Out with the old and in with the new

Now we have finally replaced all our cleaning supply with bio gradable and environmental friendly supply instead. After reading up on what effect "regular" cleaners have on the environment as well as yourself we were determined to replace them all. It was easy because there are many cheap options. We even gone so far as using organic and toxic free paint when we been painting different rooms. The paint called Aura is a great paint and it has a primer blended in to you only have to use of coat and that it. Easy as 1,2,3.

Drama, drama, drama

Life is never boring with a toddler in the house. She is getting smarter for her own good...really. Morning in the Syren family started out @ 6:30am ,before a cup of coffee, with drama when Isabella locked her self into her bedroom. She off course panic when she couldn't get out so while James was frantic running around the house trying to find something to pick the lock with I sat on the floor trying to calm Isa down and get her to unlock the door. After five long minutes it worked and she was out. Now she lost her door handle and lock privileges and daddy removed them from her door. She is not very happy about that.

Hallelujah for cooler weather

As a swede I guess I should be on my knees and praise the lord for the hot weather we're having here in San Diego but seriously there is a limit to how much heat I can take in one sitting. It's also so hard with a toddler who wants to be outside all day but can't when it's 100f outside. Having a cast does not help matters. It also makes it relay hard to sleep for our little Pomperoo. Thank god for new and improved air conditioner. But now it's cooling down to more normal temperatures and we can once again enjoy outside.

Good news!!!!!

We had an x-ray this morning and so far the bones are staying where they are suppose to so that means no surgery, Yeahhhhhhh!!!!! Now we can finally breath and work on making life as normal as possible again. Thanks for all your concerns!

Hot hot caliente hot!!!!!

We're slowly melting away here when global warming has made San Diego a miserable place to live. So what do you do when it's hot?? You stay inside where you have air condition unfortunately for us, it broke yesterday afternoon. I know all our visitors from overseas think this is funny that we rely so much on it but last night it was 82F (28C) in our home at 10pm so guess how we're working on overtime to get it up and running soon. Hopefully we'll have it back by tonight. Today it's going to get super hot 105F (41C) and we're hosting a graduation party this afternoon for our very good friend Jessica. We're were suppose to go to the actual graduation ceremony but sitting for 3 hours in this the sun is not our idea of a fun time. Sorry Jess but we love you and are so proud of you and will see you later with a cold nice drink.

Mother's Day Weekend

We started mother's day weekend with a drive over to Coronado Island... It's only about 15 min from our house. You can see downtown San Diego in the background to the right. Impressed with our photography? OK, so we didn't take this picture

We found a little park to hang out in... just across the harbor from the city.

Meet Peter the Pigeon... Isabella decided she was not particularly hungry... so Isabella decided today was a fine day to teach Peter about healthy eating habits. She chased him around trying to feed him Tofu... take a look at the video.

Come on Peter... EAT!!! Eventually Peter and his girlfriend Tootsie gave it a try. By the end of the afternoon they really had their fill of Tofu! Apparently Pigeons like Tofu... later when we weren't looking they snuck up to Isabella's lunch box and helped themselves. Keep an eye out for any Pigeons writing blogs recommending Tofu to their pigeon friends :-)

In case you've never seen the San Diego skyline... this is a pretty nice picture from where we were.

Sunday morning, mothers day started with an early morning walk on the beach in Del Mar

Great time to give the ball a good kick about... Isabella was quite energetic and even the dogs came along to play.


This beach in Del Mar is one of our favorites because it is a Dog Beach. Take a look at the dogs joining our soccer game.

Next was off for Mother's Day breakfast at the Beach Grass Cafe. Going out for breakfast or Brunch on Mother's Day is quite popular in the US... when we made our reservation they hold us we could only be at the table for 90 min... she laughed... with an 18 month old you're doing well if you can stay for more than 30 min.

Isabella was great.. she had a lot of fun with her toys at the table.

Grandma and Grandpa joined us for mother's day breakfast... Isabella is looking for every opportunity to swing, her new 'favorite thing.'

Our last mother's day activity was taking Isabella to the San Diego Aquarium for her first time. She was mesmorized be fish, the colors, the movement. It was really fun!

Daddy... look at those little guys in here... there's tons of them! And they can really move!!!

There were so many beautiful fish!

These wales sit out at the entrance to the aquarium

The aquarium sits on a hilltop overlooking the La Jolla beaches. It wasn't a real warm day, but the view couldn't have been more spectacular!

One display that really caught our eye was photos of the meltig polar ice... this was just one of many comparison that kind of took your breath away... click on the picture to look closer!

Happy Mother's Day!

Making a small difference in big class

Two weeks ago I went to Palomar College and gave a speech and taught a yoga class to a Psychology class of 40 students. The professor is a student of mine asked if I could do it and without giving it a second though I said yes. Then I got super nervous since teaching young people with no experience and maybe not even wanting the experience of yoga. I know I had to come up with some great examples of famous people doing yoga so research and found Barry Bond, Venus Williams and other great athletes doing yoga so then I had their attention. We then practice some actual poses and boy did they sweat and had a hard time holding the poses. Afterward I gave them a long savasana and they were so still and matter a fact someone walk in to the room and left after seeing all these people laying in corps posture on the floor and slammed the door. No one even raised an eye brow. (Picture is coming) I loved it had such great time and hope for more of these opportunities.

Humpty Dumpty had a Great Fall... and the next 24 hours!

We know that with children you end up spending more time than you'd ever expect in the doctors office, even the emergency room. Somehow we thought Isabella would be different (smile). On Thursday afternoon Isabella fell down from a chair and injured her arm. We took her to the the Urgent Care unit of Children's Hospital near our house. When we checked in... and surprise, he wait is 3-4 looooooooong hours. Isabella would only be held by mom so I was sore, tired, hungry and desperately needed to go to the bathroom.


A technician took an x-ray of Isabella's arm and then we saw the Doctor. She didn't see a break in the x-ray and thought the elbow was dislocated. So the doctor proceeded to bend and twist Isabella's arm to get things back in place. We've never heard her scream like that. While it was for sure tough for Isabella.... mom and dad needed a bottle vodka or some tranquilizer to deal with that. Seriously we need therapy after that experience. After that Isabella went to sleep on my shoulder. We were optimistic that things went well because Isabella went right to sleep afterwards. It took forever to get discharged (why is that by the way???) By the time we left it was 9pm and way passed Isabella's bed time. Mom and dad hadn't even eaten dinner. When we finally got home and put her down, we gobbled down some food and fell into bed.

So you think the story is over??? Not by a long shot. In the morning we noticed her arm was still bothering her and we decide to take her to the pediatrician. Dr. Gee-Lew also did a bit of arm twisting... Isabella's reaction was about the same as the night before... just as much fun for all of us the second time around! She didn't like it at all and got us in to see a specialist at the main Children's Hospital that afternoon. This is a picture is Daddy reading to Isabella in the morning... she just kept her right arm immobile.

So... off to Children's Hospital and of course, that doctor needed to see what Isabella's arm could do... third time (ugh). This doctor immediate thought she had a fracture near her elbow. Isabella was off to x-ray again... this time with daddy while I cried my eyes out in front of complete strangers. (This is a picture of Children's Hospital... if you check on it you can see a helicopter landing.)



Verdict.......Her elbow is broken, possibly in more than one place so now she is in a cast and on Monday she will have another x-ray to determine if she needs surgery. So please everyone pray for Isabella so she does not need to go down that path! We all had to wear these silly "Visitor" stickers. Isabella kept picking hers off so we ended up having to put it on her back :-)

Isabella sporting her new great cast.. yes green.

My "Interview" with the brave child.. she how she feels she is getting along!


Within an hour of getting the cast, she returned to her normal self... playing and running around

Believe it or not... Isabella and Grandma Toni are in casts at the same time. Grandma's was a soccer accident a couple weekends back... you get the idea from the picture.

I know you all are concerned reading this and probably want to call and check in. Send us an email for now as that last 24 hours has been really draining. We'll try to start getting calls out this weekend.

I give up...

Sooooo Isabella was sick again..... She was healthy for a whole whopping 10 days. Sigh!
So now in 6 weeks she has three!!! ear infections (chiropractor took a look and we hope fixed that), had the regular old colds, a viral stomach bug and now a throat infection. Me and James have gotten use to nightly wake up calls. Last Thursday she was up for over two hours with a fever, happy as happy could be, wanted to play while we kept saying "shhhhh Isabella sleepy time", in hopes it would convince her to just lay down and go to sleep. Yeah right. The best part is she seems to mostly plan her sick days to weekends so we have to take minimal time off from work but there has been times when we have had to take turn staying home. The hard part is really to go to work after a sleepless night. We had one of those night last night and today in my class I actually fell asleep while my students were in savasana, Wonder how long I could have been a sleep before they would have gotten up and left?