A trip to the zoo

Warning! This post is really old, but has been sitting in draft form on my computer.  It's out of chronological order, but I decided to post it anyway.

David's mom, Judie, was in town for Jeremy and Leah's wedding. She stayed for an extra week, because she just returned from an LDS mission in Quito, Ecuador, so we haven't seen her for two years. Since the kids were still in school, and David and I had to work, we didn't have a chance to do much that was fun. Judie did get to come to work with me and help out with the students that I work with. That was very enjoyable. Friday, David drove her to the Long Beach Airport, and ran into the famous LA traffic jam. He ended up stuck in traffic, and Judie missed her flight. Getting home was even worse, and the 3 hour round trip ended up taking 7 hours. Not fun!

The good part of the situation, though, was we were able to spend more time together. Judie booked another flight for Monday afternoon, and we had the weekend to hang out together. Saturday we went to the zoo, and had a wonderful time. Rather than trying to tackle the San Diego Zoo in one shot, we spent our whole time in a small section of the zoo.


We saw the reptiles, which are Jordan's favorite. The snakes were very cool, especially since they could see us, and would follow us on the other side of the glass. The Galopagos Turtles were huge! As they walked, you could hear their belly scraping on the ground.



After we had explored the reptiles, we headed over to see the insects. Creepy! I had a hard time looking at these cockroaches. They made my skin crawl. The rest of the insects were amazing, though. We stopped to visit with the meercats. What friendly little animals. They were just on the other side of a low piece of glass. We were eating popcorn at the time, and they watched us very carefully to see if we would drop some into the cage.

Finally we made our way to the Urban Jungle. I'm not sure why it's called that, but that's where some of the more traditional zoo animals are. We saw the koalas. They used to be my favorite animal when I was a kid, and they still look very cute and cuddly. There were a lot of them, too. They were hanging out eating leaves, which is what they do most of the time, I am told. Then we saw the cheetah. This cheetah was in the same enclosure with some dogs and wolves. They are all pals, and they hang out an play together. Next we saw the rhinocerous and giraffes. All in all, a wonderful day.

Festival of the Sail

We went to San Diego harbor over Labor Day for the Festival of the Sail. There were 61 boats to tour, including a Cold War Era Soviet submarine, a US science sub, a Tall Ship, a paddle boat, a racing yacht, and a sail/solar powered raft that had sailed from New Zealand. The most interesting part for me was the Soviet sub. There were 78 people stationed on it, but only 30 beds, so no one got their own bunk. They rotated sleeping shifts. The "beds" were cots with wire mesh mattresses, about 2' x 5 1/2 feet. They wore disposable uniforms, and had a life expectancy of 30. 

 

Taliah got to swab the deck.

 

Here are bunks that paying passengers slept in on an English Tall Ship.

 

Hoisting the Anchor with Karina along for the ride.

Mutiny!

Looking down into the hold

More Tall Ships

 

There was a man there with his pet parrot.  He was letting kids pose with the parrot.

 

Hoisting the mainsail!

Tall ships

 

Sleeping quarters for Soviet Submariners

 

Captain Taliah!

 

Is that a pirate ship on the horizon?

In search of PERFECTION!

I'm not big on New Year's Resolutions, because I think it is so cliche to make them and break them. It seems to me that they are made with the intention that they will only last a few weeks or months.  I try to make goals and changes in my life as needed throughout the year, and just have fun on New Years Day.

That being said, I do seem to fall into the trap of New School Year Resolutions.  The start of school seems to be a natural time to raise the bar in my life, get on a schedule, get organized.  Unfortunately, my New School Year Resolutions often last about the same amount of time as the more traditional ones.  I set my sights so high for myself that even though I start out strong on that first Monday, by Friday morning, I'm so exhausted that I don't want to get out of bed.  I've repeated this exercise for about 5 years now.  Starting out looking like the "perfect" mother, and ending up within a month or two, trying to scramble to keep up with my runaway life. I've heard that insanity is doing the same thing over and over, but expecting a different result.  Well, I've always suspected that I was missing a few marbles, and now I'm proving it, by setting a long list of New School Year Resolutions again this year.

I am changing things a little, though. I have a slightly different game plan.  First I'm setting my sights a little lower.  Mostly, I want to do the things I already do, just a little more consistently. I've always been "schedully" challenged. I can do something once or twice, or 5 times, but doing it every day for a month or a year is really tough for me.  But along with that goal to be more consistent, I need to realize that I'm not perfect, and that's ok.  If I don't get everything accomplished every day, I'm not a failure, I'm just normal. If I miss a day,  it's ok, as long as I only miss every once in a while. The Flylady, an internet cleaning and organization guru, says "Housework done imperfectly still blesses your family." I have a hard time believing that myself, but I'm trying to make it my new mantra. I also have a game plan for that Friday morning slump.  I plan to follow the good advice given to Gordon B. Hinckley by his father. "Forget yourself, and get to work." If I muscle through the slumps, and follow through on the guidelines I have set for myself, I can turn my goals into habits.  It takes 21 days to form a habit.  If I can muscle through for 21 days, hopefully it will start to get easier. Maybe.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm doing all right already.  I'm not a complete failure in the mother department, but I want to do better. Be better!  Ok, I'll admit it, I want to be PERFECT!  That's my ultimate goal.  I won't get there this year, I realize that, but there's always next year, right? Right!

Here are my New School Year Goals. 

*Wake up at 5:30a.m., on weekdays. No hitting the snooze, no laying in bed. Get dressed and ready before Seminary.
*Take Kallai to seminary every day.  Don't let David do it.  He works too hard already.
*Make lunches for everyone 4 days a week. Make sure they have lunch money for the other day.
*Clean the house before work, not after when I will be tired, and won't want to do it.
*Stay in the kitchen area while kids are doing their homework, to help them focus, and be available to help with questions.
*Check kids' homework planner and homework every day.  Actually look at finished homework.  Don't take their word that it is done.
*Make a nutrition dinner for the family every day, and have it on the table by 7 p.m., 6 on Wednesday. Cold cereal is not a nutritious dinner.  Frozen or take out pizza is marginally nutritious, and shouldn't be served more than once a week. Don't let David make dinner.  He works too hard already.
*Make sure the dishes are done and the kitchen is cleaned every night.
*No media before 6 p.m. for anyone. (Except for homework and work, of course.)
*No media before homework and chores are done.
*Work out 3-5 days a week. Make sure the kids work out with me 2-3 days a week.
*Make sure everyone flosses (and brushes) their teeth every night.
*Don't go to bed with a messy house.
*Don't leave to go anywhere with a messy house.
*Family Home Evening every Monday night.
*Date night every Friday night.
*Do something fun with the family every Saturday.
*Work with kids on Faith in God, Duty to God and Merit Badges for at least an hour on Sunday.
*Get a deep cleaning schedule up and running.


There's more that I want to do, but I wouldn't want to overwhelm myself.  Wish me luck!