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One of the ladies at church recommended that I establish “Play Pen Time” as a way to create a routine for the kids and some time for me to accomplish a few things around the house. Jack has come to have a love/hate relationship with this time. Sometimes when I sing the “Play Pen” song, he runs excitedly to the play pen and can’t WAIT to get in and start playing. (The Play Pen Toys are only used in the play pen so they’re kinda special!) Other times he throws a little fit, but when he gets in there, he’s fine and has fun. Well lately, he’s been sabotaging the whole thing. How? By falling asleep!! You see, nap time and play pen time are supposed to be two SEPARATE times for Mommy. Anyways, today I found him asleep again in the middle of and UNDER his toys. (The orange toy on his nose is my favorite part!) I just had to laugh . . . and take a picture of course!
Katie, on the other hand, has so much fun with her “kicky toy” that she’s never fallen asleep in the play pen. She screams with delight for at least 20 minutes.
Well, now that I’ve shared this random moment with you, I think I’ll go move Jack into his bed where he belongs.
Yep, another birthday in the family! Uncle Dave is 27 today! What an old guy!
We all love Uncle Dave.
Daddy and Uncle Dave have had many years of bonding. It started when they were roommates in Slight Dorm at Master’s together. Poor Uncle got to know the super silly side of Daddy back in those days. But they’ve had lots of more serious and special moments too. They both love to cry at family weddings. And they currently hang out every Tuesday morning before the sun even comes up to talk about the Christian books they’re reading. They’re both learning how to be the godly leaders of their growing families.
Mommy and Uncle Dave obviously go WAY back. She used to call him “Daybed.” Now she calls him Dave-O! She likes to remember how Dave was such a nice brother. Which is not very common for brothers! No matter how mean she was to him, he would always keep his cool! They like to do things the same too. They both played the flute in the Ygnacio Valley Christian School band. They both were Junior Class President in high school (So was Uncle Jonny actually.) They both went to IBEX . . . at the same time actually!! They both went on mission trips to the same place TWICE and married the co-leaders from the second trips. They both bought condos in the Santa Clarita Valley after college and rented it to roommates until they got married. You get the idea.
Jack LOVES Uncle Dave a lot lately. They’ve bonded over things such as XBOX, piano playing, throwing balls, playing with cats. All sorts of fun. In fact, the other day Mommy told Jack that we were going to see Uncle Dave and he got SOOO excited. Even though he was still only in a diaper and hadn’t had dinner yet, he RAN to the door and motioned that he wanted to go NOW!! When she told him it wasn’t time yet, he threw a minor tantrum. Not so cute, but the eagerness was!
And Katie . . . well, she loves most people these days! Sadly, on her last visit to Uncle Dave’s house, she was very unhappy, which is very unusual for her. But since Uncle Dave’s daughter Evelyn is her closest cousin, we’re sure the three of them will have some nice tea parties and princess shows in the days to come. Maybe he can teach her to play the flute.
So, Uncle Dave, we love you tons and hope you’ve had a nice birthday. To keep up the tradition . . . here’s some old and new pics of Uncle Dave! Enjoy!
Do you think Uncle Dave and Jack look alike?
He’s always been a very hard worker!
Mommy and Uncle Dave . . . a long time ago!
The Jackleg Jugglers
After the flute, Dave-O tried something a little more manly!
Berean Christian High School’s Spirit Week . . . we’re not THAT old!
A few pics from Mommy and Uncle Dave’s IBEX trip. Someday you should ask them about their train trip back to California. They lived on granola bars and an occasional banana for two weeks. And they have a great story about their long walk along the freeway in Florida. Uncle Dave’s brilliant idea!!
This is BEFORE they started crying like girls!
Dave and “Wife”
Male Bonding
Uncle Dave loves his two girls!
Pictures from some of our family trips this summer!
Our recent celebration of Uncle Dave’s birthday
We just got back from a walk. I carried Katie in this lovely “Peanut Shell” . . . a gift from the wonderful Jenn Rusinko. Anyways, as soon as I took it off, Jack wanted to wear it and tried to pick up Katie to put her in it. I told him he couldn’t do that but that he could put one of his friends in there. He ran to grab Mickey and asked me to help him put Mickey in the Shell. Then he wandered about the house as usual. I couldn’t resist the picture opportunity.
Well, Jackster slept for 14 hours straight last night. I guess all the fun had worn him out. When we put Katie down last night, we thought she was asleep. But while were were talking in the other room, we heard her making raspberries in the dark. Very funny, but you probably had to be there!
When Jack woke up this morning, he was starving. He’d eaten a few bites of a lunch and slept through dinner yesterday. So he ate and ate and ate. Poor guy. He just couldn’t get enough.
Anyways, after we got packed up and checked out, we headed out for one more day at Sea World.
(By the way, you all need to get the Costco 5 days at any of the three parks for $80. Such a great deal.) Although we could have lots more fun at any of the parks, Jack just loves anything with water . . . “Bub-bows, bub, bub, bub-bows!” (It comes from his association with water and the bubbles in the bubble bath.) And now he has his own invented sign language for Shamu. So how could we resist one more Shamu show? We also got to see some of the exhibits we missed the first day. The Artic zone was incredible. We all loved the beluga whales and the HUGE walruses.
The penguins were cool too.
When we left the penguin area, they dumped us into the penguin store . . . like they do on the rides at Disneyland. Daddy handed Jack a stuffed penguin that was as big as him. Mean mean Daddy! Jack assumed it was his. He got a big smile on his face and started waddling out of the store with his new friend. So cute and so innocent. We knew that he didn’t need any more souvenirs from the trip, but we were secretly dying to get it for him. But we were strong. We can’t be those parents.
We also got to see the Pets Rule show. It was amazing! Lots of cute poochies and kitties and a few other animals with talent. Jack was super intrigued with it all.
I didn’t see half of the show because I was having so much fun watching Jack. Occasionally, he would yell, “Dad!” and wave his hands around in an excited “point.” That’s his way of saying, “Do you see that cool thing that I see, Dad? Isn’t it great?”
After the show, we got to go down to the stage to meet some of the pet super stars. Jack could have stayed there all day. He even just like to lean up on the stage and stare at the colorful set.
There was one more highlight from our day . . . the dolphin feeding. Yep, pay $6 and you can have four slimy dead fish to feed to the dolphins. But it’s really neat. They came right up to us. We got to feed them and pet them. Jack was eager to be super close to them and loved throwing the fish into their mouths. But he did NOT want to touch them.
Afterwards, he was pointing to his mouth, which we know as his way of saying, “Mom, I got to feed the dolphins. I put the fish into their mouths.” (If you haven’t noticed, we’re in a constant game of charades with our little Jack.) Katie was also pretty intrigued with the dolphins. We all were.
We ended our day with a visit to the sea lion and seal area. By then the kids were tucked away in the nice stroller. Katie was falling asleep, and Jack was having a grand ol’ time with an apple. So Daddy and I enjoyed the animals and got a few good pictures.
Then it was “Bye Bye, Sea World! And Bye Bye, San Diego.” Sad. We had a great vacation. We were so thankful that Jesus provided all that we needed to make this trip happen. Cheap hotel . . . which was fine if you weren’t interested in a hot shower. Several gift cards and coupons for meals. Great Costco tickets to the parks. Kids that are still free for almost everything. We’d have to say that our first “Just Us” vacation was a huge success. We were tempted to sleep in the car tonight in a parking lot somewhere so we could use the last of our five days on our tickets, but it didn’t seem like the most responsible thing to do. So we’re home now. Thankfully, Daddy doesn’t have to go to work tomorrow, so we can all adjust back to normal life together.
Hope you’ve enjoyed our pictures and stories. That does it for Millett Vacation 2008! Thank you, Daddy! And thank you, Jesus! It was FANTASTIC!!!
Hi. It’s Mommy this time. I haven’t fallen asleep yet so I get to be the family blogger.
Today was more full than the rest of our days have been. It’s Sunday so we went to church. We visited a Sovereign Grace church in Escondido. It was called Grace Church. The worship time was such a blessing. Lots of our usual favorites. During the “Say hello to the people around you” time, Matt met a guy that went to Master’s and is related to some of our PBC missionaries. He just got back from Uganda. If you know my husband, you know that that is always a point of interest. Meanwhile, I was approached by a lady that I instantly recognized. She said, “Hi. I don’t think I’ve met you before. I’m Elyse.” Um . . . ELYSE FITZPATRICK! Cool! We had a nice little chat. Anyways, while we were having a lovely time with the adults, Jack was in the two year old class. Guess who his teachers were? Do any of you remember Danny and Laurie Frese? Laurie was a fellow Hotchkiss lady with me. Then she got married and moved to Israel. When Dave and I were at IBEX, we made one of our funniest memories with Danny. We helped him CARRY his new sofa from one side of Jerusalem to the other. Random. So besides the fun people, we were thankful for a good message from Ephesians.
While we were in church, God decided that San Diego needed some rain. Not just SOME . . . TONS!! It was POURING when we ran to our car. Matt wanted to go back to the hotel for a relaxing day out of the wet weather, but I wasn’t about to let the weather stop us from making a memory and having an adventure. It’s a good thing, because by the time we got to the Wild Animal Park, the sun had come out. God is good!
The Wild Animal Park was way cooler than we expected. It’s like a zoo except that somehow it feels more natural. I think it’s because the animals aren’t as segregated. As long as they’re not the eating type (like lions and tigers), they get to co-exist in the big open plains. Yes, open plains. Not as many tiny cages.
A few highlights:
- feeding the water fowl. Jack loved this. Any excuse to throw things is good for him.
- the baby monkey. The mama was swinging around like crazy while her baby clung to her for dear life.
- lunch overlooking “Africa”
- the lions. Jack kept pointing and screaming, “La. La. Li. Li. La. La. Li. Li.” Maybe when we get home we can post the videos of it.
- our tram ride through “Africa.” This was the cool “natural” part. Lots of neat giraffes and rhinos and zebras. Jack kept pointing and “Ooooo”-ing. Very cute. Sadly, we didn’t get many good pictures of this part because we were too busy enjoying it. You’ll just have to visit the park yourself if you want to see how cool it is.
Because of church, we didn’t get started at the Wild Animal Park until after noon. Not great for little ones. So we pushed the kids until we knew they were done enjoying themselves. We didn’t get to see the Asian part of the park. So I guess we’ll have to come back again.
Jack fell asleep on the way back to the hotel and is still “out.” He’s currently snuggled up with his new Shamu. After two Shamu shows (or as he calls it “Bub-Bows), Shamu has quickly joined Mickey, Dolphin, and Gorilla as his favorite sleeping friends.
Katie, on the other hand, decided to seize the moment to have some one-on-one time with Mommy and Daddy. So the three of us had some fun in the other room. She just figured out how to make “raspberries” with her tongue. She loves it. Not very lady-like, but still adorable. Again, maybe we can post a video later.
Alright, another wonderful day. Sad to have to leave tomorrow. But so thankful for this lovely family trip. It’s our first “Just Us” family vacation so it’s been very special. Thank you, Jesus, for providing for all the details. And thank you, Daddy, for making it happen. We are blessed.
