Summer Sundays

Our church has 4 service times and a couple of months ago we randomly attended the 5 pm service after being out of town for the morning services. We really enjoyed the "feel" and decided it would become our regular time slot. It has completely changed our Sundays. We feel that the service allows us to observe the Sabbath better. We spend family time together. We have a leisurely breakfast together. We rest. And then we go to church fellowshiping over a delicious turkey burger before attending corporate worship.

The service ends around 6:30 and with summer it's still light for a couple ours so we headed out for more family time.

We headed to Rite Aid for ice cream cones!

Garden Hose and Popcorn

Most evenings we eat dinner outside.

After dinner I typically water the garden. After spending time at Grandma's house, Lily has become aware of how fun the hose can be.

She dumped buckets and buckets of water on her head. She took drinks from the hose.

But her favorite was allowing Daddy to spray her with hose.

It wasn't exactly hot outside and it took some convincing to get her to finally come inside for a bath.

Once washed and dried she wanted to put on her new night gown from Grandma - the one that matched Beebee.

We then went upstairs to watch Curious George before bed.

But when you watch a movie, you have to have popcorn.

And if you have Atkinson Popcorn, it has butter, brown sugar, and cinnamon. Mmmmmm!

Lemon Festival

I am always on the look out for free (or super cheap) family outings. They are becoming fewer, and sometimes free almost doesn't seem worth it. But a couple of weekends ago we headed out to the Upland Lemon Festival. I've never really been one for the midway, but I love the cheesy local events on the entertainment stage. I like pie eating contests and Clydesdales carved out of butter. I like bull riding and baby lambs. It must be the Bakersfield roots that my family holds. And while the Lemon Festival wasn't huge, and didn't have a ton of "lemon-y" events, the atmosphere was pleasant and the weather was nice. The outing was last minute, so we packed up the dinner I was already planning and headed out. We bought fresh squeezed lemonade (with the money we found on the ground,) unpacked our dinner at a shaded table, and watched the entertainment; a local belly dancing studio of mostly women that probably should have stopped showing their midriff 20 years earlier. But the music was catching and I found myself smiling as the women thoroughly enjoyed dancing for an audience. We walked around a little, looked at the petting zoo and watched the elephant walk in circles at the elephant ride. Then finished at the stage again watching local school age girls do traditional Irish dancing. Lily loved the Celtic music, laughing, dancing, and clapping along. It was great family time.

I Left My Heart In San Francisco

We spent a drizzly and somewhat gloomy St. Patrick's Day in San Francisco.We spent a lot of our time on Pier 39. Lily loved looking at the water and walking around the back. But with it being so cold there weren't many sea lions out. And Lily wasn't really that interested.

We tried to show her how to bark like a sea lion, but when we asked her what noise a sea lion made, she would growl like a lion. It was all very confusing for her.

She was much more intrigued with the pigeons and followed them around the pier for quite a while.

And, of coures, Bee-Bee came with us.

The only picture of the 3 of us just before we headed home. It got really cold, it was nap time, and definitely time to go, but we had a great family day out.

Daddy and his little girl.