Legoland

The weather forecast helped us out with lines through our whole trip.  Every park was practically empty.  No lines anywhere.  AWESOME!

Here's why Legoland is so fun.

1. The boys love Legos.

2. They can ride ALL of the rides.

3.  They love the rides.

Here is why Legoland is a 1-time thing.

1. It's expensive and for the price, Disney does a much better job.

Joel was so so so excited for this ride because he knew 6-12 year olds could ride it and he made the cut!!  

The minion is Trevor's favorite thing right now. 
He put down his hard earned cash for this game and won!

Joel did not win. : (  Poor Joel.  

My Lego Doppleganger.

They had the Lego Movie set on site.  It was moved down from Burbank to Carlsbad.  It was really fun to check out.

More of the set.

A funny mini figure.  He was a little dusty.

If some of my friends were Mini figures, this is what they'd look like.

And we spent the evening with a front row seat of the sunset.

Zoo

We spent some much needed vacation time in San Diego.  It was a fantastic trip with gorgeous sunsets, constant trips to the pool or beach and no lines anywhere.

Our first stop was the San Diego Zoo.   It was definitely my favorite with the cool weather bringing out the playfulness of the animals like the rhino, monkeys, jaguar, polar bear and panda.  I loved it.

  We didn't track our steps, but I'm pretty sure we walked a mini marathon around that place from about 9am to 3pm.

We woke up early for the new nonstop flight to San Diego.   NONSTOP= AWESOME! 

.  

Knuckles, dude.

Koalas can sound kind of like a hairballing donkey pig.  I would not like to hear that noise in the dark! 

The rhino is playing!  The zookeeper actually came by and pushed its ball in the pool and told him to go get it like a dog.

Panda! 

The baby jaguar's mother was playing with the kitten! 

Trevor- trying not to smile when getting caught in some trick he was playing on his Dad.  

Baby orangutan and his homies.

Map man.  Always gotta check the map.

Approximately 3 seconds after buckling up in the parking lot, Joel succumbed sleep.

If you stay in Carlsbad-- this is the place!

The wetsuits kept the boys warm...er.  But it was still kinda chilly.  But when you're on the beach you don't complain, you just get less wet.

The JOY!!!

The sand!!

This is our snuggly set up for sunset watching.

Spring highlights

Here's what they've been up to lately....

Bye, Dad

My Dad loved every silly and pointless post on here and now he's gone.  It makes me really sad that I won't hear from him about it anymore.

I love him so much and moving on with the next post as if nothing happened makes my heart ache as just as much as it does to try to express how amazing he was --knowing it won't be enough.   My words aren't good enough to really say how much I loved his sense of humor and smile or how much I admired him for his calm approach and kindness or how time passed so quickly during our long talks about what we see when we step back and look at life.

It's better sometimes to look ahead at what's to come-- that I will see my Dad in heaven.

My hope is in the fact that I believe without a doubt that God is good. Shall not the creator of all the world do right?

When loved ones suffer, it's the perfect opportunity to re-learn that God is just and merciful and for remembering that His ways are higher than mine and his thoughts are higher than my thoughts.  I am a person that really prefers to understand things, and I am also a person than can trust God knows better than me. 

I believe my father accepted Jesus. He was a scientist through and through and said once to me that we can't really know anything that happens after we die... which is what I used to think also.  He humbled himself so greatly at the end of his life. He was broken. He even said that he felt somehow the pain in his chest was a taste of what Jesus suffered for him. This was totally new, not prompted by me, insight from my Dad who has always been so private and acted like proselytizing was a dirty word. I get that, though.

He said on one of his better days, "I think I'm feeling better because I did.... such and such...." and then, a couple of days later asked to talk to me to make a point to say that his improvement was not from something he did, but that it was thanks to many prayers. That is a really humble step.  He didn't need to tell me, but he did.  

Now he is free from all of the pains of this world and this comforts me.   

We lit sky lanterns to remember him.
It was a bit sketchy to send off little balls of fire
over a dry field.

Thank you, God, for my awesome dad and your righteous Son.

The boys playing on tanks in their fancy pants.

Petri dish experiments

There is something about the microscopic side of diseases and invisible-to-us bacteria that fascinates me.  So, with homeschooling, I get to force my curiosities on the boys.  : )

We finally used our petri dish experiment bought courtesy of the investment my mom makes to their education.  

First, you get to dissolve the agar (a nutrient for bacteria) in some boiling water.

The instructions for measuring were for 1 dish at a time.  I don't know who would even do that.  That's not exciting at all.  How are you going to put your toilet seat sample next to the remote control sample and compare.  Sheesh.   

You pour a little in each dish.

You spray a mist of water on a q-tip, then swab some things you might think are disgusting.  You let the squeamish students take pictures.   

We swabbed some money.

Then the swab is introduced to the petri dish filled with agar.

Joel apparently thinks the swab from his flip flop is kind of gross.

We waited about 10 days and got a mixed result.  The boys either had better swabbing method than I did, or their swabbing objects were all that much dirtier.

The dishes with the most visible colonies.

And they weren't too visible, really.  I'm kind of glad they weren't worse, because the samples were from our home, but I'm kind of disappointed we didn't get to see a lot of awesomely disgusting growths.  : )  I am keeping them around a bit longer in case they need more time to grow.  I have some doubts that my agar mixture was correct because it seemed like it should have been more wet.