Trips

Thanksgiving this year had a new venue: We rented a house in Santa Barbara with the SoCal Moisions for several days of good food, fun times and lots of Nerf gun battles. The house was in the hills so one of the first things we did was explore the surrounding area, which included some ruins of a house that must have burned down a long time ago. Here are the cousins. Thomas was obviously well-prepared for the aforementioned battle.

As usual, I have no pictures from Thanksgiving dinner, save for this one shot of Bob’s computer analysis of the turkey cooking time, which I found pretty entertaining (and informative!).

Some day I will get my act together and remember to get some shots of people. We had David and Beth with us, and we all devoured lots of great food.

The next day we got out for a bike ride along the coast.

The kids were happy to ride for a while, but really, at least my two, just wanted to play in the sand.

Saturday we took another bike ride, this time at Ellwood Mesa.

Another ridiculously beautiful day.

Oddly enough, the kids talked us in to going down to the beach again.

Bruce and I tried to take a selfie and got photobombed by this guy digging in the background.

After the beach time and the ride back, we got some great Mexican food at a place Beth recommended. Ah, good Mexican food, how we’ve missed you.

Next up was a park, also recommended by Beth, with a giant play structure and a creepy clown show. Much to my surprise, Ezra and Thomas (in the blue helmet) joined in.

On Sunday we packed up and headed home, just as the much-needed rain hit California. It was a long and sometimes painfully slow drive back but well worth it!

The weekend before Thanksgiving the Bannings came up to visit Monterey and we got to join them for a day and a half. Not knowing about their upcoming visit (which had been in some limbo so I hadn’t mentioned it) about a week earlier, Ezra had asked me when we were going to get to see our old friends. “Like who?” I asked. “You know, Ruby, Chapin, Jack …” Well, two out of three ain’t bad!

We arrived in the afternoon and after quickly ditching our stuff at the hotel, we took off in search of Dennis the Menace Park. The kids had a grand old time running around while we got to catch up a bit with Cari and Rob. Later, while walking to find a restaurant for dinner, the kids found another park so we stopped for some more play.

Once we found a restaurant that looked good, they informed us that they could only accommodate a group of our size with two adjacent tables. Kids table!

The next morning Cari and I got out for a fairly early walk. It was beautiful. And fun to talk in person instead of on the phone!

A couple of hours later we walked over to the Aquarium, the day’s main activity. I snapped this shot while Cari was valiantly trying to get a shot of all the kids in the bright sunlight.

Up to that point, this had been our main photographic view.

After some minor delays for exploration …

… we made it to the Aquarium.

This room with its wall of glass that a wave tumbles over was a huge hit.

After a nice long visit at the Aquarium, we headed out on our walk back. More shots of the kids’ backs.

And one of Ezra walking. I just thought he looked super cute.

We had another nice dinner before we hit the road since Bruce had to work the next day and the kids had school. I never thought I’d miss Aveson’s full week off for Thanksgiving week, but I do!

We spent Labor Day weekend with the SoCal Moisions at Yosemite (thanks to Vanessa for grabbing the reservations!). It was, surprisingly, our first trip there. We were stunned by both the beauty and the crowds. Gah! The crowds!

But let’s stick with the beauty.

It’s impossible to even capture the scale of it. Needless to say, we had a great time. So nice to see family!

We did some bike riding.

Sword fighting.

Whittling.

Water play.

Hiking and climbing.

And, hey look! Here are the adults!

Uncle Bob made a pineapple upside down cake.

Camping with the SoCal Moisions is good for many reasons … including the food which is always much more elaborate than anything we do!

Great trip! More pictures here.

We took a weekend staycation in San Francisco in August with the intent of getting to know the city a little better. While I was unprepared for how cold it was, the scenery sure was lovely! Here’s one view from our hotel the day we arrived.

And here’s the same shot the next morning … a little foggy!

Here are some images of our exploration.

One of the highlights was a boat tour which took us under the Golden Gate and over around Alcatraz. It was a freezing but very informative, touristy thing to do.

We also spent a good amount of time at the penny arcade and took a set of photo booth pictures.

On Sunday morning we met up with the Stevenson/Saveri clan who happened to be visiting as well. We got to see Elizabeth’s childhood home and neighborhood and had a delicious breakfast close by.

Then we let the kids run around outside the Palace of Fine Arts building which is right across the street from Elizabeth’s house — not a bad place to grow up!

Obviously, these four hooligans take picture-taking very seriously.

There were some great trees to climb, too.

Ezra would have stayed here all day …

… but alas, it was soon time to stay goodbye to friends and head back home.

With the busy-ness of the new school year, the summer feels like a distant memory, but way back in July the boys and I spent a peaceful, warm week with the Bannings in Laguna. There is something so relaxing about this spot (even with the stress of Ezra looking like he’s going to fall over the side of the deck).

Ezra was definitely in his happy place all week — with Chester.

Of course, we spent lots of time at the beach with the kids digging, running and jumping in waves until complete exhaustion set in.

We had Jack, Theo and Olivia (and their moms) join us for a playful day. Jack buried Ezra.

And Finn spent a little time with the ladies …

There was also some LEGO involved.

During the week we also did some kayaking, biking, roller blading, a little school on the deck …

… and lots of ice cream eating.

Bruce joined us at the end of the week and we were able to spend Saturday afternoon with the Bondsmiths and take part in a little celebration for Jenner’s birthday.

It was a great week of time spent with such good friends. We are grateful to the Bannings for their generosity!

I have more photos and a few videos here.

We took a little trip to Palm Springs last weekend for Bruce’s step-sister Michelle’s wedding. We flew out of SFO for the first time. I’m always taken aback by the boys’ enthusiasm for airports: “Mommy, look! There are planes here!”

They also had this very cool Japanese toy exhibit. My favorite was the robots.

We had a great time swimming and playing with all the cousins. I was too busy chatting and watching the kids in the pool to take pictures unfortunately. But I have some from the wedding. Here’s the bride and groom.

And the whole Moision/Oklejas/Beck crew.

And here’s our photo booth output.

The Outdoor Ed team at Aveson was planning the signups for the 2014 camping trip right as we were winding down our time at school, so I nudged my friend Kathy to see if we could crash the party and her answer was, thankfully, an enthusiastic yes. So, last weekend we packed up as much camping gear as we could find in our as yet unpacked garage and headed south 4+ hours to El Capitan State Beach. We set up camp here with the Bannings, Pintos, Bondsmiths and many other friends. Not too shabby!

We had a great time of bike rides, beach trips, shared meals, s’mores and a wee bit of wine. Cari and I even got a walk in … just like old times.

Here’s Finn’s giant s’more the first night.

Ezra is not so much interested in eating the marshmallows but he couldn’t wait to do “marshmallow sculptures” like he did last year. Here’s one of his best.

He says, “They’re harder to make than you think.” I bet they are.

We also had several obligatory trips to the camp store for treats. I can’t believe I don’t have any pictures of all the chocolatey faces, but here’s one of Finn, pretty chocolatey, and getting ready to have a taste of Chapin’s snow cone.

If there’s one thing that remains constant at El Capitan it’s the tar, and true to form the kids came back from the beach covered. I think Ruby got the worst of it; apparently, she (and Finn, I think) were making a nest. It took Rob about an hour and an entire bottle of Goo Gone to clean it all off.

Somehow I escaped most of the tar clean up because Finn’s was handled by Reiner. I have no idea why but I wasn’t going to get in the way — I just took a picture and disappeared!

On Sunday we spent a good amount of time at the tide pools.

Bren brought Charlie and Henry up for the day and those two and Finn ran around like crazy people for a while.

Ezra stayed busy building some rock formations.

He and Chapin later worked together to make Big Rock Battle.

The grownups found ways to entertain as well. Bruce, Rob and Ian formed a trio to make music with blades of grass.

Here’s their debut video.

After the concert and some kite flying, Bruce and our boys went to the other beach for more tar and sand. Finn had loaned his bike to Amelia and so he caught a ride from Bruce.

After a few hours, they came back soaked, sandy and tired — all signs of a good day at the beach. Here’s Finn and Henry.

Unfortunately, it was time for us to go as we had to be back at school and work the next morning. We had planned to leave about mid-day but really just couldn’t tear ourselves away. We finally got on the road about 5:00pm and pulled into the driveway a little after 10:00. We were all exhausted but our buckets were full from the much needed time with such great friends.

Here are a couple of pictures of me with two of said great friends, Cari and Kelly.

I have a few more photos here.