Brewers - Tigers

We didn't celebrate Tessie's birthday with just cupcakes and a haircut, of course. That was just Day One of Tessie's Birthday Festival. (Despite the title of this post, though, we didn't follow up with a baseball game.)

The morning after her actual birthday, we piled into the car and set out. First stop? A brewery. Stone Brewing in Escondido, CA, to be precise. O.K., so Tessie still has 18 years to go before she can get any enjoyment out of that, but we took the tour anyway. Standard stuff, but mixed with Stone's own particular attitude. The beers are fine, but they try a bit too hard to be outrageous, with brews named "Arrogant Bastard Ale" and "Sublimely Self-Righteous Ale," and they push their recipes to the limit, confronting your palate with an overload of hops, or bitterness, or both, simply because they can and brag about it later. They seem to view brewing as an extreme sport.

We also had a snack in their outrageously expensive restaurant. Two appetizers + two beers + milk for Tessie + tip = over $40.00! Yikes!

These fermentation vessels, if I am remembering this correctly, hold 12,500 gallons each. Our tour guide made that somewhat more comprehensible: if you wanted to drink one dry, that would mean drinking a six-pack worth of beer every night for 65 years.


Anyway, that's not why we went to Escondido. The real object of out visit was to take Tessie to see her favorite animal, the tiger. (Tiger starts with T, Tessie starts with T. We're pretty sure that's why.) So we got ourselves memberships in the San Diego Zoological Society. We'll certainly be visiting their famous Zoo at some point, but this trip was to their slightly less famous Wild Animal Park.

Begun as a breeding facility serving the zoo, the park opened to the public in 1972 as an attraction in its own right. The animals there are mostly African species, like these elephants:

There's also a petting zoo. Tessie likes petting zoos:

Most of the animals are large enough that they require lots of area to roam. There's a tram ride called the "Journey Into Africa" that carries visitors around the otherwise inaccessible parts of the park to view the larger animals. Here Tessie is waving to a giraffe:

We could have taken the hot-air balloon ride, but weren't quite sure how Tessie would react. We also saw "Dino Mountain," an assortment of foam-rubber animatronic dinosaurs that Tessie seemed to enjoy, especially the one that spat water at us.

There are tigers as well, in the Asian animals area. Regrettably, they were so far back in their enclosure, and so well hidden in the shade, that we're not sure Tessie actually saw them. So we made sure she got a close-up look at one:

She seemed satisfied with that, just as she seemed to enjoy the whole trip. Her favorite part was feeding the ducks in the park's central lagoon. Don't worry - there is extensive video, which will be shared soon.

Three!

Tessie turned three not long ago, and of course we didn't let the occasion pass by unobserved. Her birthday was on a Friday, which meant she would be in preschool, so Tessie's Mom and I went there to help her celebrate with her classmates.

Celebration had to wait until after nap, though. That's Tessie at the far right:


Once all the kids were awake, they were treated to cupcakes Tessie had made with her mother the night before. Tessie delighted in handing the cupcakes out to her friends:

Of course, the best part of cupcakes is eating them:
The festivities ended with hugs all around...:
...and then we took Tessie for her very first haircut. Really. That's what she wanted:
A few snips later, and she was done. There's not a dramatic change in her appearance, but the ends are a bit neater. From there, we went home for dinner and to open presents:
The next day we embarked on her birthday trip...

More tales from school

The tidbits from Tessie's weekdays at pre-school continue. Her wide variety of interests is evident:

6/5: "During circle time when we say what [day] today was, Tessie said, 'today is Friday and I'm going to the library.'" (ed. note: we actually go to the library on Mondays)

6/8: "Today we talked about ice cream. We asked Tessie what's her favorite flavor? She said, 'Chocolate.' She was a little sad because a lot of her friends like the same flavor."

6/10: "During art, Tessie rolled up a paper and said, 'I made a whistle, no it's not a whistle it's a paper all wrapped up.'"

6/14: "During outside play, Tessie found a bird feather. She was very excited about finding it. She was showing everyone that came her way."

6/15: "During science, we were playing with camping items. Tessie was playing with a raccoon. She said, 'I'm giving the raccoon milk, he's drinking it.'"

6/17: "While walking to the restroom Tessie was sniffing around. She said, 'I like my smell because I could smell flowers, oh not skunk because they are stinky.'"

6/18: "During Kitchen Creation we made a shake using banana and milk. Tessie said, 'The banana looks like a moon.'"

6/26: "During Hoppy Store, Tessie was playing with a bottle and she said, 'I'm trying this beer.' She said she heard that from Daddy."

6/29: "During art we made a USA collage. I asked, who lives in the USA? Tessie was the first one to answer 'I do.'"

7/1: "During water play, Tessie got in the pool and showed everone what she learned in her swimming classes."

7/21: "During outside play, Tessie was playing in the house and she said, 'I'm making lobster and some cupcakes.'"

7/27: "During outside play, Tessie was telling all about her visistors. She said, 'My visitors are from a country we visited before.'" (ed. note: Slovakia and Canada, both of which she has indeed visited)

7/29: "During water play, Tessie was playing with the water hose. She would run from it then go through it. She said, 'Miss C___, I'm getting wet,' then she would sit in the sun for a while."

7/31: "Today Tessie said, 'You hold ladybugs on your finger,' as the class was talking about ladybugs."

8/3: "I asked Tessie what she did this weekend and she told me all about her picnic outside her house. She said, 'We ate pasta.'" (ed. note: we did eat pasta outside under the arbor and called it a "picnic")

8/5: "During balance, Tessie was jumping over mats and hula hoops pretending she was an astronaut."

8/6: "During outside play, Tessie and her friend A___ were digging in the wood chips looking for ants."

8/17: "Teresa was hugging me and kissing me all day. She was telling me she missed me. I missed her too and it was a great welcome." (ed. note: the teacher had been gone on vacation for a week)

We're also starting to see the first indications of representational art:

Note the sun at top left; the pool at right; and the baseball bat in the middle.