MIA lately, but life goes on....

So life has taken over and clearly I'm just trying to keep up.... Too many things going on to keep track of but yet somehow I push on. Anyhoo, while Oprah was in town last weekend pontificating to the Stanford Graduates I was babysitting my 'niece' while her mom, Martha, performed the first of her volunteer time as a Stanford employee (it's a "requirement" ).


Rachel and I had a nice time together for the few hours while mom was away. I think she's really getting used to me now that they live so close and I can visit more (well when life isn't driving me crazy all the time, that is). At least I'm not some weird stranger who wants to hold her. For a 14 month old, wow, she's seriously got some speed but we stayed home so I didn't have to worry about not having a leash (yes, I'm all for leashes on a wrist or waist if were to have kids myself).

Martha warned me that she was in a serious climbing faze. So many things are currently stacked so she can't climb on them.

Rachel has this great lion toy- it's part push toy and part bike-riding thing. Unfortunately, because it can only be a push or ride toy at one time she got a bit frustrated with it. First she wanted to push it about and then she wanted to get onto it which meant putting the seat down and then she'd tire of doing that and want to push it again.... But it was when she tried to sit on it backward and get it to move forward - her forward facing direction... that really didn't work out. I think that was the only 'fall-go-boom' experience that actually created a couple crocodile tears. And once the shock was over she was back to pushing riding the toy....

Surprisingly I found this image when I googled "lion push toy" (google rocks!)

After Martha got home I drove over to my folks to celebrate Father Day. The celebration meal was lobster and if it were warmer we'd have sat outside in the garden and eat there, but it wasn't that nice outside that afternoon so we stayed inside. My mom who, of course, primarily planned the whole Dad Day to do's sent my dad off to buy the lobsters that morning while I was off babysitting.

So here they are *before*. No, we didn't name them so no one was particularly attached to them as pets - not that they'd make good pets anyway.

Here they are in the pot getting cooked up

And here they are fresh out of the water still steaming

Before serving them the goal was to pre-crack them a bit to make it easier. The suckers were soooo hard my mom had to take a hammer to crack the claws. And I have to say that was pretty comical to watch and I kept worrying that she was going to pound her finger rather than the lobster.

The meal was great, we had fun chatting and cracking through the lobster shells to get to the meat. We topped off the meal with a tasty chocolate cake / custard tort". And as we were finishing up my sister called, and we all got a chance to talk with her....

Sadly it was a Sunday night so I had to get home and prepare for the week so I skedaddled off home. I think after I left my dad had to put the dishes in the dishwasher (I know, isn't that awful?!). But I think it was a good Fathers Day overall.