August 2008

As usual there has been loads of stuff going on here at the Philps. Most recently (on the 23rd) Stephen and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary with a 5k run (and date night of course). Stephen pushed Cliona in a jogging stroller, Roxy got to stay at home :)
In the middle of the month, Cliona got to go to Avery's house for a week to hang out with her cousins, Grandma and Grandpa Bill. She had a fantastic time - herself and Avery got along really well and Grandma and Grandpa Bill had a great time too. Gk and Kerry spent the week in Hawaii. Needless to say Stephen and I took advantage of the free time and played volleyball every evening. It was so much fun but by Thursday I was really missing my girl so I was happy to go pick her up on Friday. We stayed the weekend in San Diego - on Friday Gk did some para-sailing. Then the guys took the girls to the beach - Gk even got Clio to ride some waves on a kick board. Children are so funny that way. There is little chance Cliona would be as brave with Stephen or I. But if Uncle Gk is doing it then it must be ok.
On Sat we all headed to the Del Mar races - the racecourse is lovely and it was fun to watch the races. They even had a kiddie area for Cliona and Avery to play in. It was so nice to get all the Philp's together - thanks again for looking after the girls Karen and thanks for letting us stay the weekend Kerry.
As you know we have been growing some flowers and vegetables this year and we discovered that we had some 'friends' helping themselves to our tomatoes. We saw a couple of mice in the shed and Stephen decided it was time to catch them. They were a little annoying in that they would nibble a bunch of tomatoes, not just finish one and be satisfied. Anyway, Stephen tried in vain to catch them in a bucket so he bought a trap and with a couple of days we had ourselves two little mice in the trap. We transferred them into a bin for transportation, drove them up the road and let them go in a garden nursery. Clio got a great kick out of seeing the mice and letting them go to their 'new' home. We picked out butternut squash the other day so anyone that reads this blog and has a good squash recipe ????

We also got a pergola built so we could play ping-pong after the sun goes down - we just had to stain it and hang the lights. Ping-pong is back on - yippee!!
And one last thing before I sign off - this morning we were all having breakfast talking about our trip to Ireland in Oct when Cliona pipes up 'Will I be sleeping in a crib at Nan's house?' 'No' I said,
'In a big girl bed'. To which she responds 'Remember in the crib at Nan's house, you pull the string and then beautiful music plays?' 'I was a teeny tiny baby then'. Well that blew us away because she is right - my mother does have a musical toy in the crib that is turned on by pulling a cord and Clio has always loved it. So I guess she remembers all the way back to last Sept - at a minimum. Maybe even to the year before - amazing!

All the pics are HERE

iFLY, uFLY, ClioFLY

So for John's birthday we all went up to Universal Studio's to go iFLYING. It's basically a wind tunnel that allows you to simulate skydiving. And it's SO much fun! We weren't sure if Clio would actually do it - in fact I was pretty certain she would balk. But she seemed interested in it when we arrived and so we suited her up and let her have a turn. She was amazing. She sat on my knee and waited her turn and then she headed off to the door and was really good about following the instructors directions. It was really loud in there - we all had to wear earplugs so we couldn't really talk to each other. Then the instructor took her in and up, up and away she went.

It was so funny - the crowd really got into it. They were cheering, taking pictures - I think a few actually videoed her. We do have video footage which I will post later this week but in the meantime, here's some pictures of our little girl flying :)