I knew that patio door in the bathroom would be no good...

So remember that awkward patio door in our bathroom? Well it has always made me a bit uncomfortable. If Gabe is ever in there with me, he likes to play with the vertical blinds. The bathroom is also kind of narrow, so getting out of the shower and drying off, it is very easy to bump in to the blinds.So I always hope that our next door neighbor is not in her room that has a window looking straight in to our bathroom door. I fixed this by hanging some thing curtains behind the vertical blinds. So if Gabe does swing the blinds open or I bump in to them, at least there are curtains behind.
But also, in the bottom corner of the door, I noticed about a 1 square centimeter open space. We had been having lots of bugs getting in the house, and I think this was a major contributor. So I stuffed it with some cotton balls, and it definitely seemed to help.
Well apparently there was another open space on the corner of the door....
This morning I was in the bathroom and out of the corner of my eye I thought I saw something in the blinds. But when I looked, nothing was there. So I figured maybe some birds or something was outside and I was just seeing their shadow once in a while. Totally dismissed it.
But then this afternoon I was going to the bathroom. Gabe was playing on the floor in the bathroom. Laying down, rolling over, all over the floor. Inches from the blinds. And all the sudden I look up and there is this little snake head poking out of the blinds. I totally freaked out, grabbed Gabe and we got out of there. I called Adam at work in a panic and told him I hoped he was coming home really soon, because we have a snake in our bathroom. I didn't know what kind. It was pretty small - didn't think it was a rattle snake, probably a garter snake, but I'm no expert and who cares what kind or how small it is, there's a snake in our bathroom. So he asked me what I was going to do, how I was going to contain it if I wasn't going to get it out. So I said I'd close the doors and tuck towels in tight at the bases of the doors. So he got on his way home and I went and grabbed some towels. I got one door taken care of, then was going through our bedroom to go get the other door and then I saw another snake coming out of our closet. And I saw the 1st snake in the bathroom. So now there's 2 snakes. So I freaked out some more. Closed the bedroom door and tucked a towel in the base. And then I decided I couldn't stay in the house while I waited, so we took a walk to get the mail and then over to the park. Didn't come back until I knew Adam was back. He got those 2 out. But as Gabe and I were coming in the front door, I noticed a third one in the frame of the door. ACK! More freaking out. So Adam took that one out too.
He filled the other gap in the patio door with cotton balls - to be replaced with steel wool as soon as we have a chance to get some. And he so kindly searched the rest of our closet and bedroom to make sure there were no others. So hopefully it was just those three. And hoepfully they are long gone.....
Our landlord is going to come over to add some better weather stripping to our front door where the last one was.  And he's going to see if he can do anything else about the patio door.

So yeah, not really the greatest day for me. The morning already started out not so great - trying to deal with the county and figuring out how to get appropriate services/therapies for Gabe. And then we get snakes in the house. Gross! I think I may have nightmares...
Adam is going to add some pictures. I don't really want to look at them, so I'm going to let him take care of that...

The terrifying garter snakes (or "racers" as everyone out here calls them). - Adam

Labor Day Weekend

So, Gabe and I are back to California after a fun 5.5 weeks in Indiana and Minnesota. It was definitely hard to come back, so I made sure we had something different and fun planned over Labor Day weekend. We debated between going to Sequoia National Park or to one of the beaches. But one of the beaches we were considering was only supposed get up to the mid 60s, so that would have been a bit cool. And the others we figured would be pretty busy, since it was kind of the last weekend of summer. Plus Gabe can only handle about an hour or so of being out in the sun and water, so it would have been a hard day for him.

So we ended up at Sequoia on Saturday. It took us about 3 hours to get up there. Once there, we decided to splurge and get the national parks annual pass (we figured there are quite a few national parks around that would be doable in a day or weekend, so may as well - only have to get to 3 more in the next year to make it pay off). We hit up the information building once inside the park and then from there drove up the mountains to the Sequoia groves. The drive was only 17 miles, but took over an hour due to the steep, twisty roads and one section of one lane road that we had to wait about 20  minutes before we could go through. We found a place to park (parking was crazy, we lucked out and found an empty spot right away though) and then had a little picnic lunch. After lunch, we loaded Gabe up in the jogging stroller and then walked the path that led to "General Sherman", which is the largest tree by volume in the world. It was only a half mile walk, but it was all downhill and had lots of steps, which was a little tricky witht the stroller, but we made it work. It was a little more difficult going back up with the stroller, but we managed. The trees were massive. They are so tall that the didnt' really seem like there were as wide as they were, but they were huge. I believe General Sherman is 36.5 feet across at it's base. Crazy. It was kind of interesting - there were a TON of German tourists there. Not sure why, but it seemed every other group of people we passed was speaking German.

After we finished up there, we drove up a little further to a visitor center and gift shop. Got a few things there - including a bottle of beer for Adam from the Mammoth Brewery in Mammoth Lakes, CA. (Which after drinking, Adam has decided that we will be visiting that brewery (&town) sometime.) We also got a little "passport" book that we can get stamped at all the national parks we visit. So hopefully we will get a few more filled out in the next year. After the visitor center and gift shop, we stopped at the museum and then we decided to head back towards home. We would have liked to have seen more of the park, but it would have been a few more hours of driving to see much more, and it was already like 4:00 in the afternoon. So maybe we'll plan a weekend trip up there sometime so we can see more. We stopped for dinner at a little pizza restaurant in one of the towns outside the park - it was awesome pizza. Then we headed back home. We took a different way home, not quite as direct as the way we went, but it was more freeway driving, so ended up being quicker.

The rest of the weekend was pretty mellow. Set up Gabe's pool in the backyard so he got to 'swim' some. Did lots of laundry and picking up around the house.  

Today Gabe and I went to our first day of MOPS (mothers of preschoolers). I was in a MOPS group in Duluth and loved it, so I got signed up right away for this year out here. I think it should be a good time. I'm kind of bummed that they only have one meeting a month (Duluth had 2), but they seem to do some  other activities throughout the month, so that should be fun. They are going apple picking in a couple weeks, so hopefully it works for us to go too.

Tomorrow Gabe has a follow up appointment to check on the tubes in his ears. Unfortunately the closest pediatric ENT we could find is in L.A.  (not sure why we need to go to a pediatric ENT, and not just any ENT, but that's the name our insurance gave us, so for now I guess that's what we'll do), so we will have a lot of driving tomorrow. But we'll break it up on the way home and stop and run some errands, since we'll be near a Sam's Club, Target, and much cheaper groceries. Well I guess that's about it for now.

Below are some pictures from our day trip to Sequoia...

"Tunnel Rock" the road used to go through here, but now it swerves around it



Where's Gabe? This wasn't even one of the biggest trees



Me & Gabe. "General Sherman" is the tree on the left. It doesn't look that big in this picture, but it was a ways off. If you look close,  you can see a bunch of people around the base of the tree.



A giant pinecone. Don't remember what kind of tree it's from - not a sequoia though - there's are egg sized



Museum




Adam & Gabe. General Sherman on left



Ready to go!



Some of the views on our drive in Sequoia





This was a resevoir just outside the park - it was huge. If you look close, you can see a line going around it, just about the green grassy areas - that is how high the water can get. It was a huge difference!



Waiting to go through the one lane road

what horrible parents

Gabe has the cruelest parents ever. There is a perfectly good pool outside that door (it is empty, but he doesn't know that) and he wants to be in it. Now. Who cares that it is dinner time. There is a pool out there and Gabe is trapped inside. Life is rough.

(This was towards the end of a good 10 - 15 minute tantrum - and he's pretty mellow in this video compared to what he had been before we got the camera out)

Fun in the trash can

So I probably shouldn't encourage G to be throwing his toys in the trash can - it is kind of gross. (Thankfully this trash had been emptied recently so it was pretty much empty). But one of the things he does not want to to is put objects into a larger container. He absolutely refuses to put the shapes in his shape sorter. This is something we worked on for months with his PT and OT in Duluth and he just won't do it. It's a major milestone problem-solving skill that kids need to master before mastering other skills. And he still really won't do it. So if he wants to put his monkey in to the trash can, I think I will let him.

 Although I may try to lysol it out good and make sure it stays empty of trash...

G's new water table

So I had been looking around a lot for a water table for Gabe. The cheapest new one that I could find was $40. So I thought I'd check out ebay. So I found a gently used one on ebay (the same one selling for $40 new) for a buy it now price of $5 plus $10 shipping. So i jumped on that steal and ordered it right away. It also came with a bunch of water toys. All that for $15. Crazy! Extremely crazy...

So about a week later I got a box in the mail. I was like this is way too small to be the water table.... Opened it up and sure enough it was a bunch of water toys but no table. So I contacted the seller and asked what was up. She said the table was coming in a seperate shipment. So I was like ok, as long as it shows up soon. But also thinking to myself - this seller is pretty clueless about selling on ebay (she didn't have any reviews, so must be a new seller). But she had spent $13 just to ship that one box of toys. I knew there was no way she shipped the water table for $2....

So a few days later I got a notice in my mailbox that I had a large package waiting for me at the post office. So I went and picked it up. It was a HUGE box. And the worker at the post office was like, wow they spent a fortune to ship that......

Yes, you read that right. $107.96!!!! I was completely shocked. Why she didn't ship it thru UPS where it would have been a lot less is beyond me. Or why she didn't cotact me and say her estimate for shipping costs was severely off... 

 So she spent $121 to ship all the stuff I bought. I paid $15 total. Looks like she's out $106. I felt kind of bad, but you are supposed to research shipping costs before posting your shipping price on ebay.

On another note, Gabe absolutely loves it! If he sees it outside (through a window) he gets pretty whiney and wants to go out and play with it.

4th of July Weekend

So it was kind of weird not going anywhere for the 4th of July Weekend this year. We've usually gone to Indiana or the cabin for the weekend. But not this year.... And actually Adam had to work on Saturday and Monday (they are under a big deadline for the end of July), so it really didn't feel like a holiday weekend.

Every year, our community does hot air balloon rides each morning over the 4th. We saw some flying Sunday morning. And then Monday morning, Gabe and I went for a walk to see a bunch of them.

 

On Saturday, our friends (who we met in Ohio through the air force) came up for the afternoon. We grilled hamburgers and hot dogs. I attempted to make semi-homemade hamburger buns- there was a recipe in a magazine I just got and they looked so good, but mine were a total failure.... the bottoms were burnt but they weren't cooked thru. So I ran to the store quick and got some buns. We also had homemade macaroni and cheese, watermelon, grapes, chips & dip. For dessert we  made homemade strawberry ice cream and brownies with red, white & blue m&ms. We had way too much food - after 3 days of eating leftovers, there is still quite a bit left, but I am quite sick of it all.... We also went over to the community pool for an hour or two. The kids seemed to enjoy that. It wasn't nearly as busy as I expected for a holiday weekend. The Reynolds also brough their swamp cooler for us to borrow, so the guys spent a while installing that too. In the few days we've had it, it has definitely helped keep the house cooler.

On Sunday, the three of us went over to the little 'fair' thing they had going on in our community. Unfortunatley there wasn't a whole lot there. Some of the food looked good, but it was early and we weren't hungry. Might have been a little more fun if Gabe were slightly older - they had a bounce house and a little petting zoo. But other than that, there really wasn't a whole lot there. So we decided to run home and grab our pool stuff and head to the pool for a bit. Gabe love love loves going to the pool. Usually throws a fit when we leave.

On Monday, Adam had to go in to work until about 2. When he got home, we all just hung out at home for awhile. Then we went to town and had dinner at a Mexican restaurant - yum!. (we were tired of hamburgers and hot dogs, so wanted something different).  We debated about staying for the fireworks in town, but there was still a few hours before they started, and G was pretty tired. So we rented a couple movies and came home. Did a little bit of cleaning and then watched one of the movies we got.