Spring Time in San Diego
I know some of you may think that is always Spring Time in San Diego, and that we don’t really have seasons here, but there still is something special about this time of year: longer days, warmer sun, baby hawks and lots and lots of flowers everywhere.
Spring Time also means we have more time to play outside after Keegan’s nap. So we take full advantage of this longer days to visit our favorite places, the Zoo and Seaworld, as well as neighborhood parks. We play stomp rocket, soccer or baseball. Soccer is still the favorite game, though.
One of our favorite parks, is the South Clairemont park, next to the Skate/Bike park. There are the obligatory slide structure, but also a huge, flat field, which is ideal to play in, or simply run in, maybe on daddy’s shoulders.
Being a neighborhood park, sometimes we met some of Keegan’s friends from school, that also live nearby.
Having a snack and goofing off with Van
If the weather was not nice, we found some fun activity to do. We got to tour an ambulance and a fire engine (which is different from a fire truck, I guess). Keegan had fun pretending to be a fireman and a patient: he even got his blood pressure taken.
goofing off on the fire engine
Hello… Can you hear me?
And if nothing else is going on, a “pic nic” outside school at pick up time will do.
Spring also means, Mother’s Day. We had a mellow but pleasant one. We started the celebration with Keegan’s school party. Tea and cookies were served under a tent outside, and silly dance games were played. It was just nice to see all the kids showing off their moms.
Keegan with MacKenzie and Van and their moms
An horrible pictures of us
Saturday, we had a date night planned, but our sitter got sick, so we ended up building IKEA furniture instead for Keegan’s room.hat a parent’s way to spend Saturday night (it still beats rolling up coins). At least I felt we accomplished something. The room is almost finished: we will have pictures soon.
On Sunday, Matt’s prepared a delicious brunch while I took an early morning nap, and he helped Keegan prepare a sweet card for me. Keegan also gave me his gift: a pretty jar of multicolored sand. I also picked up approximately 400 prints of pictures from 2009 and 2010: I finally got caught up, well still need to start on 2011. Watching all the images, and how much Keegan has grown in the past two years was very heart-warming, and I felt very blessed indeed to have such a wonderful little man in my life.
The warm and fuzzy feelings helped a lot, because he was not exactly on his best behavior that day…but no matter. And since he is three, I still get to dress him with clothes I like, even matching outfits in my favorite colors (a trend started when he was a baby).
One other fun activity we did this Spring was to “raise” and then release Painted Lady butterflies. I have been wanting to do this for a long time, and Keegan have been hearing about caterpillars and butterflies a lot, both at school, and at home, with our fun Hungry Caterpillar book and magnet set. So we got a habitat for them, and ordered some larva.We were lucky: all 10 caterpillars turned into beautiful butterflies.
It was an amazing experience for all of us…I would say more for me and Matt, but Keegan enjoyed it as well. They arrived in a sealed jar, and we watched the caterpillar wiggle and eat till they became chrysalises.We even borrowed a great book that details the transformation.
getting ready to form a cocoon
a translucent chrysalis
That’s was the tricky par: transferring them to the little pop-up container and hang them there. After a little over a week, they started coming out of the cocoon and we had the chance to watch them and feed them. It was really fun.
We fed them sugar water and oranges…and they seemed to appreciate the bounty.
How many can you count? Can you see all 6?
We let them go on a beautiful sunny afternoon. Problem was, they did not really want to leave. They enjoyed the free food I guess. So, we had to actually put them on our hands and get them out. It took a couple of days, but they finally all flew away. We bid farewell to each of them.
bye bye butterfly. Fly away…now!
One more spring baby we had the fortune to enjoy: our usual hawk came back again this year. It settled in a nest almost completely hidden, but right in front of our house. With a binocular and some luck we got to observe the babies grow into juvenile, and they sometimes used our house and railing as a resting perch while they were learning how to fly.
taking a rest (and a dump) on our railing
So, all and all a fun, busy Spring. We are looking forward to Summer, and to a hopefully warm and sunny weather to compensate for the gray and cold summer of 2010.
Comments are off for this post