The other morning, the crispness was real and made me pull out my autumn-time music. Do you have those albums that you first heard and loved at a specific season or in a specific location? I do. So Eddie and I ate our breakfast while singing along with Jon Thurlow to Your Faithfulness and Strong Love. It's a favorite, folks.
But if we were truly catching up about the past months, I'd have to include some major events, not just the lovely mundane. My parents and grandparents came to visit. So, so special. We had a wonderful time!
Enjoying the Beach!
My Mom and Dad brought Eddie a little Thomas the Train set and acommplished the establishment of Eddie's love of trains. All the train travel in Japan started it, but Thomas has opened his eyes to the world of choo-choo, tunnels, track, lights, STOP! and all that fun! He is now constantly finding anything that qualifies as a tunnel, building tunnels, crawling through tunnels.
Books are another developing pastime!
I can't love it enough! He's learning so much!
We've had numerous beach days! And Eddie continues to love it!
He's gotten braver, actually getting wet and enjoying it! The beach in September and October is the best! The summer crowds are gone, but the weather is absolutely perfect--hot days and warm-ish water.
Dates! Here we are at the Huntington Chinese Garden for the Harvest Moon Festival.
Thanks to Joe's willing babysitting, we also spent an evening at CalTech for a special viewing of the PhD Movie 2 which was super fun to watch with a bunch of PhD students in the audience.
Speaking of leaving Eddie with a babysitter...the transition back to our activies, namely MOPS and Bible Study have been challenging as Eddie has been struggling with going to childcare. I've deduced that he's fine at home with someone he knows or even at someone else's house. It must be the overwhelming context of lots of other kids and in an unknown place. He is getting better at not crying when I leave him and actually braving the other kiddos to play and enjoy himself. But those first few weeks were rough!
Speaking of rough...we are braving the Whole30: 30 days of clean eating (no grains, dairy, sugar, legumes). Jonathan has always wondered if we'd feel better, as people claim, going off certain foods for awhile. Well...so far, we can't report miraculous results, but we're hoping for a boost of energy, better sleep and focus. We will see.
In the meantime, I'm cooking thing like this Sweet Potato Cottage Pie (so good!)
and generally bemoaning all the yummy things we have to pass up.
Half way!
A highlight was this past weekend! Baptisms in Altadena church! The first since I've moved here! It was a wonderful weekend, made even more special because of all the visitors, including Grammy and the aunts!
We went to Travel Town. The trains made. his. week.
My favorite was at the baptism, they invited the kids to come up and gather around close to be able to see. I took Eddie up, and he was mesmerized! As we sat down he said, "Water. Wet." So sweet.
