The Mystery Spot

October 15th

Friends of ours watched Ta while we were in Germany for almost three weeks.  In exchange, we watched their three daughters for a week.  I can feel your raised eyebrows and concerns that this isn't a fair trade.  Don't be too concerned, they're good kids, AND I only promised their parents that I was 95% sure they'd all still be alive at the end of the week.  I set really low standards.

As something to do for one of the days, we took E and J to the Mystery Spot.  G was off at a friend's house, so she missed the mystery.  Our friends Josh and Nicole met us there with their two kids.  Josh is photo-bombing our photo.

In this mysterious spot E is taller than J - which is normal.  They're standing on a level so you know the ground is even.But, if they switch spots, E and J are the same height! (I....didn't take a picture, so you'll just have to believe me)

Why is the Mystery Spot so mysterious?

Sunlight, illuminating the mystery shack.

E is a bit of a ham.

Oh my goodness!  Look at that reverse Michael Jackson lean!

SO much leaning.  It's mysterious!

J and E getting ready to be superheros.

I can stand on walls!

E can also stand on walls.

Hey, there's Nicole.  Hiding behind her camera.  

J practicing her Ninja Warrior skills.

M is being a super hero as well.  L is sort of waiting his turn.  Josh is doing the reverse MJ lean.

Here, when everyone stands on this perfectly normal level board, they're all about the same height.

But when the ends swap, look at the difference!  MAGIC!

Maybe the house is leaning, maybe it's E. 

And here's the three shell game only with kids and mystery:

First up is J, L, and random kid.

Next is different M, random kid, and E. 

All in all it was a very mysterious place, but more importantly, we had fun.  

And we got souvenirs.

This concludes our adventures for today.

OktO4fest

September 30th

While we were in Germany our tomato plants produced about 10 lbs of tomatoes.  

This was on top of the roughly 20 lbs of tomatoes they had previously produced.  

Anyway, Dan promoted to O-4 which is very exciting.  In the Navy when you promote you have a Wetting Down.  Usually this is a big party where you spend the difference in the paychecks on the party.  Since we'd just come from Oktoberfest and were still in the Oktoberfest season, we decided to have OktO4fest.

I really love that so many people came to celebrate Dan's promotion.  This was also JD's last night (or close to last) in Monterey, so we tried to give him a good send off as well.

A few surprise attendees: Dave and his boyfriend Yev came down from Berkely, Matt and Emily and kids came down from Freemont, and Dan's parents came out from Iowa.  It was really good to see them and have them here.

 Ryan, John, and Christian (an actual German, which adds some authenticity to our party 😉) seemed to have a good time.

 At some point we had two games of baseball and one game of beer pong going on in the garage.  Only one grumpy distant neighbor came to yell at us - the immediate neighbors were at the party.

All in all I think it was a really great night.  We have a great group of friends here and I really appreciated them all coming out to celebrate Dan .  I wish I had taken more photos, but I was having too much fun and forgot.

 This concludes our adventures for tonight.