hopefully he'll share his dad's love of cooking!  :)

The faces of Quinn

(These top three are taken about 15 second apart)

Surprise

Grumpy 

Happy

Sad

And finally, my current favorite from last week - another "happy face" photo: