July

The one and only park day we went to in Davis was at Manor Pool, one of the coolest pools I've ever seen. Not only do they have a water slide and lap pool, but they have a wading pool and a fun sprinkler section for the little kids to play in. It was about 102 degrees that day, so getting in the water was heavenly. I laid Q back and he fell asleep! He didn't mind the splashing and noise at all. I figured it must have been like the womb or something because he was out. I tried to go lay him on a blanket and that woke him up. I always planned to go back, but oh well.
Our neighbors Laura and Kenny introduced us to some succulent fresh garden food so I finagled my way into going to the garden with Kenny one day to partake some veggies for myself. I had no idea fresh lettuce was SO good! Mmmm, yummy.

My parents flew us over to Oahu to visit for a week. Grandma and Q got to play a lot.We got to see a cool Buddhist temple, (Can you believe this is all painted concrete?) a 'spitting' cave, (if you look real close below you can see tiny Ian on top of the rocks above) Hawaii Kai, Q's first ocean experiencethe Missouri (full tour-let me know if you'd like more pictures of that, I've got lots! Wow, I could never be in the navy -CRAMPED and HOT!) and Bowfin and the house addition my dad helped build for a friend of theirs.
We climbed to the top of Diamond Head. Ian finally got to see Waikiki beach. Q got to see his first parrots and koi pond. Q did all right on the plane rides.

Our trip to Hanauma bay was remarkable. Of course the parking lot was full and there wasn't any within a mile. We stopped to turn around at this shooting range and there just happened to be this guy with a van picking people up who gave us a ride, for a mild fee of $10. He said we had to be back up in the lot in two hours to get a ride back. For those of you who've never been there, the parking lot/entrance to Hanauma bay is at the top of the cliff. You have to wait in line to pay to get in, then wait for your session of the intro/safety video before you can even get into the park. Then you have to walk down the cliff to get to the beach. Then get all your gear on and get in the water to snorkel. (I didn't include time renting gear because we bring our own) This alone takes at least 45 minutes, so that would have given us maybe an hour to snorkel and get back up the hill for our ride. WHY would I pay 20 bucks to get into the park if I was only going to be there for an hour? Needless to say we didn't get back up for his deadline time. On top of that the surf was rough so the water was cold and murky and you could hardly see anything. :( Bummer. They really need to close that park for a couple years so it can recover from the damage millions of people do to it every year. When we finally finished and headed back out we discovered a cut on my foot and one on Ian's leg. Anticipating a mile walk along the sweltering hot road in flip flops to get back to our car was not enticing. We happened to see the van driver pull in when we'd climbed to the gate so Ian took off after him to get a ride back to the car. The guy didn't want to! He said he'd drive Ian to Waikiki for 20 bucks! Ha! Ian's like, why would I go to Waikiki when my car is here???? So Ian's walking back up the hill to 'waiting me' and the guy stops him to say he'll drive him to the car and he can come get me, but I had the car keys, so the guy finally says yes and we made it back to the car. Phew, what a hassle.

My parents live next door to the LDS tabernacle and there's this flock of green parrots that comes in to spend the night in the surrounding trees then fly back up in to the mountains the next morning. That was really cool, a whole flock! They make quite a ruckus on departure.

We went to meet the neurologist and get Quintin evaluated. Nothing set off a red flag for him until Ian told him that Q was right handed. Apparently babies aren't supposed to be 'handed' so he ordered an MRI to make sure Q hadn't had any strokes to inhibit one side of his brain. Great, way to set our minds at ease.

I finally made it to one of our Stake Picnics, after four years! It was alright, very hot. My car died again and I had to hitch a ride home with the Bishop's wife (Switching the car seat to her car with a sleeping Q inside was craziness! There's this stupid foot on the bottom that flips out easily but wouldn't go back in, grr.) then get it towed to the shop. WOULD YOU BELIEVE that the only thing that was wrong was that it was OUT OF GAS!!!! The gas gauge had died a few months before so we were using the odometer instead, and somehow Ian had gotten something confused and the odometer had not been reset correctly so that when I thought we had tons of gas, we had NONE! Stupid car.