Texas State Aquarium - Tuesday

Tuesday we went to the State Aquarium. Here's Colin getting his shoes on:
They had an aviary there too and Colin and Michael were comparing their wingspans. :)
Here we are looking slightly windblown. The USS Lexington is in the background. We're gonna have to hit that another time though since Colin wasn't up for more after the aquarium (see below!).
He really enjoyed looking at all the fish and other animals. Here are a few pictures.

Colin: Da Duck! Quack, quack.
Us: No Colin, it's not a duck...
Colin: Quack, quack.
Us: *sigh*
Sea turtles. We watched these for a LONG time!
Chasing birdies again.
And totally wiped out. He slept almost the whole way back to San Antonio!

Play Day

Wednesday, Oma and Papa decided to join us for our play group. Colin enjoyed having his whole entourage there.
He looks like a chalk hog here, but he was actually sharing pretty nicely!
In the evening, we decided to try out Ghengis Grill, which just opened about a mile from us.
It was very yummy and Colin ate the whole bowl we created for him! What a good boy!
Afterwards, we spent the evening outside playing. Percy enjoyed the breeze.
I just love this picture of Colin blowing his bubbles!
Oma blowing bubbles the easy way!
He loves his slide from Brenna! We play on it every day!
Being sweet to his puppy. :)
After we played outside, Papa had ice cream for Colin. He ate the whole bowl (after eating his whole bednight bottle!).

Catchin' Up...

We have had a packed schedule the past few days. On Friday, Colin and I went to a "summer lunch club" we decided to do with some of our friends. We are going to be trying out recipes on each other and "letting the kids pummel each other" so they'll all nap in the afternoons! This first week was Jamaican-inspired. We did a jerk chicken salad, a mango salsa, some black bean pasta salad, and I tried my hand at making bananas foster (which were not nearly as difficult as I had imagined AND I didn't set the house on fire!). Everything is really yummy and we're planning to do it every Friday this summer.
Unfortunately, I will be missing next week.
The reason though is worth it: Joe and Laura are here!!!

Of course, they had to bring Paul's Bakery cookies for Michael to let them in, so here is Colin eating his specially decorated one (didn't get a pic first...maybe next time!).

Colin is also going home with them for a week ~ WOW! You guys ROCK! He's got a full schedule while he's up there and I've got a full list of things to keep me busy here while he's gone! :)
He has a new obsession to go along with his vacuum cleaner one: shoes, particularly flip flops. He tries to wear mine around the house all the time and is actually getting impressively good at getting them on and getting a few steps!
Dinner was ribs, onion rings and corn on the cob. My food pictures Friday were all horrible, so I didn't bore you with food from our lunch. This one isn't much better. Not sure, maybe I was just having an "off" day.
I spent yesterday qualifying for my CCL (which Michael has been hounding me to get for the past few years). One of his coworkers offers a 10-hour qualification course/exam. There were two other people, another girl my age from the squadron and her father. We had a lot of fun together and I passed (got 100% on the written bit). Here they are shooting and the targets.
Here I am shooting.
Please don't be too critical. I shot in the center for the first two stages, then knew I'd already passed before I had to shoot from farther away (at which point I wasn't as careful or accurate ~ thus the ones below the line, but which are still worth points)!
Church this morning was great. I'm so proud of Colin, who makes it longer and longer through service each week. This week he was absolutely fascinated by the soloist too!
The garden is moving along wonderfully. We've still got more jalapenos than we can safely consume. The okra is getting taller every time I look at it and the zucchini and carrots are keeping pace. We've got some sweet peas about ready for picking and the squash is looking good and growing fast.
We are headed to the beach tomorrow and Tuesday, but Laura and I already have a new recipe picked out to try with our first summer squash. I'll let ya know how it turns out.
We had to run to the HEB Plus this afternoon. Not only did we need some groceries, but Laura has apparently been telling Tammy about their huge sections for cheese, meat, seafood/sushi, and bakery. So here we are (or at least Laura is) outside.
A quick shot coming in.
The next shot I got and I was going to get a shot where you could really see all the variety in the store, but Tammy, you're gonna have to enjoy this one because after this we were asked (by the lady behind the counter) to stop photographing.

Then a short little Mexican man (shorter than I am) came up to us all huffy (don't think he realized Michael was with us) and I'm pretty sure he was going to ask to see the camera, but just relectured us about taking pictures.

Then Michael pointed to a set of keys (obviously lost) sitting by some bread and suggested (rather politely, I thought) that the man do something useful like finding the owner of the keys. :)
Note the looks on the faces of the three women behind the counter. We're thinkin' maybe we weren't supposed to be taking pics of illegals...

Grumps. No longer sure it's my favorite HEB.

Feelin' a Little Granola ~ a few pics from Thursday

Going to Whole Foods down here always makes me feel a bit, um, granola. For one thing, San Antonio is one of the fattest cities in the nation, so you see a whole different side of the city when you're in there. For another, I always get comments about how I'm "starting your kid off right" by having him there. As though I can't get him healthy food elsewhere? At any rate, we had to take a trip up Thursday morning because I did actually need a few things I can't find at other places. Sure makes me miss places like Jungle Jim's and Trader Joe's in Dayton though...
After a hard morning of shopping (we also went to the huge Asian Market and he walked most of the time we were out), Colin was toast. He ate lunch and then crashed. I went to check on him and this is what I found:Goofy kid had dragged his pillow and blanket to the door instead of sleeping in his bed. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.

This afternoon, we made trail bars (from Laura's yummy recipe). I decided to split a batch and did some strawberry and some raspberry. As soon as they were finished, Colin was ready for a snack and had a HUGE piece ~ he loved it and had another for breakfast with his (ba)nana.
Colin's unhealthy obsession with vacuum cleaners has now escalated into an obsession with all cleaning implements. It is nearly impossible to clean the floors without a great deal of pint-sized assistance. I was trying to mop after our baking extravaganza and Colin was bouncing right in front of wherever the broom was saying, "want that, want that." Eventually we got the kitchen cleaned.
Michael had a "challenging" day at work again, due to circumstances out of his control. He wanted comfort food and to him, that includes this: chili dogs and Doritos.
All I can say is "gag". But I am a good wife, so I got him the disgusting fixin's and he and Colin chowed down.

For a special treat for him, I made up a dessert (much better than his dinner). I diced some apples and some figs, mixed them with some cinnamon and made little phyllo dough triangles. Very tasty and super easy (with stuff I usually have on hand), this one is definitely going into the regular repertoire.

Eating, Playing and Sleeping = Growing Boy

Yesterday evening we spent more time playing out in the yard. Here are a few pictures for ya.

(daddy helped a bit in this first one!)
He was diving headfirst into the water earlier in the day. Here he's trying to explain something to us...
Just love the squeeling grin!
And the goofy tongue.For dinner, we had roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and asperagus. Colin, as usual, pigged out, having second helpings of everything.
Today we met our playgroup at the park. Colin really wears himself out trying to keep up with the bigger boys! He is learning to climb some of the inclines, but still hasn't gotten the hang of going up the slide yet, thank goodness. He showed off by licking rocks for everyone (his new hobby here at the house and apparently now out in public). He licks them, then sets one down and licks another. What sort of mineral deficiency does this child have?
He and Seth were so funny. They heard the snack coolers open from across the playground and went running for them. All the other kids kept playing, but not these two piggies.

One of the dads was helping Colin with his snack and commented to me that "it's like feeding a monkey at the zoo!" Hmmm... compliment?
Colin was eating as fast as this guy was handing out crackers and "oooh, oooh, oooh-ing" for more!
Loner? Nope, just not quite as fast as the 3-4 year olds he was trying to keep pace with! We had a great time though. It was the perfect weather, slightly cooler and cloudy with a bit of a breeze. The playground area was covered, but Colin was still totally exhausted when we went home. Yay!
A couple hours before dinner tonight, I saw this post on Pioneer Woman's blog and realized we had all the fixin's to make this spinach salad. You have to try it. It will change your life! Wow, was it good! In addition to her recipe, we also added some bleu cheese to the top...mmm.
Here's the salad before I tossed it with some bacon vinegrette. Spinach, bacon, caramelized red onion, and mushrooms.

And on the plate with some salmon cakes I made to go with it.Colin ate two salmon cakes, got down from the table, went and got applesauce out of the pantry, took it to his snack spot and sat down waiting. He ate the whole thing (note to self: now that he wants to feed himself, plain is a much better choice than blueberry applesauce), then went back to the pantry and came back with a package of crackers. Michael decided to cut him off, but later this evening he had a 10 oz bottle and a whole banana (which he can now say *with* the "b").
After dinner we went to test drive some more trikes. Doesn't he look like such a big boy here? Well, apparently he is still short for his age because the inseam on every one we looked at was still to tall. *sigh* All this eating better result in some height soon! :)