stuff we've done

It's that time again!  Time to catch up with two months' work of pictures and events.  Ready?  Ok!

First, we discovered the Waco zoo!  Scott had a day off and the weather was nice, so we made the trip up to Waco (only 45 minutes) and we were impressed.  Their zoo has all the major animals without being overwhelming in size, and lots of little fun places for kids to play.

The elephants were probably the biggest hit with our girls.  Kate in particular wanted to watch them forever.  They were really putting on a show too.

Scott liked the bison I guess.

The girls had to wait a LONG time for their lunch because the line for zoo food was quite long.  Even in adversity, Kate is a dutiful smiler for the camera.  Jane, not so much.

The Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake didn't have a lion.  Something new!

You have to enlarge to see Jane's expression in this one.  Really, she's usually very happy.

So in April I played in a piano ensemble concert at Temple College.  It was a fundraiser to help pay for the restoration of one of their grand pianos.  There were six grand pianos onstage, and ten pianists involved.  We played in groups of four or more at a time; often eight or even all ten of us at once.  There is plenty of large ensemble music out there for pianists, much of it originally written for the American Piano Quartet from BYU!  My friend Emily is a great pianist and I got her involved too.  She is on the far left and I'm on the far right:

Group photo!  The couple on the far left were ballroom dancers that performed onstage during one of our numbers.  Everyone else pictured was part of the piano ensemble in some way.  The overall quality of our concert varied.  Sometimes it was great but other times... well, it was a fun experience. :)

So Scott is on a medical jeopardy team in his residency.  Cute huh?  They won the state competition so they must be pretty good.  Then in April they got to go to the national competition in San Diego and I came too!  Mom & co. were kind enough to watch our little chickadees while we had a long weekend away.  Thanks, y'all!  Scott's team got second place in their first round bracket, which meant they didn't advance.  Sad, but also good, because we were free to do tourist stuff for the rest of the weekend.

In front of the USS Midway aircraft carrier.

Trying to imitate the famous statue.

Front view of the Midway.  It is also a popular museum so we decided to check it out.  It was super cool, but HUGE, and the audio tour was LONG.

One of the many old-school planes inside the ship.

The bunks that the sailors slept in were insanely small and cramped.

If you know me well, you probably know that museums are not really my thing.  After a couple of hours, my usual museum ennui set in:

Scott, however, was enjoying himself, so I tried to rally for his sake.  There were tons of aircraft on the top deck of the ship as well.  Here is one you could climb into.

In San Diego the airport is right next to downtown, so there are always planes flying low between high rise buildings.  It's not a very comforting sight if you aren't used to it!

Rich people dock their yachts in the harbor... pretty.

The San Diego temple is gorgeous!  We got to do a session while we were there.  Afterwards a nice couple from our session offered to drop us off at our next destination so we wouldn't have to pay for a cab ride!  There are lots of good people out there. 

  

Our next destination happened to be George's in La Jolla.  It's a nice restaurant with trendy creative dishes that I was dying to try out, and it didn't disappoint.

I jotted down notes on some dishes that I want to try to recreate later.  Others, I wouldn't dare even try.  This was my halibut steak.  Yum.

Probably my favorite part of the trip was our visit to Coronado Island.  It is completely gorgeous and idyllic.  The island is practically attached to San Diego; this was our view of the city from the island.  We biked on a path along the coast and I was in heaven.

The famous Hotel del Coronado, where Some Like It Hot was filmed with Marilyn Monroe back in the day.

The beach outside the "Hotel Del."  Unfortunately the weather was much too cool to swim or sunbathe while we were there but the beach was still pretty to look at.

Inside the Del.

Back in Texas, we made another little family trip to Waco to check out the children's museum.  (Why do I always end up in museums?)  There were sixteen different "discovery rooms" and the girls were in heaven.  One of the greatest joys of parenthood is seeing your kids happy. 

The children's museum is also connected to a grown up museum, which we checked out briefly.  Here the girls are standing over a model of an excavation of woolly mammoth bones.  There was a loud instructional movie in the background, which is why Kate is covering her ears.

See?  Jane can be really happy.

Coloring in the art room.

The air from this pipe is meant to keep balls floating in midair, but Kate had just as much fun putting her face over it.

By punching some buttons you could create your own twister on this thing.  I just noticed that Janie is running away in the background...

The girls enjoyed the tea party room.  Jane prefers to drink her tea directly from the pot.

After the museum we went to Chuy's.  My food was fabulous but Scott's was kind of lame so I hope I can convince him to go back.  They had this yummy jalapeno cream dip for the chips and Jane was digging it.

There are a lot more pictures like this, of Janie being her wild, happy self.  She turns two tomorrow (on Mother's Day - Happy Mother's day, Mom!).  We like this funny little girl.