saw it, loved it .....and about michigan

this week we saw WICKED! It was great. I cried. (don't ask me why, these things just happen). months ago I bought a group of 20 tickets and then sold them off to friends. I went with dave and my sister in law Jessica.we love jessica and pete. they have been in san diego all summer, staying part time with us and part time at her house. Alexey is obsessed with Pete and when he is here she just wants to cuddle with him. It was darling. She was starting to call him daddy so maybe it is a good thing they are leaving. Pete will be attending U of MICHIGAN law school. We are very happy that he got into such a great law school and looking forward to beating them in football this year. However, Pete's infatuation with Mich has caused a bit of a raucous at our house. Calvin says he wants to go to Michigan when he grows up, is wondering if we can move to Michigan soon, does not like ohio state anymore, and his favorite shirt is maize and blue and says michigan across the front. Clare will at random shout, "go michigan!" It is somewhat disturbing and also pretty funny. Pete used to play NCAA on the XBOX. His team was of course michigan so and if you haven't seen XBOX NCAA football let me tell you that it looks and sounds a lot like real fall football with Lee Corso, bands in the background, fans cheering, etc. So, the absolute low point to having Wolverines living in our house was the morning that DAVE woke up whistling "hail to the victors" when it had gotten stuck in his head from Pete's XBOX games.

We are so excited that Jessica will be having a baby this winter!! We are so happy for them.

dave's patient

yes, that's right! Today dave is operating on a swamp monkey at the SD zoo! Pretty funny, huh?

tahoe pics

we spent one day up at Tahoe. It was wonderful.

This picture is not at tahoe but I wanted to include it anyway. It is our family with Dave's mom and dad. Dan and Linda. Linda gave the kids those puppets and they really loved them. this one doesn't have great light but I love Calvin in it. he is cute.

Clare didn't play in the water a lot until the end of the day. She is always the slowest to warm up to new situations. She did go out in the canoe with dave for a little while and apparently cried most of the time! Isn't she a doll?
Alexey loved playing in the sand and water! This picture was taken after I cleaned her up for the ride home but she wanted to get back in for a minute while we loaded the car! We were at tahoe from 10am-3pm. Alexey did great considering she got no nap (all week). She enjoyed floating around for a while. The water was REALLY COLD so this was a good way to take her out with out letting her get too cold.

Dave and Calvin and I all jumped off some rocks into the water. Did I mention the water felt like melted ice? Anyway, I was a bit of a wimp so I jumped off of the same rock as Calvin. Dave's was much higher, but I made up for the difference by swimming back to the beach instead of walking back.

Dave looks pretty funny doesn't he??!!!

just so it is fair and I can make fun of myself as well I will post this hideous pic of myself looking 4 months pregnant. I am not actually 4 months pregnant so I was a bit disappointed in discovering that I look this way.

Great picture of calvin!

Dave and Calvin in the sea kayak. They went out 2X for an hour each time. They had a blast.

Here are a couple of pics with beautiful scenery behind us! It really was breathtaking. I loved Tahoe. Perhaps some day I will buy myself a 13 million dollar lake front cabin....well, I doubt it but at least I can plan on going back someday!

A Tribute to Grandma and Grandpa Gonda

We just got back from a WONDERFUL family vacation to Sequoia National Park and then Reno/Tahoe for Dave's Gonda family reunion. It was a fabulous trip. The kids did great traveling and the trip overall was wonderful. I have to say a little about Dave's family before I get on to some fun pictures (another day). So, the reunion was in honor of Dave's grandparents who have been married for 50 years. Counting his grandparents there are 76 family members including their 5 children + spouses and then grandchildren +spouses and great-grandchildren. Of those 76 family members, 72 were in attendance in Reno this weekend. That, in and of itself is quite an accomplishment. The official anniversary celebration was held one evening at G & G's church. We had family pictures taken, a catered dinner, a beautiful slide show about G & G Gonda that someone put together. Here are G & G cutting the cake.


We really love grandma and grandpa Gonda. They are good people who we feel fortunate to know. Both have remarkable life stories. Grandma Gonda was born #9 in his family. his mother died when he was one year and ten months old (giving birth to child #10 who did not live). His father was too poor to raise the kids so three of his siblings, the three just older than him, were sent to an orphanage to be raised but they would not take grandpa b/c he was still a baby. He was raised by his father and then when he was around age 7 the siblings came back. I remember him telling a story about one Christmas when somehow his dad was able to get him a single orange and how it was a small miracle to have just that orange. I could listen to him tell stories about his life all day. It is just amazing to me how different his life was growing up compared to what we have today. We are so blessed and spoiled.

Grandma and Grandpa Gonda were both married before they married each other. Grandpa was married to Faye Gonda. She died of breast cancer. He was left with 2 young children. Grandma Gonda was married to David Barnes (that is who Dave is named after). She had a baby (dave's dad Dan) and was pregnant with her second when David died in an accident while flying fighter jets as a test pilot. It was not war time or anything, he just went out for a normal day of work and the airplane malfunctioned and he died. From what I understand his eject did not work properly so he was killed trying to get out of the airplane or went down with it. It was here in San Diego over the ocean where this occured. I can't imagine the loss grandma felt.

So, then G & G got married. They each had 2 kids and began to mix the families. They eventually added a 5th kid of their own. One miraculous thing about the family is that they survived this mixing of families. It was very difficult to mix his and hers kids, all around the same ages. It was a little crazy at times but they are a strong family now.

Another amazing thing about the family is that thanks to one person, we are all members of the church. Grandma and Grandpa are coverts to the church. Grandpa's first wife, Faye was a member of the church and after many years of investigating the church Grandpa joined just before she died. After Grandma and Grandpa were married, grandma joined the church and they raised all of their kids in the church. Thanks to Faye Gonda there are 76 members of the church who would not have otherwise had that blessing.

family vacation, cousins, sleep study

first, let me apologize for the lack of pictures. The camera is broken at the moment, which is a real bummer with family vacation coming up this week. We are driving to Reno and stopping at Sequoia park to see the giant trees on the way. It'll be lots of time in the car (3 days) and I am scared. Calvin and Clare will be happy with a few movies and the DVD player but I'm not sure about Alexey. I do have a bag of suckers and if I get desperate I will probably end up giving her as many as it takes.....

Last week, Lance - our almost 4 year old cousin -- came to visit. He doesn't say the "k" or hard "c" or "g" sounds. So some of our favorite words are "tiddos" (kiddos), "titties" (kitties), "stool" (school), "tousins" (cousin). The kids played star wars, nerf guns and all kinds of things. It was fun. One of the funniest/most wonderful things about Lance is that he is very bright and articulate and a good boy. ON the first day we learned that he is not allowed to say "fat" or "chubby". With a little prompting we learned from Lance as to why this might be a rule. First at the grocery store we saw a pregnant woman. Lance said, "she is pretty chubby." Then he told us his Mom "is getting fat. Soon she will be a fatty." He says it completely matter of factly and I fell on the ground laughing. He is too funny. We told him obese might be a suitable substitution, since it is not yet a forbidden word. We are wicked, we know.

We had Calvin's sleep study last week. We checked in at 8pm, got hooked up to a bunch of wires (once again, sorry for no pictures), and then tried to sleep!! He had 6 on his head 6 on his face, 2 up his nose, 2 on his chest, 2 wrapping around his chest, to on his legs and I think that is about it. once he was all set up, at around 9:30pm, we read stories and then turned out the lights. Then Calvin says, "Mom, what happens if I need to go potty?" I told him we'd have to wait for the nurse to help un-hook him and then go. So then, of course, he says, "Mom, I need to go potty".....we called the nurse, she unhooked us and he tried to go potty. but didn't really need to go. Finally at 10 he got to sleep. I was in the room with him in a pull out crazy uncomfortable chair. The tech came and checked Calvin's position every hour or so. Calvin woke up at 2:00 AM and needed to go potty for real this time and then didn't go back to sleep until about 3:45. At 4 they woke us up and got us ready to go home. I went back to bed and slept from 5-6:30 while Calvin did who knows what around the house. Later in the afternoon he took a 4 hour nap. I'd say it was a pretty good representation of a night of sleep for Calvin. Not sure what results show yet. We'll learn more in a couple of weeks.