Vermiculture

Our wonderful neighbors Vanessa and Brian bought a worm composting unit for their garden. Vanessa invited Audrey to help assemble the unit.

Swimming lessons

Audrey really enjoyed her series of swimming lessons this summer. She loved her teacher and gained a lot of confidence.

New bike

We've decided the color is a kind of red-pink-fusia-salmon-purple type color.



It's not her fault it took me until 10pm to finish putting it together.

Pretty in pink

(Alyssa is arguing that right after church is nap time, not photography time.)

Home Alone

Valerie and the girls are in Utah visiting my sister Nova and her family. They've also seen the Connolly crew, Jim and Marina, Jeremy, Vanessa and I think they'll see Kevin too.

By all reports, they are having a marvelous time. Audrey is having wonderful adventures with her cousins. Alyssa adores all of the pets. Valerie has been to the temple and out to a movie. I am confident that Valerie will give a much better account at some point, but I feel like I'm living it too (in part because Audrey calls me with regular updates). Besides, none of you is wishing I would tell of all my recent econometric exploits!

I am happy that my girls are having a lovely trip, and I am grateful to Valerie for giving me this time to focus on finishing my dissertation. But it is no fun around here without them! I am counting down the days until their return.

All this notwithstanding, I am not always at my desk. Today I rode my bike up Mount Soledad. I should have taken a picture of the view instead of my desk!

The proverbial $2 tomatoes

But they do taste good.

Oot n aboot

We recently spent a fun Saturday at the San Diego Highland Games. I could have listened to the pipe band competition all day. Valerie's favorite part was learning the folk dancing. We also got a kick out of the sheep dog trials.

I am wearing an "Ancient Ross" tartan kilt from my brother John. Audrey is learning a kids version of the "sheaf toss", a traditional Scottish athletic event.

After a while I had to bribe everyone to stay and listen to the pipe bands. It worked.

Home sweet home

I recently had the opportunity to present my dissertation research at a conference in Pittsburgh. My friend and colleague Chris Wignall presented at the same conference, and we traveled together. The trip was successful but grueling.

What a joy it was to return home again! I arrived home mid-morning, took a quick nap, and then we took a wonderful family outing to Sea World.

SeaWorld

We really enjoyed our day at SeaWorld on Saturday. It was a beautiful day (80 degrees) and the park wasn't crowded at all.

Our favorite things:

• Graton: orcas, dolphins, and beluga whales
  
• Valerie: watching the killer whales frolic with a piece of wood and play with the birds
• Audrey: picking up starfish in the tide pool and feeding ducks
• Alyssa: riding in the backpack?
  

Can you guess the impression that she's doing?

Make way for doughnuts

I remember Make Way for Ducklings from my own childhood, but I discovered the many other wonderful stories of Robert McCloskey along with Audrey when Valerie brought home a collection of them from the library.

Our friends Kate and Steve live in Boston where Ducklings is set and, by coincidence, they recently sent us these pictures of the park depicted in the story and the statue of the fabled duck family.


Audrey's favorite of the McCloskey stories by far is the The Doughnuts, a story about Homer Price and his uncle's automatic doughnut machine that won't stop.

On the umpteenth night of reading Doughnuts, Audrey asked "When can we make doughnuts?" The answer: the following Sunday! We had a lot of fun, and the doughnuts were delicious (thanks Cooks Illustrated).

On a subsequent reading, it dawned on me that I knew where we could see a real doughnut machine in action. We waited for one of those mornings when both girls were up way too early and then headed off to Krispy Kremes!

...the rings of batter kept right on dropping into the hot fat, and an automatic gadget kept right on turning them over, and another automatic gadget kept right on giving them a little push, and the doughnuts kept right on rolling down the little chute, just as regular as a clock can tick.