I promise this has nothing to do with my grey hair!

I park my car across the street from my house. It faces towards the pool. I was taking my kids out today and as we were getting into the car, I notice these two kids in the pool. They were holding eachother. At first I honestly thought it was a girl out swimming with her little brother who didn't know how to swim. I was thinking, "Awwww, how sweet that she'd take him out swimming." Then, they kinda turn a bit and I see them kiss. That's when I realize they're actually a couple. They were probably about 15, although I swear the boy looked about seven from where I was standing. Okay, no big deal. Then, they totally started making out. Now, I did my fair share of PDA (public display of affection) as a teenager. I thought it was no big deal. I thought nothing of seeing my friends making out. But EWWWWWWWWWWWWWW, I was totally disgusted by these two just shoving their tongues down eachother's throats. I wanted to go and spray them down with a hose or something (although, seeing as though they were already in the pool I don't know that it would have had the same effect as it should have). I tried to avert my children's eyes...get them focused on buckling up, reading a book...whatever I could do to keep them from seeing these two teens playing tonsil hockey. I started up the car as quickly as I could and took off, all the while thinking about what an old fogey I have become. :(

Have you ever been in a relationship where things just click? You finish eachother's sentences, you know what the other is thinking, you know how the other is feeling, you know when the right time to approach them about things is? I love having that kind of relationship with my husband. Of course, we have our moments, but for the most part, things just click. Even when we're fighting, we still have a sense of where things are, where things are going, what the other is thinking, etc. We've been married for going on eight years now (it will be eight years in a week). We've learned eachother's mannerisms, we can read eachother's feelings, we have a sense of what needs to be said/done to keep harmony. Lately though, I feel as though we're "off." I don't know what it is. We can be having a great day and seemingly nothing happens, but all of a sudden we're "off." We're not reading eachother right. Our timing is off. I'll think he wants one thing, but in reality, it's nowhere near what he actually wants. He thinks I want to hear something, but in reality, I have no desire to hear what he has to say. Little things are sending us into fights that escalate to the point that we're no longer even fighting about what started the fight.

I'm not sure what's going on, but I don't like it :( I think every relationship goes through times where they don't quite click the way they should, but we've been doing so well lately. Things have just been "on." Now, not so much. :(

So, my brother is 31 and has almost a full head of grey. My dad went grey early as well. I have no idea when my mom went grey because she never lets her hair get grey. lol I never thought it would be a problem for me. Sure, I've had a few grey hairs here and there since I was about 12, but everyone does...right? RIGHT?!??!!? Sadly, I'm just getting greyer and greyer. About once a week I used to go through my hair and pluck out my grey hairs. No big deal...there were usually about five of them. Now, if I did that, my hair would be so thin. :( I honestly can't believe how much grey there is!!! It's driving me crazy. Instead of dying my hair for fun, I'm having to dye my hair to cover the grey. I'm only 27 for goodness sake!!!

Oh well, just my minor annoyance for the day. Thank God for the person who invented hair dye ;)

So, yesterday we went to the Wild Animal Park for Sera's birthday. The kids had a blast and a good time was had by all. We got to see the elephant show (which I am totally against, but I knew Emma, being an elephant freak and all, would love it...which she did. We also saw the bird show, which the kids loved as well. My absolute favorite part of the day was going up to condor ridge. I have an odd fascination with the California Condor. There are only 268 of them left in the world, and half of them are in captivity. There have been 11 condor eggs laid just this season at the Wild Animal Park!!! I'm absolutely thrilled with what they have been doing there to try to bring this amazing bird back. In the 1980's these birds were extinct in the wild. Now, thanks in large part to the Wild Animal Park, there are over 130 of these incredible birds back out in the wild. I got some amazing pictures while I was there.

Anyways, here are a few pics I took while we were at the park:

Has it been a year already?!??!!?!? My sweet little Sare Bear is ONE YEAR OLD!!!!!

We were supposed to go to the Wild Animal Park, but sadly, Sera woke up sick this morning :( She's pretty miserable. We're hoping it's a 24 hour thing and she'll be better tomorrow so we can take her then.

It really doesn't feel like it was a year ago that my sweet little Serapia entered this world. Then again, I can't remember life without her, so I guess there are two sides to every coin. This sweet girl has brought such an immense amount of joy and love to our lives.

On a different note, we went to the zoo yesterday! Emma's Kindergarten class went on a field trip to the zoo. Drake was a chaperone. He called me up and suggested I meet them at the zoo so we could spend the day there instead of just the hour that the kindergarten class was going to be there. So, I checked Caitlin out of school (BAD mommy!!!) and we all went to the zoo. We got there [i]just[/i] as the Kindergarteners were leaving, so the timing couldn't be more perfect. Emma got to spend her entire field trip with her class, then got to spend the rest of the day at the zoo with her family. Six hours later, we were exhausted, so we went home. We had an incredible time. I honestly couldn't have asked for a better day. I wish I had brought my camera :(

I have mixed feelings about the zoo. On one hand, my kids LOVE it and I know the San Diego zoo does some amazing things when it comes to breeding endangered animals and releasing them into the wild. Many of the comebacks of endangered species can be directly traced back to the efforts at the San Diego zoo, which is awesome. On the other hand, it makes me sad to see these animals in these small enclosures, inhibiting their ability to move around freely and their ability to interact with animals of their own kind like they would in the wild. We went and watched a show (which are one of the things I loathe the most) and they were talking about one of the animals they brought out and said that in the wild, they traveled in herds of up to 2000. Yet, they only had a few at the zoo. I feel just horrible for that poor creature, who's very nature is to be with thousands of it's own kind. It makes me sad to see the lions just laying there lazily, not being able to hunt, not being able to play like they normally would. They have a whole section for birds of prey. Granted, it's a HUGE aviary, but nowhere near big enough to sustain such large creatures who are used to being able to fly wherever they want.

I feel MUCH better visiting the wild animal park. (See above link) There, they have a TON of space, open enclosures, the animals that can live peacefully together, that would normally live together in the wild, are allowed to do so. It just seems like a much better environment for them, and endangered animals can breed without the worry of predators, but without being stuck in a cage. I'm not some PETA freak, that's for sure (I happily chow down on steak and am grateful for many of the things that animal testing has brought about) but I really do hate zoos. I refuse to visit one that is there purely for the purpose of making money off of people seeing animals in little tiny cages. :( I justify visiting the San Diego zoo because they really do some wonderful things for animals.

Friends and Families is ready for change. We're upgrading the boards to the latest vBulletin software and completely revamping the look of the site. The other gals found a web template that they like, but why spend $80 on something that really shouldn't be that hard to make yourself? So, I've been working on a template of my own, while also working on the seventy something modifications that need to be made to the board software before it can go live. So, needless to say, I've been on this computer a lot in the past couple of days. I enjoy it though. I have to remind myself to go to bed at night though, which is never good. I finally forced myself to bed at three this morning. I wanted to keep going, but I know I'm useless to my family if I don't get at least three hours of sleep at night.

So, come check out the site and look for new and exciting changes!

Ugh, I've been SO sick. The worst part of it was that four of the five kids were sick as well, so between bouts of vomiting myself, I was cleaning up the vomit of four children as well. Good times. Drake came home from work early yesterday to help me out though, which was a God send!!! He kept the house clean, did the laundry and basically did everything short of taking care of the sick kids (at my request...I didn't want him getting sick and having to miss work). I was expecting to feel better this morning, but I wasn't. I had no idea how I was going to take care of the baby. She was the only one not sick. I didn't want to touch her for fear of getting her sick as well. Each of the kids vomited at least 30 times yesterday...can you imagine a tiny baby that sick? She'd end up in the hospital on an IV for sure. Thankfully, after a nice long nap today (that's the only good thing about the kids being sick...they sleep a lot, so I can as well) I'm feeling SO much better. I actually got out of bed, did some laundry, took a shower and am about to wake the baby up to feed her.

Wooohooooo, I'm feeling better!!!!