Scottish Highland Games

Well, the weekend is finally here for the long anticipated Highland Games in Vista. Josh has been looking forward to this for 2 years and this is his first summer not at boot camp or deployed. Luckily, he just missed being away for this since he leaves next week for a month aboard a Navy ship off the coast of Hawaii. We packed up the cooler, the stroller, and the kid and headed to the Highland Games to meet Uncle Joe, Aunt Jackie, Joey, and Jesse. We began our outing by visiting the Clan McMillan...the guy there was so excited that Megan has McMullen roots which apparently IS related to the Clan McMillan because, according to the head of the local clan, if you are a McMullen/McMillan, you can't be Irish without being Scottish and you can't be Scottish without being Irish because they did a lot of "border crossing". So...after being welcomed into the family and offered a place to sit if we needed to cool off or grab water, we found the rest of our California Plateniks and toured the festival.

As we walked through the craft section, a parade began and we were able to take it all in. The bagpipes, drummers and various kilts were really impressive and Will turned a lot of heads in his homemade kilt. We set up a picnic lunch and watched the athletic games and then headed over to watch the sheepdog trials. The sheepdogs are amazing at controlling the sheep! Joey got a chance to try his hand at the kids' athletics by throwing the sheaf and tipping the caber. We were all pretty tired and we hadn't even seen everything! We headed home for a swim and some playtime before saying goodbye to the cousins. We might tackle the Highland Games again tomorrow since Josh had more he wanted to see.

We did manage to get another cousin picture which was a big challenge to get a rambunctious 5 year old, a crawling 1o month old, and a 2 month old who just mastered pushing his head up to stay put long enough...but we tried!

Lunch by the Pool

Sharyle and Amy invited everyone to their house after Stroller Strides on Thursday for lunch by the pool and some swimming. Will was very excited to see a pool, complete with waterfalls! He enjoyed his afternoon dip and lunch pool side.

Magnets on the Fridge

Now that Will is "mobile", he decided to check out all the stuff he's been eyeing for 10 months. This morning, he followed Mommy into the kitchen and discovered the magnets on the fridge. After playing with the animal magnets that Daddy made when Mom was pregnant, he discovered the best magnet of all...Daddy himself! This magnet is special because it has the picture of Josh in it that was in Will's bassinet when he was in the hospital after being born. Since Will cries every morning when Josh leaves, and now tries to follow him out the door, he was pretty excited to find this other "Dad" stuck to the fridge and he made sure to tell him all about it.

Crawling: Take One

Will has been working on turning his pushing up on all fours into some sort of forward movement. We're not sure if it's technically "crawling" since he drags one leg along like it's made of wood. AAaarrrr, Matey!

Beach Baby

It's been VERY hot here in Southern California this week. When the temperatures were predicted to near 100 today, Mommy and a few other Stroller Strides Moms made plans to skip class and hit the beach on Friday morning. Will sure didn't mind the outing! As soon as he saw the waves, he started screeching and babbling excitedly. He toddled his way right into the very big waves and kept going even after the water rushed up to his waist. After his dip in the ocean, he hung out with Jackson under the sun tent and played with sand toys. Tomorrow is the first day of summer and Will is going to be 10 months old! He just started pushing up on all fours, which he finds incredibly amusing, especially to see that there is carpet under his belly...who knew?! (well, we did...but....don't tell him that!)

The Weekend in Review

We had a very busy weekend! On Saturday, we went to the Father's Day Stroller Strides class. We don't have any pictures of class because we were busy working out and making sure Dad got picked on for calling the last class "easy". Don't worry...he didn't think it was easy this time around! After class, the whole family got ready for a birthday pool party for SSgt. T! Will really enjoyed cruising a different pool with his float and he even picked up a few girls with his charming smile and cool car. After a few laps, he managed to do a little walking around the pool deck before heading home for a much needed nap.

Sunday brought Father's Day and another busy day! Will must have been excited about Father's Day because he was up bright and early, ready to give Dad his present. Since tissue paper tends to be shredded and eaten, Will improvised and used his teddy bear blanket to cover Dad's present. How smart! We headed to Aunt Jackie and Uncle Joe's for a brunch where we got to see Joey, Jesse, Laurie and Isabelle too! After such a busy weekend, Dad and Will crashed on the couch together for a final nap before pizza (thanks Gram and Gramps) and ice cream cake. Mommy MADE the ice cream cake for Daddy! What a weekend!

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

A lot of people think that Will looks mostly like his Mom, but....there's Josh back when he was about 2 (?) and there's Will this week. I'd say he's looking more like his Dad everyday. Will is really lucky to have such a great Dad and he really idolizes him. When Josh gets home in the afternoon, Will is usually playing on the living room floor with Mom. He squeals/screams/laughs and claps his hands when the door opens and offers his biggest grin to Dad. Who wouldn't love that greeting? We have a busy weekend planned so hopefully we'll get to take pictures. Here's a tribute to the Dad in our family. Happy Father's Day to Grandpa and Gramps and all the other Dads and families out there!



Thanks to Parnell for the audio help!

Pool Toy

In the magical box from Gram and Gramps, there were two pool floats for Will to try out. Hard to say who was more excited...Dad or Will....no wait, it was definitely Dad! At 7pm, Dad insisted on blowing the floats up and trying them out....himself! He then pushed Will around the living room in the car float.

After Will went to bed, Dad got out his trusty Sharpie to give the float a more customized look....

Since Dad has been working a lot lately, Will had to wait until today to try out his car in the pool. He seemed to enjoy his drive around the pool this afternoon. Once again, thanks to Gram and Gramps!

Couch Potato

After a hard day of arranging for Daddy's car to be fixed and driving Daddy to work this morning, Will announced that he had had enough of going places for the day. He pretty much crashed on the couch with Mom and was very difficult to wake up. Mom had an entire conversation with Grammie, took several photos of the sleeping man, and surfed the internet all while watching a sleeping boy to make sure he didn't roll away. (he didn't) And yes, folks, that is a sweat mark behind his head. He gets that lovely sweat trait from the Trainor men.

One (Little) Man Band

Mom and Dad were making lasagna for dinner and Will really wanted to be involved so Dad set him up with three bowls and some spoons. He couldn't have been happier.


He also got a new table toy with the gift card Gram and Gramps sent him. He LOVES this toy and all the possibilities. He especially likes the little door that opens and closes because when he opens it, a lady sings a "doo-wop" song and when he closes it, she is quiet. Thanks Gram and Gramps!

Will's New Ride

Since Will is entering the stage of being a "toddler", (scary word, huh?) , we decided he might need a few new toys since he acts bored of his "baby" toys. He had some gift cards leftover from Christmas that we were saving for just this need, so, we took a Saturday evening trip to Toys "R" Us and helped him pick out a new toy. He really likes his new push and ride Tonka truck and he took it to the park on Sunday morning for a test drive.

(the two best looking guys in California, right?)

One Fish, Two Fish..

Today, we visited the Birch Aquarium in La Jolla. We found out about this program that Bank of America offers called Museums on Us and they have a whole list of museums all over the country that let Bank of America customers in for free on the first weekend of every month...so we got to go for free! Will enjoyed the various fish but mostly he liked the shark tank. It was a very small aquarium compared to East Coast aquariums so we weren't that impressed seeing as we have higher standards for aquariums, but, it was Will's first time at an aquarium and he seemed to enjoy the outing.

The sea dragon and sea horse were some of the cooler animals.