I met Chad halfway to Orange County, we made the trade of empty car for full car and we were off. On the way, we re-enacted Flat Stanley's visit to Riverside (a book I'd made for Alex), with a stop at the Citrus Park. I always keep three sets of sunglasses in my car for these guys, and as they got out, Alex said they wanted to wear them "Like Dad does."
"Yeah," said Chris, "he ALWAYS has his on." I laughed.
This was being painted, but they posed in front of it.
Victoria Avenue. Chris always has his "bunny ears" ready to pop out in any photo. These guys are hilarious.
So the next Flat Stanley stop would have been the dinosaurs out in Cabazon, but the first they wanted to do was inflate the wading pool and jump in. So, we did that.
Hey guys! Smile! Er, um, Shoot!
It's amazing that they didn't kill each other or something, jumping as they did all three at once into a teensy wading pool. I love boys. They are so uncomplicated.
Dinosaurs got knocked completely off the list when Andrew told me he couldn't find Francesco (aka Francesco Bernoulli) in our bucket of cars, and he knew he'd left it here last time he came.
Francesco is on the left, Lightning McQueen is on the right. So we headed off to Target, where they had a budget of eight bucks each to spend.
Dave mans the cart, which is no small feat because it's sort of like a circus with boys jumping in and boys jumping off and boys climbing underneath (we drew the line at Chris underneath). I suggested we all compromise on an ice cream treat after the ordeal of choosing cars. They each chose something different. Compromise, guys. Alex and Chris managed to agree, but Andrew was holding out for an ice cream sandwich. Dave suggested Klondike bars, which went over well. Except for Andrew. Sigh. I threw them into the cart and went to look for dishwasher soap. Dave ran after Andrew who was ticked off and running off to join the circus because he didn't get ice cream bars. Dave finally counted to three and Andrew stopped. Meanwhile we were over in detergent knocking innocent bystanders over because the cart was being steered by a boy, with my hand on the side. I learned how to do a lot of apologizing. Sorry. Oops, sorry. Sorry.
Andrew is a certified fan of La Brea baguettes.
They ate the Klondike bars after dinner and Andrew said his was "really good!" After the sun went down we drove to a local overlook to see the "Super Moon," which was happening that night.
They jockeyed for places in the back of the car. Baths, then we watched the first half of Tin Tin, then bed. In the morning they got up early and watched the end of that movie, then I came down and we did orange juice and waffles.
No shots of Dave as he was in the showers.
Off to church!
After church, Alex and I made him a birthday cake; his favorite is the lemon pound cake made in a castle pan. We tried to light the candles, but the breeze kept blowing them out. One match head flipped off the match and melted a hole in his shorts, but he was amazingly calm, watching it scientifically as it left a hole. I felt badly, but he said "It's okay, Grandma."
After a lunch of barbecued salmon, rice pilaf, asparagus, birthday cake, all the boys played some more with their toys until it was time for them to go.
