Dontcha Know That You're Toxic?

Joseph and I have been watching Monk lately on Netflix. It's hard to find a good crime drama that has endearing characters. Anyway, there's an episode where the killer murders his wife with a poison he derived from a plant called oleander.

It was mentioned in the show that it was a pretty common decorative plant in many gardens. Because Monk takes place in San Francisco, I became curious about the plant, since we live in the area, and did a little research online.

It turns out that everything about the plant, from the roots to the tips of the leaves, the bark, the flowers, the seed pods, everything on the plant is toxic. And by toxic, I not only mean simply poisonous, I mean deadly. It's poisonous from a little sapling and is just as deadly when it's a full blown bush. It's deadly in it's natural form and just as deadly if you dry it and crush it up.

It's usually most deadly if ingested, but some people with sensitive skin can break out into a nasty rash if they brush by it. At the very least, it'll give you a tummy ache, but in larger amounts, it'll give you a heart attack.

As I read, I kept thinking, Wow! I've never heard of a plant like this that's so dangerous in all aspects. And Monk says it's a common decorative plant? I was fascinated.

Then, I got to a section in the article where they show the pictures of the plant and its flowers and my jaw dropped.

I've seen that flower before! But where?

Akiko has a penchant for picking flowers for me, but she knows that she's not allowed to pick our neighbors flowers unless they're dandelions, of course. As I thought about where I'd seen oleander before, I realized, Wait a minute! Akiko has given me these flowers before! Where had I seen oleander?!

I ran out to our backyard, because that's usually where Akiko gathers her flowers. I checked every inch of our yard. I was fairly certain I'd know which plant it was right off the bat. There was one bush that seemed likely, but without the flowers, I wasn't certain. The bush had buds and a few of them were starting to bloom, but none of them had fully blossomed yet. I had a hunch, but I needed to do more research.

I searched online for more images and found some pictures of the buds and flowers in various stages of bloom. My heart started pounding. I was now 95% certain that we had a fatal plant growing in our yard.

I'm 100% certain now. Akiko confirmed it for me. (Observant for a six year-old, right?)

Almost fully blossomed. Beautiful, no?

So, there are a lot of things I like about the house we're renting. It's got a lot of character. There's plenty of room for our little family. The neighborhood is amazing. The yard is gorgeous and I don't have to take care of it (besides refraining my kids from outright destroying it).

On the other hand, there are a couple things I cannot stand about it. The kitchen cabinets are original, old, crappy and disgusting. The drawers in there leave sawdust all over everything under them. The house isn't insulated very well, which wastes heating energy in the winter and in the summer, the house literally becomes a giant sauna. Then there's the spiders. Nuff said.

I've been waffling about whether to renew our lease or not when the contract runs its course this coming fall, but I gotta tell you, that oleander sure puts the nail in the coffin.

With the older kids, I can just tell them not to go near the bush and exactly why, but the baby is what worries me. Fortunately, the bush is next to the gravel path that the baby doesn't like to play on very often, but now that he's really starting to walk, I feel that that barrier will no longer keep him away.

So, I will be keeping my eyes and ears out for another place over the next few months. I just really hope we can stay within the ward, if not just the school boundaries.

Monterey Bay Aquarium

My oldest brother actually took a vacation. I know. I was surprised, too. He brought his family along, too. Seriously. They went to down to Socal and spent a couple days in Disneyland and California Adventure, then drove up north to spend a few days with us. It was so fun having them here.

Since our trip out to Utah in May, I have no desire to travel anywhere for a while, so it's nice making everybody come to us. We've got lots of visitors scheduled for next month (Asher's birthday!).

Akiko was still in school, but I pulled her out for the day and we drove south to Monterey Bay and spent the day at the aquarium. Here are the highlights:

Danny and the kids overlooking the bay.

Ian, Akiko and Savannah getting up the nerve to touch some sea stars, cucumbers and crabs.

I told you they wouldn't bite.

Brave little Moses dove right in.

These are called decorator crabs. They take bits of seaweed and camouflage themselves.

"Hey Ma! The water's wet!" Asher Splasher doing what he does best.

Rays that we could pet... if they came close enough.

Leopard shark that you could also pet. Sharks are so misunderstood.

The kids and Terra enjoying one of the many ginormous tanks.

So, Ian and Savannah get along with my kids really well. They're all close enough in age that they played with each other spectacularly. I expected Savannah to fawn all over Asher, but I should have known better. Savannah only had eyes for Akiko. Ian, on the other hand, totally fell in love with Asher. The feeling was mutual.

New best buddies.

What aquarium is complete unless it includes the cast of Finding Nemo? This was the only good pic I could get though and somebody spilled beer in front of this display and it made me gag.

Eels kind of freak me out.

The cousins in a giant clamshell. Forget about trying to get them all to look at you at the same time. Impossible!

So, the next couple pictures need a little explaining. There was this eggshell and both the boys wanted to climb in it. I figured it was a great picture opportunity. Only the first pic turned out. I took, like, 20 pictures and it's really amusing to watch them in rapid succession, but here are the winners:

My boys. I accidentally coordinated their outfits, but I'm glad I did. They're so cute.

Moses found it hilarious when I imitated Asher, "Hey! How do I get out of here?!"

"No Asher! Stay in the egg!"

Here are my favorite things to see at any aquarium:

So. Beautiful.

See all the tiny shrimp it's feasting on?

Yay for cute little seahorses!

I forget the names of these ones, but don't they look so cool?

My favorite: the weedy sea dragon.

Posing with a giant replica of a birthing daddy. That's right. Male seahorses are the ones who carry and give birth. Can you see the little baby coming out near the swirl on Moses' shirt?

Flamingos. Beautiful. Picture doesn't give them justice.

Asher really loved the sea turtles.

Seeing these really made me yearn to go snorkeling and swim with them on Maui.

Akiko made friends with an emperor penguin. It's fake. But she loved that it was life-sized.

So, a word, if I may, for those that may travel to the Bay area. There are two aquariums in the area: Monterey Bay and the Aquarium of the Bay at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. Admission is about the same to get into either, but I highly recommend skipping the one in SF and just go two hours south to Monterey.

We went through the entire aquarium in SF in 1.5 hours and it took us an entire day to get through the one in Monterey. It's pretty easy to do the math and find out which aquarium is not only more awesome, but which one also gives you the best bang for your buck.

Love. This. Place.

Pomp and Circumstance

I was hoping to post this the day it happened, but we were so anxious to kick off our summer.

Akiko has completed kindergarten! Yay! She is super excited for first grade, but I just want her to enjoy her summer before we have to start thinking about school again.

Graduation day! Recognize the dress?

The whole kindergarten had a little assembly for the parents in the cafeteria at first. They sang songs for us. Then we left to go to the individual classes for the graduation. Thank heavens! The cafeteria was soooo hot! And anytime I got a good shot of Akiko, someone would step right in front of me and block her. Grr! Anyway, I'm glad we didn't have to sit through 100 kids, that we didn't know, getting their certificates.

Mrs. P. was such a sweet teacher. She was so willing to help us with Akiko's work. Anytime we mentioned that Akiko was getting bored or that she found the work too easy, she would get a little packet together for extra harder work for Akiko to work on. It challenged Akiko more, but she's better off because of it.

Akiko! You did it!

 Akiko has very mixed emotions about the whole thing. She's sad that she won't see her friends over the summer, but she's excited for first grade. She is looking forward to the break, but she won't be able to spend a whole lot of time with Mrs. P. anymore.

We also got Akiko's final report card for the year. She started out pretty strong, but overall improved in all areas. Her report card is stellar. I hope she can keep up those marks for the next 12 years. ;)

One of the boys in her class was sitting next to us during our picnic at the park. Akiko read something off a wrapper she had been eating out of and the boy said, "Wow Akiko! You can read that? I can't. You're the best reader in the class!" I had one of those awkward mixed emotion moments where, all at once, I thought it was such a cute, sweet thing to say, and I was proud of Akiko, but I also pitied the other boy. I was all sorts of twisted up.

And to end it all, here's the cherry on top of Akiko's kindergarten sundae of awesomeness:

No surprise here, right?

We love you Akiko! Keep up the great work!

School's Thisclose to Being Out!

Seriously, who gets out of school in the middle of June? Everyone else we know has been out of school for a week or two. Akiko still has one more day. Tomorrow is her kindergarten graduation, so keep your eyes peeled for that post.

Anyway, today the kindergarten classes went on a field trip to the park and I was able to chaperone. I haven't been able to on any of the other field trips they have taken because I've got two other little ones in tow and have been disallowed to take part in them. So, when Akiko's teacher said I'd be able to, I jumped at the chance.

It was a lot of fun. We just walked to the park, but it was all five of the kindergarten classes, so there were about one hundred kids there.

Walking to the park. I was a little late, so I brought up the rear.

One of the teachers brought along a bunch of recess equipment: stilts, jump ropes, chalk and bubbles. The kids had a lot of things to choose from besides the regular playground fare.

Akiko demonstrates the stilts.

Asher demonstrates his one-handed Mowgli crawl.

This picture is just to show that Moses was there, too. He ran off and did his own thing the whole time we were there.

Yo homie! What up?

Rethinking the decision to put this one up.

Asher is the unofficial "class baby." All the kids in Akiko's class fawn over him. Especially this sweet boy and another little girl (three pics down). They are his biggest fans.

We were both disappointed that this bubble wand didn't give us star-shaped bubbles.

Akiko posing with her BFF.

Bubbles!! My bubbles.

Asher with his other #1 fan.

Aren't bubbles awesome?

"Whoa! Akiko, how did you do that?"

I tried to keep him away, but finally had to relent and let him play in the wood chips and sand.

Showing off his standing skills.

Building sand castles.

Sand goes in...

... octopus comes out.

Playing with the parachute with Mrs. P.

Wheeee!! Swinging is fun!

So, I'm super excited for summer this year. Last year was kind of a bust for me. We were still new enough to the area that I didn't have a clue what to do around here. I was also extremely pregnant and then I had a newborn and no energy.

Akiko has only nine short weeks off of school (what?), so I've compiled a list of nine things (out of dozens of other fun choices) that we're going to do once a week every week of summer. This is in addition to our summer camp group that we have planned for a few of the weeks. I also plan on spending a fair amount of time at the pool.

So, here's to looking forward to Akiko's first official summer break. I'm totally stoked about the whole sleeping in thing, too.