Anniversaries, Colds and Fall Festivals

Jacques and I celebrated 5 years of wedded bliss today (October 18) and much like our anniversary last year, it will be remembered fondly for illness. Our 4 year anniversary was marked with storms, tornado warnings, power outages, take-out Mexican food and a child with strep throat. This year Jacques brought home a cold and was nice enough to pass it around. The three of us decided to celebrate the occasion with a box of Kleenex and a trip to Christianway Farms in Hospkinsville, KY with some friends.

I never experienced Fall in southern California so I really enjoy the seasons here. The air is cool and crisp and the leaves are falling off the trees in all shades of reds, oranges, yellows and greens. Christianway Farms is family owned and they make a big event of Fall on the weekends from Sept – Oct. They have corn mazes, hay rides, pick-your-own-pumpkin fields, farm animals to feed and pet, an old corn grinder to grind corn to animal feed, a hay castle, sand boxes with corn kernels instead of sand, playgrounds, picnic tables, a general store, produce stand, puppet shows for the kids, live music, food and lots more stuff I can’t remember. Since Jadon was having too much fun with the animals and other kid-related things we didn’t do the hay ride to the pumpkin fields (we bought an already picked pumpkin instead) or corn maze.

Visiting the farm with friends

Petting the donkeys

I just loved these touches everywhere!

Playing in the sandbod of corn kernels

Jadon is an animal lover! He loves animal documentaries, books about animals, petting animals… you name it. If animals are not part of the movie or book, you might as well forget it. He can say quite a few animal names and can imitate most animal sounds. So he just had a ball running all over the place to pet and feed the animals. He also loves music and likes to dance to all kinds of music and songs. He was really enthralled with the singing puppets once the show started but trying to keep him still before the show was an entirely different story. I found that a bag of M&M’s can do wonders in distracting a child so I bought a bag of candy and that did the trick.

All in all it was a fun day but I have to admit it would have been a whole lot nicer without runny noses. Jacques and I will celebrate our anniversary later this week or next weekend. We decided there really was no point going to a nice restaurant (Jadon free too!) if we spent the whole time blowing our noses and can’t taste the food. Maybe next year we can celebrate an illness-free anniversary…

Until next time,

The Lombard Family

The Blog Has Moved

I have really slacked off on updating Jadon’s website and the family blog so in a new attempt to stay on top of things I am switching formats. The website and blog were created on my MAC in a program called iweb and while it is simple enough to use, it is a bit time consuming and not very convenient for my schedule. I have a PC and MAC, one modem and no router – and since I work on the PC I can’t switch my internet connection to the MAC during business hours so that leaves the evening to update the website and blog. Between work and taking care of a family I don’t have the luxury of donating several hours at a time to update everything so I have just been putting it off. By moving the blog and web photos to the PC, it is much more convenient and doesn’t take as long to maintain. Here is to hoping, anyway! Instead of the web page format I had been using, I have created a new photo webpage: http://gallery.me.com/dawnlombard. This was created on the PC using mobileme from mac.com so if you are on a PC and a screen appears that advises you to use Firefox or Safari, just ignore that and click on the button that lets you use your curent settings. Let me know if that doesn't work. Anyway, now you can see what we have been up to the last few months but I’ll try and give you the highlights as best I can remember.

July: We took a trip with my parents to Chattanooga and that was quite an adventure. The motorhome had several issues which altered quite a few things on our vacation but we still got to see the Chattanooga Aquarium and the Deep Sea Adventure. The Chattanooga Aquarium was lots of fun and I really like the city. The Deep Sea Adventure was okay – I have been to Carlsbad Caverns and any underground cavern just pales in comparison. But what made this place stand out was a natural underground lake that is 40 feet deep. It is one of the few places in the world that has and underground lake and we got to take a boat ride around it. Jadon had an ear infection and was teething around this time so that only added to the fun… ha, ha.



The motorhome



In front of the Aquarium





























Cooling off in the fountains and pools in front of the Aquarium


































We found a new place to go camping!

August & September: August and September were really busy times for me work-wise so I can tell you about work-related highlights but the personal life was rather boring. I took a business trip to Asheville, NC at the end of August. I was a rep (read “babysitter”) for a group at the Bristol 500 NASCAR race. I have done this race 5 or 6 times or it was pretty easy and the whole weekend went by in a blur. The day after I got home from the race weekend, Jacques headed out to California to help his mom and stepfather flip a house. He came home a week and a half later and I left the next day for the Richmond to baby-sit another group for the NASCAR Richmond 400 race. Tropical Storm Hanna came through and did a number on the race weekend, causing me to stay an extra day for postponed races. I came home on a Monday and 4 days later Jacques and I left for Indianapolis to baby-sit another group for the Indy MotoGP race - just in time for Hurricane Ike to pass through! I really like Indianapolis so I look forward to all my races in that city. Jacques and I took a little work related vacation – and while it was more work than vacation – we had a great time being Jadon-free for a few days. Thus ended my jet-setting days and life returned to normal. Also, Andy came home for his two week R&R, which went by way too fast!



The inagural Indy MotoGP race



Monument Circle, downtown Indy

In other news (and this is way over-due) I am pregnant with our second child! We are having another boy, who is still nameless because Jacques and I can’t decide on a name, and I am due December 5. I will be scheduling a repeat c-section within a few days of Thanksgiving so I only have 6 weeks to go until this one arrives.

Well, I think this takes care of the first entry for now – hope to be back on here with new stories and pictures soon!