Trip to the San Diego Zoo

To celebrate J's birthday and our last day of school, we took a trip to the San Diego Zoo. It was unusually crowded, so we decided on a bus tour rather than pushing the wheelchair all over the zoo which is rather hilly and therefore difficult for wheelchairs (and even more so for the people pushing them). It was a lovely day, even though photos were difficult to take from a moving vehicle. Plus, when on a zoo bus, one is attempting to take photos while level with the walking patrons' heads, some of which were not able to be edited out. (GRRRR....) So here are several of the best photos, and my favorite is on my Meditative Meanderings site.

Yay! School is out for the summer!

There's Nuthin' Like a Dog....

E cuddles with Dash. Sometimes when life is tough, the solace of a doggie heals hurts like no other remedy, even chocolate....

T's Find in the Garden...

One of my Class Day students came up to our home today so I could go over his MLA research paper with him and his mom. While we discussed comma splices, fragments, and parenthetical citations, T, J, B, and my student's two younger brothers played together outside. And when five boys are goofing around outside, it isn't surprising that they made a significant scientific discovery:





Yes, they found a young gopher snake. They enjoyed playing with him for an hour or so, and once the visiting family went home, T put him in an old spinach container from Costco. When Keith arrived home, the boys enjoyed showing off their prize before letting him go in the bushes where they caught him so he can do his job of keeping down the mice population near our house. He's a cute little snake, but I much prefer him outside in the garden than in the house, spinach container or no....

Play Rehearsal....

This afternoon, the day before the final production of Twelfth Night, the cast met at the library community room because the town's clubhouse was in use for a party of some kind. So here's the cast lined up listening to final directions....



Jack, a student I tutor, as Malvolio and E as Lady Olivia, on the back deck of our town's library.

I'll have photos from the play on several of my blogs tomorrow night....

Sunflowers

Last week B and I made a quick stop at Summers Past Farms in Flinn Springs (East San Diego County), and we thoroughly enjoyed the gorgeous gardens. I took many photos but haven't had time to edit many yet, but these were my favorites from the photo shoot. We have now planted our own sunflower seeds; we'll let you know how they do in the garden this summer.

The Field....

I drive past this field next to Interstate 8 every time we drive into or home from the city (three times a week for me; six times a week for Keith), and last week I finally took the offramp of the way home, parked on the little road off Highway 79, and took a few photos in the last afternoon shadows. This field is green for only a month or two out of the year; the rest of the time it's a dull brown and loses its interest. I caught it just before the last of the green tinge left; when I drove past yesterday, the grasses have finally surrendered to the browns of late spring, summer, autumn, and winter. The only other color we see here is white when the snow level drops to 3000 feet, but that's a rarity that occurs only once or twice a year, if that.

I love the wild mustard in the foreground; I used to pick bunches and bunches of it each spring on the way home from school to proudly present to my mom. She was a good mommy who immediately put them in a vase and centered them in the middle of the kitchen table for us all to "admire."

Apple Blossoms

The apple blossoms on our Pippin tree were the most beautiful we've seen in our seven years in the mountains.

J.R.

Tonight at dinner the kids created a "replacement" for J who is in Hawaii with my parents for the next ten days or so. So this balloon dude, complete with paper hands holding paper utensils to eat paper pizza and drink from a paper cup, has been christened J.R. -- J's Replacement.

I guess the kids miss J more than they've been letting on, even B who is enjoying the top bunk while J is away....

The Bite of an Angry Lizard

One of T's favorite activities is catching various local reptiles, keeping them for a short time to observe them, and then letting them go back to their native habitat (whether that is in the meadow, under the house, beneath a rock, or in my flower beds). He discovered this fine alligator lizard in my vinca beds under the boys' bedroom window and kept him in a large Red Vines container (bedded with dirt and grass) for a couple of hours. Upon release, the lizard definitely had payback on his mind.



Did he ever! I think this instance of "payback" requires Neosporin and a band aid. But will it stop T from catching and observing them? Never.

Ocean Views....

After Class Day yesterday (Thursday), we drove down to my parents' place at the beach to drop J off as the three of them took off for Hawaii early this morning. When each of the grandkids turns 11, they get to go on a special trip to Hawaii with Granny and Papa. My parents spend the month of May (and usually several weeks in the fall as well) in Hawaii and when they take one of the eight grandkids, they fly over with the grandchild, spend five days on Maui then five or more days on Oahu in their little studio-sized condo with its view of Diamondhead. So it's J's turn this spring.

But before saying goodbye to him, we walked down to the end of the street to look at the beach, and I took a few photos of the ocean from Pacific Beach, San Diego -- enjoy!




We really enjoyed watching the kitesurfers. J will see many more on the islands as well.



The Pacific Beach Pier