So that was just a short break of three months haha
oh it has been a chaotic summer. To quickly sum up - I qualified in my department at the beginning of June. I'm now a "doctoral candidate" yay. That meant I had no life in May and my amazing husband took over almost all baby-care for that month.
In May, we also found out we are expecting our second baby. He/she is due January 18 :) We are *so* excited, but I find myself still not processing it as "real" quite yet. I think having a very full plate of things going on kind of makes it hard to really just sit, reflect, and let it sink in.
June, July, and this month have been filled with illness in our house. What a way to spend the summer! It started off as a cold for me. Then it turned into bronchitis, and my second ER trip said it was starting to turn into pneumonia. Antibiotics cleared most of it up, but I still had a lot of tightness in my chest and "fits" where I couldn't breathe well. At the end of July, I went back to the doctor and said I have asthma. Meanwhile, my husband got sick with walking pneumonia and then the baby got sick with focal pneumonia. Now she has a bad rash that the doctors don't seem to be able to explain (one said chickenpox, another said bugbites, then talked about allergic reactions to things like soap)
So we have been busy!
On the craft, arts, trips, exploring, educating, discovery front - we have also been busy. We enjoyed our "spring" theme so much that we decided to do a theme every month. It helps focus ideas for crafts, books, trips, etc. And it's encouraging us to see areas of San Diego we wouldn't normally go to. For May/June we did a "garden" theme, where we tried to visit all sorts of different gardens. We have our own vegetable garden on the balcony, so that was a really nice start. We saw several gardens at Balboa Park, including the Japanese Friendship garden, the rose garden, and smaller gardens they have between buildings. We read books about plants, vegetables, and the things that live in gardens (insects, caterpillars).
In July we moved onto our "Ocean" theme. Unfortunately, as you can see, we were quite busy being homebound and sick so not a lot of ocean-going. But we did crafts related to the ocean; read books about dolphins, the parts of fish, and about how seahorses and other ocean life carry their babies. Towards the end of the month, as we started to feel better, we were able to make a trip out to the tidepools and visit SeaWorld to see the sea lions. The month is over so we would be moving onto our next theme - stars and the sky - but there is so much more I would like for us to see and talk about in relation to the ocean.
For the other themes I have planned:
August - stars and the sky
September - farms
October - Halloween (of course!)
November - fall/Thanksgiving
December - Christmas
There are a lot more I'd like to do, like bugs, birds, deserts, forests, colors, reptiles, jungle, shapes, etc. Plus I want to revisit the garden, ocean, and star theme. So much to do!
So now that I have posted a very long text update, I will try to get pictures up in the near future :)