Memorial Day

This year, we hit the ground running with Memorial Day festivities.  

In fact, in a course of four days, we squeezed in four pretty big events. 

I don't know if I was more impressed with the girls, or myself...

Considering I didn't get any pictures of either the Cajun Festival or Blueberry picking, 

I'll have to say the girls were the most impressive.

For the events I did manage to get pictures of, they were:

   

Sesame Street Live!

 Payton stayed in her seat long enough to get this picture...

 then spent the rest of the time photo-bombing and doing other things along those lines.

Day 2: Chalk Festival at the Santa Barbara Mission, 

which was the highlight of kid-friendly events for the weekend. 

The girls got to draw in their own kid-sized squares,

which thoroughly entertained them for at least a solid 30-minutes 

After which time, they were ready to join the rest of the festival...

 Good thing Father Charley is looking out for them.

This Baby Vomits Like You...

To be honest, the only thing holding me back from sharing this little video with the world

is the fact that I look haggard (and I mean, HAGGARD) at the end.  

If anyone has the ability to edit my sleep-deprived face out of this,

please contact me offline.  

Better yet, I'll stay in, if you could frost my face a la

Cybill Shepard in Moonlighting.  I'm open to either option...

just don't let my tired mug steal the show from the real star here.

Charley's Birth Announcement

 Inspired by Raphael, we decided to get a little fancy for Charley's birth announcement.

This was our goal:

And these were our models:

Try it again... no smiling!

Try it again... no fish mouth!

 Come on ladies!  Nonnie and mommy are willing 

to take at least 100 more of these until we get 

the perfect shot!

And there it is!

And here she is...

Our littlest angel!

Brought to you by:

Charley's Angels

(& Nonnie)

Fire on the Mountain

Our old house (which is currently rented out, and filed under "Things we really wished we hadn't purchased before the housing bubble burst") was evacuated, because it was essentially Ground Zero for the fire.  

The old neighborhood, Camarillo Springs, is the "Springs" in the Springs Fire, which ended up destroying about 12,000 acres of the Santa Monica Mountains. 

 Our former neighbor, John, took this photo, as he was evacuating --

his house has the covered car in the driveway, and our old house is to the right.

Most of the smoke and ash was blowing straight toward the ocean.

This was pretty scary to see, as I was driving Nola to school.

The fire raged on that day (and for a few days after), 

as you can see -- I think this was later in the afternoon...

One cool perk, was the "Command Central" for the fire-fighters

was right next to our little preschool, so the kids got to see all the fire engines...

and news vans.

But the coolest part of all, is that no houses were burned AT ALL,

and this is how everything looked just a few days later. 

From this picture, you can barely even tell that the hills are totally charred.

One friend, whose house was about five-feet from the flames said,

"I just want to kiss every fire fighter I see!"

I, like most other women, totally agree.

May the Fourth Be with You

I'd like to know if our little cousin Ryle's LOVE for all things Star Wars

came about before or after he knew his birthday fell on May 4th.

 Either way, it's a totally fun birthday party theme

& we made sure to come to it in full gear.

Happy third birthday, Ryle!

May the fourth always be with you.