Mark's birthday present

I have to admit to wanting these pictures for myself as well as Mark, but they were his present anyway (in addition to a Dodger game, homemade dinner, chocolate pie, new clothes, and a dinner date with his wife). I'm not going to be able to make a career out of photography, but I was happy with what we got. And happy birthday to Mark!

May days

Not quite, but we are getting there, as long as Mark's back holds up.



Our daughters: the princess and the dragon



(Dream bubble) "Mommy's taking pictures of me sleeping in my crib because my new big girl bed is wrapped in plastic in the garage and pretty soon this crib is history and that makes mommy a bit emotional."



I'm still waking up...



Will someone please, please, have a tea party with me?



Claire practicing her marsupial skills. (If you look closely, you can see the tiny animal sheltered in her "pouch".)



One of Audrey's latest works of art. (If you look closely, you can see her in her sculpture.)

Our tax dollars at work

The city has been tearing up old trees and sidewalks in our neighborhood since the first of May. This was the day they poured our new sidewalk and ramp. The city workers were so nice we treated them to homemade lemonade and they returned the favor by giving us a nail and telling us the optimum hour of the drying cyle to carve our initials in front of the house. "Just don't make it too big," they said, very, very quietly. So we didn't. MMAC

Dodger game

Mark's been talking about going to a Dodger game for years and I am generally happy go to sporting events just for the food. So we finally got tickets and took the girls. It was blazing hot but the hot dogs were good. The game was pretty eventful, too. Three home runs, two broken bats and two people in the stands knocked unconscious by fly balls.

San Diego weekend

We spent Mother's Day weekend in San Diego. Mark got a Friday and Monday off and we took advantage of my parents' free lodging. We toured the USS Midway where Mark and Audrey got to climb up to the control deck or whatever they called it and I took Claire down into the belly of the ship and found she might have inherited a little of my claustrophobia. She could not get out of there fast enough and so we found one of the docents who let us out through a totally vertical shortcut. Just glad I was not wearing a skirt. We also took the girls to the beach on Coronado.

We went out for breakfast for Mother's Day and then gave my mom a great gift - almost two days alone with our kids. She was free to spoil them and we were free to go back to Coronado and spend a night at the Loews where we stayed during our honeymoon. We have not been on an adults' only vacation for quite a few years. It was great - the hotel is still beautiful and we took advantage of all the amenities: pool, jacuzzi, tennis, glamorous bar food. And we had some good Mexican and Greek food. We took our portable DVD and Redboxed one of the most depressing movies ever - called "Everyone's Fine" that was listed under comedies but made us both cry and feel totally hopeless. Then it got funny - I mean we did, not the movie. It was only a day and a half but felt like a week and we missed our kids. They missed us and were happy to see us return until they realized that meant they had to say goodbye to Nanie.