Celebrating Ryan's Birthday at Medieval Times

Ryan wanted to bring the kids to Medieval Times for his birthday. We went on a Sunday night and had a lot of fun during the two hour show and dinner. We got to sit in the Royalty section, first row, and they announced Ryan's birthday during the opening ceremony too. We were cheering for the blue knight and he won the tournament! Ava was handed a pink carnation after he won one tournament and Charlotte was named queen of the entire tournament at the end of it all! She got lucky! Our blue knight came over on this horse and gave her a blue sash to wear that says "Queen of the Tournament". I was trying to take a picture of our blue knight and didn't even realize he was giving the sash to Charlotte. Ryan was holding Charlotte up at the time and he accepted the sash on her behalf. I only got a blurry picture of the blue knight! Oops. We had a great time and I am sure in years to come we will be going again. Once we got back home we had ice cream cake ready for Daddy.

                                                    Beautiful white Spanish horses.

                   The kids especially enjoyed watching the falcon circle the arena. Pretty amazed.

                                       Ava after she received the pink carnation from the blue knight.

Our blue knight approaching Ryan and Charlotte with the blue sash at the end of his lance.

                                                   Yay! Charlotte! Queen of the Tournament.

Brewbakers - Surf City, USA

For Ryan's birthday we took him to Brewbakers in Huntington Beach. He's been wanting to learn how to make his own beer for a number of years now and finally took the opportunity on a special occasion to make his own brew. He chose to make the Munich Ale and under the instruction of the shop owner and staff spent about 3 hours making his beer. We will be back in about 3 weeks to bottle and pick up the brew. Ryan will then finally get to drink his own beer!

                                                                  Munich Ale Recipe

                                                          Ryan, Ava and staff member

                                                        Adding the final amount of yeast.

With the left over beer grains the shop owner made two small loaves of bread for us while we waited. The shop is also an eatery that makes homemade root beer, soda, and German pretzels. Yum! Now we just have to wait 3 more weeks for Ryan to enjoy his brew!

Aquarium of the Pacific, Long Beach, CA

As an end of summer family activity we decided to take the kids to the Aquarium of the Pacific for the first time. We went Labor Day weekend. It was very hot out but we managed to take it easy and see almost all of what the aquarium had to offer for us to see.

                                                                 The Pacific Sea Horse.

                 Watching the seals and sea lions through an aquarium tunnel was Ava's favorite.

                               At the touchpool you can gently feel bat rays or shovelnose guitarfish.

Charlotte and I would rather watch the bat rays than touch them. We've touched them once before and that was good enough.

    After checking out the bat rays with Ryan for 15 min or so Ava wanted to try to touch one.

                                                                   Moon Jelly Fish

There is a large walk-in aviary where aquarium guests can enjoy the lorikeet birds. For $3.00 you can purchase a small cup of nectar for the birds to drink. We watched a few different people feed the birds and they seemed pretty tame. Ava loves birds and asked to feed them after watching two other sisters feed them. It was a lot of fun watching the birds carefully approach Ava and climb onto her arm and drink from the cup. She got to feed 3 or 4 different birds while we were in the aviary.

                                                                 Sea star touchpool.

                                                                 Tropical reef habitat.

                                                             Olive Ridley Sea Turtle

Look very carefully and you may see some Leafy sea dragons or Weedy sea dragons. They kind of look like sea horses that camouflage with seaweed beds and seagrasses.

We left the aquarium by 5:00PM. The girls got a snack and drink but fell asleep before we even got on the freeway. They slept for over two hours straight afterward. It was a full and great day at the aquarium.

Ava's August Art Projects

I decided to take a few pictures of some of Ava's more interesting drawings since I know that I likely will not be able to keep them all to look at in the future. Please feel free to check them out if you would like.

                                       Thomas the Train with smoke coming out of his funnel.

                                                       Charlotte sitting with only a diaper on.

A hummingbird sipping nectar from a floor. Ava told me I have her picture upside down though. oops.

                                                            Rainbow, sky and grass.

                                                             An airplane and the sun.

                                                                 A boiling pot of water.

                                            This is a walking house with butterflies in the sky.

                                                "I wrote "Happy Birthday Daddy"". - By Ava

                                                                        Jellyfish.

"Baby Sea Otter. She got her tail stuck in some rocks. She needs to wiggle like a whale shark."-Ava

                                          A butterfly. Paper was folded in half, painted paper,
                                       pressed paper shut and spread the paint to create a butterfly.

                                           Kitty cat. Practicing pasting shapes to create a picture.

 A palm tree and blue sky. She pasted and painted pieces of green construction paper for the palm tree and painted around it.