Dad's Home

Lloyd is home from his conference and he came bearing gifts:-) The kids sat so still and quiet I had to snap a picture.

Super Heroes

"Fire Girl" and "Sporticus": keeping the world safe from "bad guys".

Craft Time

Daddy is gone to a convention so we're keeping busy and entertained and not eating meals on a schedule at all! (I can't believe I let the kiddos eat donuts at 11:30 after we walked to pick up the dry cleaning.) Anyway, last night the kids wanted to be "bad guy" and "fire girl" so we did our best.

Kathryn: 4 months

Where does the time go? Kathryn was in this week for her 4 month appt. and I'm not sure where the time has gone. She is such a joy! Everytime she sees a face she has to smile her gummy grin.

Yep, she is sucking her thumb - sigh!:

Ice Cream!

The cousins enjoy some ice cream/sherbet at the end of a wonderful day.

Santa Ana Zoo

Our short visit in Chino included a few hours at the Santa Ana Zoo, a nice small zoo for toddlers with short attention spans. We were able to see a short show highlighting some fun animals, see lots of monkeys, eat a picnic lunch, ride on a train, and play on the playground & animal statues. What fun!


Pretending to be a researcher out in the field:How tall is Anika?Taking a "shower" under the bucket:Andrew "driving" a turtle:An amazing Macaw:Nana and her grandkids:Drew feeding the goats:Anika feeding the goats:

Kathryn and . . .

This was Kathryn's first visit to Nana & Papa's and our first time meeting Cousin Josephine Martha. How fun to have the family together to celebrate Josie's baptism.

Kathryn and Nana & Josie:Kathryn and Daddy:

Kathryn and Anika & Josie:Kathryn and Josie:Kathryn and Josie:

Tea Time

When the ladies were having tea at Nana's, the kid couldn't be left out. Thank goodness for Nana's "chocolate tea" (aka: hot chocolate).

Andrew's New Toy

We arrived at Lloyd's parents for the baptism of his neice and immediately Nana spoiled Andrew with a new toy - Thomas, the train. He is "so, SO exciting" about his new train set.

Almonds

Here are the stages of the almond:

1. Off the tree
2. Still in the pod
3. final product

VanDyken's sell nuts in 2 or 3 form to Blue Diamond.

Field Trip, cont'd

After we saw the processing, we went backward in the process to the orchards where Lloyd VanDyken took the kids for a ride in the "shaker". It was quite amazing! Before this crazy looking machine was invented they would take tarps, lay them out under the trees, and hit them with mallets to make the nuts fall.

Anika really wanted to pick a nut from the tree.Andrew is trying REALLY hard to be an obedient little boy and NOT kick the dirt.

Field Trip

The Wickers took a field trip today to see how almonds are harvested. (We've always heard that they "shake the 'L' out of them" which explains the strange Ripon pronunciation of "a-mond")

First we went to the huller where Doug VanDyken explained how the nuts are hulled and sorted.

This huge pile of hulls is sold to the dairy farmers who feed it to their cows. (We were told that the almond is in the plum family and the hulls are apparently quite sweet.)