I had to make a one day trip to Dallas, TX.  There had been major tornadoes and hailstorms the day before which were affecting flights to DFW.  This was the front page of USA Today at the hotel I stayed at.

While I was gone, Poppa came to Carpinteria and stayed over.  According to reports, he made a great breakfast, and I got to have some of his excellent tamales when I returned.  While he was with the family, he created a little garden in our back yard.

I don’t know why anyone would throw away 2 perfectly good children?

For my 39th birthday I received a pair of unwanted presents.  First was a pair of glasses to see at a distance (even though I had laser eye surgery back in 1996) and the second was some pre-cancer spots frozen off of my face and head.  Ugh.

However, I also had a wonderful dinner from my Mom and contributions from many family members towards the purchase of a sea kayak.  After a few weeks of looking on Craig’s List, I found the one I purchased at Costco.  I love the Costco seasonal items.

When I brought it home, I had a few hours of daylight left, so I tried to get Max or Lucy to go with me.  They would have nothing to do with it.  So I asked Marie (a student of ours from France) to go with me.  She was very enthusiastic.  She especially liked the part when we tipped over coming back into the beach.  She told me that if I ever wanted someone to kayak with again, “I am your man!”

The third child gets the recycled toys (at least in our family).  Although the collapsible bus was brought out of storage for Roly, Max and Lucy (and Lindsey) love playing in it.  This is a great toy.

Roly loves his big red dog.  But one day we couldn’t find it for the whole day.  (How does one misplace such a big red dog?)  So, a Dora doll of approximately the same size was brought out of storage as a substitute.  The the big red dog was found, but Dora had been established as a required toy.  When he wakes up from a nap, Roly’s words are ‘Blankey, Doggie, Dora, up?’  Which translates to ‘Get me out of this crib, and you’d better bring my blanket, my dog, and my Dora.’

Enjoy this gem of a video long with a bit of nostalgia.  When our student from Hungary heard the song, her eyes lit up and she said, ‘old, good song.’