Stingrays & Pioneers...

I'm always wishing I could come up with more interesting blog titles, but today is the exception.  Here's the story behind it.

Yesterday we headed to the beach, as we often do.  I don't care to swim in the ocean here, so I typically watch the boys while Sterling catches some waves.  We'd been out for an hour or so, when I looked up to do my usual every 10 second head count, (yes. when we're out, my boys become numbers.) and I saw Sterling coming in.  As he got closer I saw that he was limping.  Oh, and just so you know, I'm horrified of sharks.  I could tell he was playing it cool, but I half expected him to be missing a foot or something.  Not the case, thank goodness.  The bottom of his foot was gushing blood but we knew right away what had happened.  A few weeks ago, we found a boy laying on the beach who had also been stung by a stingray.  We waited with him while his dad went for help.  Had that not happened, we wouldn't have known anything about it and more than likely would've been freaking out yesterday.

So, I ran to the lifeguard tower ten miles away, or so it seemed.  It was probably less than half a mile round trip.  I'm so out of shape!  That's another blog post...the one that'll be titled "I can fit into my pants without having to dance."  Can't wait.

ANYWAY, to make a long story not so long, the lifeguards came, and I watched Sterling ride off in the back of their truck.  This left me standing on the beach with four little boys staring at bloody sand, and not sure what was going on.

Apparently the stings are heat activated and hot water is the best/only thing you can do to help it, so he went to soak his foot for an hour.  Here's something funny.  The lifeguard had been stung before too and wasn't able to walk for a whole day.  When she asked Sterling what his pain level was, on a scale of 1 -10, 10 being absolute agony, he said 5.  She didn't believe him.  She insisted that he was cut by a seashell.  Hahahaha!  Obviously she didn't know who she was talking to!  (insert BOP)

OK, so many tangents tonight.  On to the pioneer part...

As parents know very well, going anywhere with kids requires packing the whole house.  Well, we've gotten pretty good at packing light, but nevertheless, there are 6 of us and there are certain things you just need.  When Sterling left, I was going to wait for him to pack up.  The tide was coming in though and we had to move anyway, so I attempted it on my own.  Let's just say, the tent kicked my butt.  What should have taken 3 minutes, took me 15.

Finally, we were packed.  Now the hard part, getting back to the car.  Picture this....Marcus carrying a boogie board that's bigger than him, followed by Hayden who had a Bumbo seat on his head and a big bag full of beach toys.  Then there was me, trying to keep us all together carrying Bastian, a bag full of beach towels, a tent, a diaper bag, and Noah's hand.  As we hiked through the hot sand and across the street I felt very much like a mother duck.  That, and completely ridiculous.  Half way there though, all I could think about were the pioneers and what they had to endure.  All jokes aside, I gained a greater appreciation for pioneers yesterday.

Here's a picture of his foot today, which doesn't hurt at all, and actually doesn't look that bad.  We just want to remember it.

 Just when I thought I'd seen it all, they came up with this tower.

We have awesome neighbors, and one of them let us use his kayaks.    I loved it!

Marcus' first try without training wheels.

 Such a good baby!

 I love these boys.

 This is one of our favorite faces, and all the boys have made it.  It's so dang hard to capture though because they never do it for very long.  This is blurry but still cute.

 Keeping themselves busy...

 In all our trips to San Diego, there was one park we always wanted to go to but never did.  This time, it's the only park we did go to and we're so glad we did!  It was awesome!  Sure the zoo has more animals, but it's not like this place.  This was as close to Africa as you can get!

  Elephants are my second favorite animal.  Truly magnificent.

 Again.  Such a good boy!

 The next pictures are from the safari tram.  Man.  Rhinos are awesome.

 We learned that there's an inch of tongue for every foot tall a giraffe is, and if that didn't make sense, an 18 foot giraffe has an 18 in tongue.  We thought that was interesting.

 Her baby was SO cute!

 An endangered species carousel, free with park tickets.  Sweet.

 Acrobat show.

That's it for now.  If you get the chance, go to this park!