out and about

enjoying the rain, this has been a super rainy winter and i have loved every second of it.
 

we took a trip down to Oceanside yesterday, there is a lookout stop along the way. the hills were all green with the beginnings of wildflowers, some orange and yellow. i have said it a million times but winter is the best time to be here in california, i just love the green when we get it.

 

we met up with friends and spent the day chatting about guitar lessons and ukulele's and then headed over to the "making music museum" which was very interesting to me. i have the background in piano, but even after just a few months of guitar lessons, i am fascinated by guitars now.


i see guitar books in my future


for daddy


the kids had fun and i was impressed with how well behaved all the children who were playing instruments were, even with display guitars being handed back and forth


we visited Los Cerritos Wetlands on the way home, i missed a cool art show with wetlands photos on display. just completely forgot to go last night, ugh!


oh well, so more guitar practicing today, lessons and then house cleaning i guess. boy, weekends sure go by fast around here.

sweet gvl

 
we got some snow at the cabin during the last big storm. i don't know if anyone who lives in a snowy area actually reads my blog (other than family in colorado) but living in southern california where it is 70 degrees most every day, going up to the snow is such a big deal. i have only had a few experiences of going to sleep with no snow and waking up to lots of snow, that magical experience. it's on my wish list of future places to live someday, seasons that include snow in the winter. i am really thankful we can enjoy snow every winter at the cabin, especially with the kids.


we are wearing lots of hats around here now, i think the girls realized they can get out of brushing their hair by putting a hat on... i should crack down on that but i LOVE these hats!


our cabin is on a hill so snow piles down below, we just climb up through it to get in. this is our neighbors house (they have a house by us in both places) and their cabin is down below the road so they get snow piled on their stairs leading down to the door. it looked like a ski ramp when we were there, it must take hours to shovel those stairs just to get in the house... or a matter of seconds if they just sled down them! the girls love that idea.


after the slide fire, the ski resort burned down but the ski runs remain. this is a favorite sledding spot for us and usually no one is around. last weekend though, it was crowded with people coming up for the day. we still had plenty of room to do our thing.


our weekend guests, leslie and her son kareem (he is ducking his head in back).





being on facebook has sure changed our lives, chris and i are on it more than we probably should be but we really like it. when we returned from this last trip, we found out one of chris' childhood friends (from his cub scout troop) had owned our cabin for 30 years and he recognized it in a photo chris had posted on facebook. we have had a whirlwind week chatting with him and his wife, lots of memories and emotions and exclamations of "wow!" and "can't believe it!" and "amazing!" we are so looking forward to getting them up there to give us a tour from their perspective. of all the cabins we could have bought, just how many different decisions led us to that moment when his friend contacted us. i just love stuff like that.

never ending candy sales, happy valentines day!

peddling the neighborhood, got 4 more cases to go (did i mention i had two kids drop out of our group and one who didnt want to sell... conveniently after the candy had been ordered) i am on a MAJOR diet and can honestly say i havent had one single piece of candy, but i sure have bought a lot!


i really need to do a "candy sales 101" post but i am not in a funny sarcastic mood today. my neighbors had to hold their funeral for their son this morning and it has just been the most moving experience for me. their youngest son was the one i always waved to and smiled at as we came and went for years and years but we really never chatted. for 13 years we never had a REAL conversation. it is just coincidence and circumstance. i was so moved to hear all his friends and family talk about him, swarms of people were at the church. this amazing kid who now i feel such grief and loss for, the loss of never getting to know him.


lizzie is famous for crapping out after 10 minutes of candy selling, setting up shop on top of the candy boxes and attempting to take a nap. did i mention she is dressing herself these days? you gotta pick your battles, right?

grief

we had a loss in our neighborhood, a good friend's son died in an accident last weekend (he was 29). it's hard to not think about losing a child when someone you care about has just lost theirs.

there has been a lot of sadness this week. this card was written by emily without any prompting, she just showed it to me and i cried my eyes out.

halloween birthday in january

since my birthday is on halloween, this seems pretty normal to me

of course the last one is my favorite, i always like the strange ones. i just love the details rather than the whole picture.

happy birthday sean!

a cleaver christmas party

we finally got to cleaver's annual christmas party (i think we have missed a few years in a row) the girls were cute and helpful, they really love cleaver

lots of yummy snacks, great music, some cool "artist friend" art, cleaver's pad always delivers. so glad we could make it this year, even though we had to leave early, passing crowds of arriving guests as we headed to our car and off to bed. the girls both fell asleep on the way home.

today is lizzies arts and craft birthday party, stay tuned!

wendy crabb

well we set up a meeting with wendy crabb and just about everyone had plans that conflicted so my little "group" of camp fire girls set off for noho (north hollywood) to see her artwork at cella gallery. the girls were so excited, lizzie has been drawing crabs to present to her for weeks now. they all wanted to see where the movie stars live (not sure how they know so much about it but they sure had a long list of stars to look for). we saw wendy walking along the street with baby jasper and the girls yelled from the car at her, they recognized her from her blog. we had hot dogs then headed over for a look at the gallery. the space was gorgeous and all the artwork was lovely up close, cant beat seeing art in real life.



a personal favorite








you know i could live in a place like this, just put a bed off in a corner somewhere.


the girls got these shirts and emily is wearing it again today, i think it will be a favorite for a long time. lizzie is asking to go back to the "nursery" today, i finally figured out she means "gallery" and from the fit she is throwing about it, i think i did good with trying to influence the girls on viewing art at a gallery. meeting wendy (who is so sweet and i didnt get a SINGLE picture of!) and visiting a gallery was a great way to spend an afternoon, well worth the drive. thanks again wendy for meeting with us! we will keep in touch!

the newest felt mouse

congrats to the felt mouse house, henry has arrived!

summer weather

seems every weekend has at least one scheduled birthday party. i remember the excitement of the first birthday party emily was invited too, i still really like going to them, the kids enjoy themselves and i dont have to set up and clean up (i think i have mentioned that more than a few times already) i spent the morning at day camp training (camp shiwaka is coming round again!) while the girls enjoyed this hot weather.


monday is our first official "awards night" and our last camp fire meeting of the year... i wanted the awards to look painterly, so i just jumped in with some watercolors. with a little more embellishments, i think they will work. emily was inspired to paint (she has been asking to paint ever since we watched this movie, a very interesting movie which i highly recommend, i found myself stewing about it for days and days) so she did some painting too.

i have been hard at work trying to get our backyard cleaned up, i dont think some of the plants have been attended to since before liz was born, seriously! what a mammoth job it has been. we priced out some patio furniture and found the set we liked cost about 6,000 dollars! yikes! i had no clue that quality patio furniture cost so much, i think we will stick with what we have and make some cushions for it. maybe i can find something used or thrown out? hoping for a huge table that we ALL can actually sit at together (our dining room table seats only four). stay tuned for more backyard adventures!