By far, the most prevalent one, which is said to me about 600 times a day: “I want a cuddle!” Sometimes this is said excitedly, sometimes whining, sometimes through tears. But all the time. She is such a huggy-bear. She just turned 3 (no, the pictures are not up yet) and she got presents from various loved ones for about 4 days. The day after her birthday she said to her Daddy, “I want more birthday.” Matt said, “Sorry, but it’s all over.” Lucy said firmly, “Daddy, that’s not a good choice.”

I didn’t quite finish the post about our day at the beach. I forgot to mention what Poppa was doing with us at the beach. The following should have appeared before the final sentence about lunch and naps. While Jeff and I read books at the beginning of the morning, Pop was the entertainment for the kids. He got all of them involved in making sand castles that turned out to be sand Village People. Below is a picture of everyone’s hard work.

Village People

Tuesday, In Toby’s planning, she scheduled Tuesday and Thursday to be ‘stay home’ days. The men took the kids to the beach while the women got attended to at a local day spa.

Talking Heads

Max Head

Lucy Head

Nathan Head

Lucy told me that she wanted to stay buried ‘forever and ever’. Her actual burial time was about an hour. We saw a couple of dolphins and lots of helicopters. We had take out from Fidel’s for lunch and spent the afternoon swimming and reading and napping.

Monday — Wild Animal Park — It was tough getting out of the condo this morning, and we ended up being 20 minutes late to meet everyone else, but it worked out ok. They had a great Meerkat exhibit and Lucy loved it. The elephant show was fantastic, but I waited about 20 minutes for the food place to cook a hot dog for the kid’s meal I ordered. Ugh. Poppa, Jeff and I had a strenuous uphill walk to get to the elephant show where the gals were waiting for lunch. I had Lucy on my shoulders while balancing a tray full of food, including a large soda with no lid (for the safety of the animals). The hardest part was that having Lucy on my shoulders caused my hat to fall over my eyes and I didn’t have any free hands to push it back up. I ended up just keeping Jeff’s heels in sight and following them.

Lucy in an egg

With Poppa and Yaya

Four little monkeys

Beautiful Girls

Max in a log

Sunday, At 7a, I woke up and got the kids out of the room so that Toby could sleep for a few more hours uninterrupted. We did a walking tour of Carlsbad for about 2 hours. We stopped for donuts and hot chocolate and Lucy promptly spilled all down the front of her little pink sweat suit. She really liked pushing the crosswalk buttons and really cried when she didn’t get to push it. On the way back, we went to Albertson’s and I got a couple of bags of groceries for our immediate breakfast needs. After lunch we went to Flower Fields and viewed some beautiful flowers. Max went sluicing for gems and discovered quite a few shiny rocks including a Tiger’s Eye, his new favorite.

Flower Fields

Flower Fields

Dinner time was at Tony Roma’s with Poppa and Yaya, Jan and Jeff and kids. Toby presented the picture book for Yaya and Yaya loved it.