What have we been up to?

The nights have been really nice around here and Jared has been coming home from work around 4 so we've had time to play after dinner. Recently we all walked down to the golf course and ran into friends who were also enjoying the evening and playing ball. Einar and his friend Trevor both were having fun just being flat on the grass. Both of them also run away from the ball when it is thrown their way. Both are also almost 3 1/2.
This is a new sporty look for Jared. The guys at work have already suggested a new nickname for Soren. They think that "Joey" would be a good once since he spends so much time in his pouch.

Though it was three days in the works, we finally accomplished the bicycle ride that I've been promising Einar and we had a marvelous time. The bike and trailer were already in the car this morning when we woke up since we had tried to take this bike ride on Saturday afternoon but had trouble with my tires. So after buying new tubes on Sunday after church and getting a lesson in tube replacement from Jared before going to bed, everything was ready to go for our adventure this morning. We had breakfast at a little cafe not too far from us that the neighbors had recommended (Einar had pancakes) and headed to Dana Point to unload the bike and trailer and start our outing.

The trail runs along the trickle of a drying river bed that attracts all sorts of birds. It was clear and warm, but we had enough sunscreen on to keep from getting burned and Soren was all covered up as well. I'm not sure how far it goes, but we rode it into San Juan Capistrano to a park that is only accessible by the trail so we hadn't been there before. At the park, Einar took a break from trailer squish and ran around and did lots of climbing up slides. He wants to go on another long bike ride tomorrow.
For Father's Day we took a picnic dinner to Sunset park and Jared was teaching Einar how to rock climb--definitely terrified the kid, I wish I'd been able to get the angle that captured his expression. Jared, however was thrilled.

This is the angle that I see Soren most of the time. This photo actually captures him sucking his thumb and not his entire fist!

Einar and his friend Nathan that we don't get to see often had lunch together on Friday. Though we don't see much of him, it seems that Einar and Nathan have a lot in common. They both like pink and princesses (Nathan had his mom buy him a pair of pink Dora flip-flops last week), neither of them like the show Super Why anymore because the Hansel and Gretal episode scared them, and they really have fun together.

Comparison Pictures...

Wow has Einar grown since October! I saw the picture of him that Mike took on Monday in his pink shirt and he looks so much like a kid and far from the toddler that he looked like in the other shot with Jared on the ship 8 months ago. I posted them both so that you can see the change easily. All three of the guys were playing trucks yesterday morning. Soren was driving the trash truck. Soren also likes to hang out and suck on his fists. He doesn't seem to have a preference for left or right, but the fists win out over fingers or thumbs any day.

Daddy is Home!

Jared's deployment is finally over! We picked him up on Monday afternoon along with his cousin Mike, who had accompanied him on the Tiger cruise that the ship offered from Hawaii to Camp Pendleton. Once we got so close to the end, it was so exciting that Einar found it really hard to fall asleep last weekend. After all of our preparations and talking about it finally happening, he had trouble waiting, especially on Monday morning. He helped me paint a great banner to welcome Jared home with (we painted it so well that our street out front now has paint on it that had soaked through our sheet).

Jared is now enjoying 4 days off before he heads back to work on Monday. He's cooking up a storm with a new food processor that he got for his birthday, making lemon meringue pie and a strawberry layer cake. We've also eaten Chinese food and are planning on going to see Indiana Jones tomorrow evening.

These pictures are from the homecoming on base on Monday as well as the Tiger cruise. Mike took all of them, so thank you guest photographer! You can see the helicopters on the USS Tarawa as well as the Harrier Jets that were onboard. They even let Mike sit in the cockpit and pretend to fly. Instead of docking in San Diego and letting the Marines off there, they disembarked on their landing crafts onto the beach in Del Mar and then took a bus back to San Mateo where Jared works normally.