Slow day on the blog = Birds and such

Yet agian but there has been a lack of blogging so I figured anything was better than nothing.

Gila WoodPecker

"who me? I didn't do nothing!" Says Mr. rabbit.

I have been trying to get some birds flying, this is the Great blue heron

And the Zone tail hawk

Look who is stealing lots of our pomegranates, a juvenile cardinal

Common Black Hawk

Zone tail hanging out

wren

A deer lives in town too

Great blue heron

Black phoebe

Sand Castle and Six

 Besides playing in the ocean my kids love building sand castles.  This time we bought some useful things to help in making a really awesome sand castle.  Quinton and Declan actually drew up some plans before we left on our trip.  They based their design on a moated castle.

McCoy makes a few test walls

Soon everyone starts helping

Quinton starts digging in earnest

To protect their castle, Quinton added the planned moat

Left to Right: Zany, McCoy, Quinton, Archer, Declan

The moats works

Perfect day, perfect sand castle

Zany loves the sand

Cool Coy

 Archy celebrated his sixth birthday, on the beach.  That's how I would like to spend my birthday right on the ocean, lucky summer birthday! After two days of being in the ocean and on the beach there was some very painful chaffing happening.  We all walked a bit stiffly off the beach but what lovely memories.

Happy Sixth Birthday Archer!

Beach Boys and Gal!

Happy Birthday Grandma!

Recently we gathered at our dear Grandma's house to celebrate her birthday, its number 82! She is a wonderful strong woman and we are always happy to see her. We gathered for cake & ice cream, a bit of pole climbing, and to everyone's delight a Magic show!

All of us Grandkids have attempted to climb this pole, sadly I was always too weak to make it up. I remember Cousin Jen was able to do it like a pro. Zany is just starting to learn how still in the assisted phase.

McCoy shows us how it was done.

Even Quint got in the act once he heard that a Dollar was on offer to those that could do it.

Archy came up with his own style and it worked well for him!

Declan gave it a go trying Archy's way with slightly less success.

Here McCoy the Magnifico begins the magic show with a trick...

Daring Declan wows his younger siblings

Archer the Awesome dazzles his fellow magicians



The best magic of all, Grandma opening a present from her two Daughters, Jeanine and Rebecca! What ever could it be? It seems to make her very happy.....

Its and American girl, Josefina!  You can never have enough dolls or too many birthdays! She also received some pajamas, some hummels, a Lamp and a welcome mat, though I was quite the distracted photographer. I also neglected to get a picture of everyone together.

Even Pa is impressed!

San Clemente State Beach

 Our summer vacation continued with a short drive to one of our favorite places--the beach.  It was an eight hour drive to Las Vegas and from Las Vegas to our favorite beach was only four hours from our favorite Southern California beach to home was eight hours.  Not sure about that math but it added up to fun!  On the way to our hotel we had to stop at my Grandpa Agle's most favorite place to shop-Costco in San Juan Capistrano, CA.

The big bro with large hands-Quinty

After checking in to our hotel we hussled down to the beach to enjoy it as long as we could.  It was really warm for Southern California and the beach was delightful with its cool water.  

Eddy at our camp 

Not sure how others handle the need for bathrooms in the ocean but we just told Zany to pee in the water.  The bathroom was a long hike away and there was no way she would make it in time.  It really freaked her out though and she didn't like to get in the cool water.  While I was gone to the bathroom actually, Zany needed to go pooh and so she went in the water about ankle deep and went.  That was a problem because that item of course was in her swim bottoms.  Eddy told me what had occurred when I returned.  We decided to take her out into the ocean remove the bottoms and then scrub them on the sand until they were clean (you probably don't want to go to the beach with us right?).  It was all going well, Eddy had her bottom half hidden in the ocean I had cleaned her swim bottom and was just discreetly putting them back on her when out of nowhere a monster wave came and knocked us all over.  Once we righted ourselves, we discovered the swim bottoms were claimed by the ocean.  Now what?  Zany literally was half naked on a public beach.  Eddy took off his swim shirt and wrapped it around her.  Luckily, I had brought a pair of panties along and she wore those the rest of the day.

Look at those cute swim bottoms (soon to disappear).

Zany left and Archy right

We bought two body boards at the costco McCoy comes in after a good run.

What a perfect, sunny day for the beach

The Mini Time Machine Muesum

I have always loved miniatures, I think due in part to Nona also loving them and collecting small items for her shadow box. I like to make miniature furniture and I also buy things to make a dollhouse. Hopefully that will become reality one day. I was surprised to see that since I left Tucson they opened a Miniature Muesum! So Nona, Mcoy (who also has inherited the love of Miniatures) went to visit it. Even better it was the one day a year when it was free admission! I wasn't sure what to expect, but it was wonderful and also quite a bit bigger then I expected. Before we went in I told the two indecisive hufflepuffs, they had to pick a favorite display. I was surprised when they actually did, and Nona even declared some favorites for other family members as well!

So Big in fact McCoy could barely reach the door handle! 

They had a hide and seek with these Faires throughout the displays.  McCoy found them all . 

I was taken with these, early 1900 commercially available Bliss dollhouse made out of  Lithograph paper. They had furniture made of the same materiel. I looked them up on Ebay and to no surprise they are quite expensive, but I was happy to see there are reproduction kits available, that are made to look like antiques. I can see a family of Calico Critters living in them, as they are reportedly quite sturdy to hold up to play. 

Nona near a emporium store just like her real life! 

I also found I enjoyed the caravan doll houses

And this creepy Italian desk. 

Nona declared this would be Pa's Favorite

And this one too

Here She declared Rhiannon's favorite. It is hard to see in the photo (No flash allowed, next time I will need to bring a flashlight) but it was a fancy theater that was playing "Phantom of the Opera." If I had a dollar for every time Rhi made us listen to the that CD I wouldn't have to settle on buying reproductions of things. 

McCoy's favorite a giant Collection of Department 56 village. Rhi collects these I think she should do this in her living room to have them on display year round!

Me next to the witches lair,. They had a really nice Halloween section which I enjoyed greatly.

Nona's and Zany's favorite a giant beautiful fairy house!!

I really want to go back, when it maybe is a bit quieter. It is a very child friendly museum which is both great and loud.