So far, October has been a pretty good month. The weather here in Colusa is so much more mild (in the 80s). Compared to this year's summer with over 45 days of 100 degree weather, October has been paradise! We were able to get away to Palm Springs for a week to visit with Cindy and Leo. Spending a few days together provides such quality time that you can't get otherwise. We spent the 4 days pretty much swimming or relaxing. Each morning, Cindy made a delicious breakfast, and from there we got to pick the fun activity for the day. One day, Cindy and I took the boys to the zoo. Clay and Ryan loved it! We saw giraffes, hyenas, cheetahs, warthogs, and many other African animals. It was pretty exciting. Another day, we went to the La Quinta Resort for tennis and then swimming at the fun pool there. The boys loved it.
One of my favorite parts of the vacation was seeing the boys interact with their grandparents. Clay played like crazy with both of them. In the pool, reading books, playing games - Clay was pretty spoiled. Ryan is a pretty independent guy who likes to walk around an explore. That weekend, however, he was particularly interested in Leo. Leo was pretty much the best guy around, and Ryan reached for Leo first thing in the morning when he saw him. In fact, I thought Leo must be giving Ryan m&m's or some other treat, because Ryan was so infatuated with his grandpa! It was very cute.
Luke and I are not strict with Ryan and sweets, but that weekend we were becoming more aware that Ryan was getting more than his toddler share of sweets. One night, Cindy was giving the boys ice cream, and so Luke thought he would outsmart Ryan and give him a healthier dessert than maybe what Ryan expected. Cindy was scooping vanilla ice cream into a cone for Clay, and Luke told Cindy to just give Ryan a cone without ice cream. Luke figured Ryan wouldn't know the difference. When Ryan grabbed the cone, the first thing he did was look inside of the cone. He looked back at Cindy with a confused look. Then he looked back at the cone and put his fingers inside of the cone, breaking off side of the cone to find the ice cream (there wasn't any). Then he gave the cone back to Cindy and said, "more?" It looks like Luke and Cindy weren't able to trick Ryan!
The rest of October has been spent gearing up for fall. We flattened out some of the dirt in front of our house to hopefully prepare the ground for some walkways and plantings. Oh, and we also got a new Green Mountain smoker/grill thing through Luke's rotary group, along with 200 lbs of pork. Luke won a raffle, and so we've been up to our ears in pork!
Just last night, Luke came home from a day at the UC Davis Baseball Golf Tournament. Each time Luke comes home from these fundraisers, Clay and I are excited to see what he brought home for us. Usually, there are silent auction items, and Luke tries to bid on items to donate money. Last night, Luke came home with some baseball gear, and this beautiful, hard covered baseball book which was written by a UC Davis Alum named Clay Sigg. Clay has been very interested in baseball, and so he was excited about the book. Luke and I pointed to the author of the book because we thought it would be neat for him to see the person has the same name as him. We told Clay, "Look! Look who wrote the book!" Clay looked at the person's name, and was a bit confused. He said, "Me?" Luke and I laughed so hard, and explained to Clay that he didn't write the book, it was Dad's friend who wrote the book, who happened to have the same name as Clay. Ah! 4 year olds are so funny!!!
There are so many other stories, like when Luke was playing baseball with Clay, and Clay hit the wiffle ball over our fence. To our surprise, Clay yelled, "That's what I'm talking 'bout!" Where does he get his funny material!?
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| Story time before bedtime in Colusa. Dinosaur pjs!! |
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| Clay has been really interested in tennis lately, and so La Quinta was the perfect place to be! |
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| Clay has also been having fun with golf. Here, we went to the resort to play on the practice putting greens. |
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| This is how we spent most of our time: in the pool, watching Clay and Ryan fill buckets with water. It was very important business. |
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| Future GQ model! |
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| Future silly man! |
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| Here is Ryan with his Grandma Cindy |
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| The boys loved the train display at the zoo! |
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| Clay was a bit shy at the petting zoo, but Ryan went right in to brush the goats. |
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| We told Clay to hold onto Ryan for this photo, and Clay took his responsibility very seriously. |
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| Clay was VERY excited to go on the merry go round - Ryan looks less than thrilled. |
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| Luke and I snuck away during one afternoon to go play on a golf course! After some delicious deli sandwiches, here we are on the Mountain Golf Course hitting a bucket of balls. After not playing for about a year, I had a hard time making contact - but I sure look professional! |
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| Luke is pointing at how far his ball went. |
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| Clay is such a great swimmer! |
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| Here are both boys at the resort trying to plug up these water fountains. |
