Swimming in Flowers

For one week a year, the gang all gets together, puts on our grubby clothes to work on floats. This year we proceeded to glue, seed, petal, pick, blow, mum, cut, tweeze, sneeze, and freeze our way through decorating on six different floats.

Kevin and Thomas tried their hand at detailing, and decided they didn't have as much patience as was needed for the job at hand. It gets just a little bit tedious at times, cutting straw flowers and gluing seed on to little tiny spaces. Even with the assembly-line process we had going, it was hard with a couple hundred of these detailed designs...

...that eventually ended up on sides of these giant purses. They wanted to be on scaffolding - with all the other teenagers.

Alanna and Sam worked on putting all manner of seeds and flowers on the floats.

Two of the projects I worked on during the week. I now can add dogs and bees to the animal repetoire of butterflies and fish.

Cindy taking a break with a long-time decorator.

Tracy, Donna, Melissa and Robbie decorated as well. Many long days and nights later, after inhaling glue and diesel fumes, listening to float soundtracks again and again, answering questions from passers-by, singing to stay awake, bowls of chili and adding layers of clothes to keep warm, the floats were pulled out of the barn to be driven to Pasadena. If we're lucky, we won't sleep through the parade.

Christmas Happenings..

Alanna and Curtis came over Christmas Eve to make cookies for Santa. These involve crushed candy canes...and making the cookies is as much fun as eating them. (You must be sure to ask Curtis sometime about how good those cookies taste.)

I have four handsome boys.... but I guess asking them to pose at 7:00am Christmas morn brings out the most handsome closed-eyes / goofy grin sides of them. Hurry up, mom, take the picture so we can start! (HEY! At least you're not being blinded by a 6,000 watt light bar attached to the movie camera!!)

Four pages of questions relating to Michelangelo, the Strait of Magellen, and Boy Scout merit badges greeted the boys searching for their big Santa present. Well, Matt did write a note to Santa to "PLZ make the scavinger hnt harder this year."

A much easier white elephant gift exchange happened in the afternoon at Cindy and Gary's, followed by everyone feasting on brisket, marcies potatos, and liquid fortitude. Since it was pouring down freezing rain, we stayed inside for the day.

December Happenings

We started out the month with Matt in the Christmas play at school.. Since each kid performed in this same pageant in both 2nd and 3rd grades, and they haven't made any significant changes to the program in oh, the last 10 years or so, I figure we've seen this shin-dig going on eight times.


Kevin's troop had a Court of Honor the same week, celebrating the fact that Kevin got his Tenderfoot rank about 9 months ago. (Not a particularly timely group, are we?)

Matt's cub scout den needed to see a model of a construction site. What better place than the site of a $1.2b construction site? After checking out the new upgrades coming to DCA in the next five years, we played in the parks with a boatload of other merry-makers.

Kevin had his Christmas concert at his school last night. Wait, I mean "holiday" concert...it is politically incorrect to call it anything but that.

I wanted to get a good pic with my kid, he just wanted to make a silly face. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

How Much is That Doggy in the Window?

Replacement screen door to the backyard, including bent grill, new curtains, curtain rod, new plastic, and crew to clean up dog drool: $100

Doctor bill with booster tetanus shot for the cat bite (yes, bite) received while keeping said doggy from freaked out cat: $50

The look on the kids (and dog's) faces when they finally get to play with a real live, honest-to-goodness dog: PRICELESS

(There is no Dana, only Zuel...)

Took Sammy back to LAX on Sunday. Half-way there, I realized "oh crap, it's the busiest travel day of the year!!" and I hadn't left any earlier than any other time. We pulled into the "Arrivals" level, bypassing all the schmucks waiting to get into the airport on the upper level - and immediately parked in the front row. Sw-eet!

This nice lady from Southwest took our picture. All I could think of was that grandma always liked a man in uniform. (Wonder if he ever felt a hand patting his knee???). He has three weeks of school, and finals before returning home on the 19th.

Matt had to make a batch of cookies for Cub Scouts, so we pulled out all the cookie cutters we could find and he had a good time rolling out the dough and making all different kinds of shapes.

Oh Yeah...

I forgot!! The boy is back in town... only grew a foot since August. He can practically hang the Christmas lights without a ladder.

(What doesn't show in this picture is that I am on the sidewalk, and he is standing on grass that is an inch lower. Gotta do what I can now that I am "shorty".)

Lots to be Thankful For...

Another Tournament has come and gone, this the most successful one yet. This happens to be one of the two times that I happened to sit down in 18+ hours, and someone takes a picture.

Popped on a pedometer for the day as an experiment, and I walked 16,082 steps - give or take. Someone figured that was like me walking to Disneyland from my house. Yeah, like I am ever going to walk to work!!


Curtis and Alanna came over for Thanksgiving Day. We drug out the ping-pong table and everyone played games of mixed doubles throughout the afternoon while dinner was cooking.


Kevin and Matt are here trying out a new-fangled paddle holding technique. Didn't work for very long before they switched back. Something about the ball hitting their fingers or something.

After having dinner and imbibing sufficient "ping-pong juice" (one hand for the paddle, one for the wine glass), I got to join in.

When it got dark we went inside for the traditional viewing of Christmas Vacation. ("Clark, I don't want to spend the holidays DEAD...")

There's Nothing Left to Burn in Malibu..

Came home yesterday and watched million dollar homes go up in Montecito. Went to bed last night watching Sylmar go up in smoke. Woke up this morning to see smoke coming from the east and steadily choking us throughout the day. Two fires in OC - one in Corona / Yorba Linda / Anaheim Hills, and the other in Brea.


So I went to the grocery store this afternoon, and took my camera along.


Drove up to Bastanchury and St. College (along with oodles of my closest friends) to see what I could see. Oh, and to also breathe some fresh air. Since I couldn't get out of the car, I did what is in my genes - took pictures through the windshield.

These shots are looking north to Brea - there are spot fires on both sides of the 57 freeway, which is closed at the moment from Lambert to the 60 fwy, and heading west toward La Habra Hts. Surreal to watch the tanker planes dropping water.

This is looking east toward Yorba Linda/Anaheim Hills/Corona. The fire started on the north side of the 91 frwy in Corona, and within an hour had spread through the canyon over to Yorba Linda. Jumped the freeway at the 241, and now there are 3100 homes evacuated in that area.

Running count of friends and co-workers threatened by these fires: at least 12, and sure to rise. I guess living in the lowlands has its benefits, but fresh air isn't one of them today.

Halloween Week

The week started out with the Cub Scouts holding their annual cake bake (rules: no mom involvement allowed). Don't let the "two" confuse you, Matt got first place for "thinnest" cake.

After the awarding of prizes, we all got to eat the cakes, whichever ones we dared.

Last night was Halloween; Jacob went as a black widow spider, complete with day-glo markings. Matt was a mummy. No matter how hard I wrapped, they still all fell off within 15 minutes. Oh well, isn't that what mummies are supposed to do when walking around??
Kevin's scout troop worked the carnival at the church. He dressed up as a "stick figure". Sorry for the blurriness of the exposure (I could only hold my breath for so long), but you get the idea.

Kevin and Thomas got to play with the high school band at a football game last Friday night. I really enjoyed my birthday dinner washed down with M&Ms and a soda at the game. They said they had a good time; Kevin sat next to Rebecca, who gave him pointers and showed him how to play all the fight songs.

Right before half-time, when the band had left to get ready for the halftime show, Savanna scored a touchdown. The jr. high group got up and played a quick tune in support. I'm sure they were shaking in their boots, but they didn't sound half bad.
Cub Scouts is in full swing again. We did a Halloween craft - Matt and his friend Mason did designs more reminiscent of Easter and Christmas. Oh well. You can lead a horse to the glue, but you can't make him create a ghost.

This is why we still live in Southern California...

Cindy and I are both off on Fridays - woo hoo!! Last Friday we went topless down to the beach to check out the Crystal Cove cottages. To you uninitiated folk in parts back East or the great North, that would be us driving the PT Cruiser with the top down. Get your minds out of the gutter, and wipe that picture from your brain. HA!

Now check your calendars. Last Friday was October 10 - and the weather was 85 degrees. We parked, got out our map, we hiked down the trail, and found this:

Double HA!

Anyway, back to the subject. We have talked about getting a beach house for some time during a random summer week, and figured we should check these cottages out. These were built and lived in by folks over many years, and the State of California, seeing a good thing, decided to kick these folks out and take over. Now anyone can rent one of these beauts. Well, if you can stand the smell of old... and salty.... and musty wood... then you have the start of a dream vacation. One without phones, TV, or internet access. But a gor-gee-ous view just minutes from a Ruby's shake shack.
You can see several houses in the picture above; there are only about 18 out of 30+ that are actually renovated and livable. The brown one on the far right with the green fence was used in the movie Beaches. I think it's all of 8 feet across, and not in a livable state. If I remember that movie correctly, what I saw was a mansion much much bigger than this little shack. Hollywood movie magic, I guess.

These three are the nicest of the bunch. But since Huell Howser has made more folks aware of this golden California gem hiding on the bluffs in So Cal, you'll have a hard time getting in. But if Cindy and I don't come home on time some Friday evening, you might find us sucking down a vanilla milkshake with our feet in the tide pools.

The Last Few Weeks

I guess there have been a couple things that have gone on the last few weeks. I looked up and September is OVER ! Couldn't tell you how time passed, but it is now October - eek!

The boys are settled into the school routines, back-to-school night is over, Kevin became a teenager - wait, what? Yep, we now have two of them in the family. He got some new wheels to ride to school every day.

We also got up bright and early one Sunday morning and worked the VW Panic car show that Gary put on. Quite a crowd, and quite fun. Kevin and I sold raffle tickets and t-shirts, while his friend Thomas worked the kid's coloring contest.


And then we spent another Sunday afternoon having a water play day with the Cub Scouts. We had food, games, a slip n slide, and then a giant water balloon fight. When I said "go", my three offspring decided to gang up on mom. Yeah, I can still take 'em, even to the point of wrestling them to the ground and popping a water balloon inside their shirts.


Not that they didn't get a few shots in themselves...