Lovely Leo (Carillo, that is)

In honor of Lee's birthday, and as a kickoff to Christmas vacation, we took off after church and went to Leo Carillo yesterday for a quick camping trip. We decided to go sans trailer in the name of simplicity and also to show the kids how to set up a tent. There were a handful of other campers there, but we mostly had the place to ourselves.

Across the PCH there are tidepools, caves, tunnels and beach. It is just north of the Ventura County line and a favorite spot.

There was an amazing sunset and unfortunately, our camera just doesn't do it justice, but it was radiant.

We cooked old school style with the outside stove and lots of canned things, but it was delicious! We even made stovetop popcorn!

Now it's time for Lee's big celebration!

Snowy Christmastime

We made it through night one of the deep freeze - it was only 24 degrees. Lisa and Emily Steed on the other hand are snowed in and Greg can't get home. They have over two feet of snow and the old neighbor with the snowplough died last spring! Lisa says she is fine but lonely.

Tonight is our last very cold night for this storm. Only one person on the block had a freeze break in a water line but several had frozen lines that cut off their water supply for the early morning hours. I love it when the street is covered with snow and the traffic lanes overlap.

Mom is hard at work getting stuff ready for the big ward dinner on Friday. Somehow the Christmas lights look better with all of the snow on the roof and the ground.

I snapped this photo just after six pm and it was already below thirty degrees. I almost went down on my keester when I slipped on the ice as I picked my way down the driveway. This one looks cool enlarged. Tonight it is hard to imagine the summer heatwave that we shared back in July. I hope everyone is staying warm.

Fireworks and Snowfall

We joked about the weather service never getting it right when they predict a big storm but this time they were right on the money. We got about ten inches of wet snow on Monday morning.

Branches began snapping and falling on the house at about 4 AM. We lost our electric power at 4:45. By that time Shanna and I were on the couch in the great room. We were sure that a limb was going to come into our bedroom. We watched the flashes of brilliant blue light as trees fell all around the neighborhood blowing up transformers. I have never seen so many trees down on power lines - even more than in that storm in 1988.

Wouldn't the grandkids have fun on this swing. Great snowball snow, too! No school so many kids out in the snow. I saw one snowman that was at least eight feet tall!

Some of the carnage from the heavy snow on the Live Oak trees. In all we lost about ten major branches but without any damage to the house or electrical service. Kathy Beavers lost a large Live Oak which fell across her power hook up leaving her blocked in her yard without any power. Jeremiah to the rescue! He cut a path through the downed tree and then flattened out the snow so she could get her car out. She went to stay with Lisa.

Didn't move the Dodge all day and with a low of 20 predicted for tonight she may sit in her spot for another day or two. Many cars over the side of the little roads on this ice and snow. It would have been fun to have this storm when the family was all here but only for about five hours. We now have our power back and are ready for the next round.

Until 13.1 Do we Part...

Last Saturday, we extracted ourselves from bed at 5:30 am and reluctantly made our way to Santa Barbara for a race neither of us wanted to run, and for which neither of us had really prepared (unless a lot of surfing and baby-lifting counts...). Ultimately, we decided to suck it up and get it over with, and at least get the t-shirt we paid for.

Sara was the hero of the day. She met us at the race to watch Caleb while we ran. Of course, she was early, and we were late (would you expect anything less?). Caleb was in fine form though, spreading sunshine and cuteness to all within his presence.

I admit that it was a fine day to run; the weather was perfect, and the scenery was (is) some of the best in all of coastal California. But that didn't change the fact that we both felt like crap the whole way.

Tyler and I reached new levels of cheesiness, staying together throughout the race, and holding hands across the finish line. Half-marathon finish time: 1h 46min.

Unfortunately, the t-shirt wasn't all that cool. Maybe we should have slept in after all. Oh well.

Caleb finally got some food when we were done. Look at this big bite!

After the race, we headed down to Montecito for some lunch at a favorite spot - The Montecito Cafe. Before we headed in, I was having a good laugh with Sara about our frequent run-ins with Dennis Franz in Santa Barbara. Tyler always saw him when he worked at the SB Airport, and we saw him the last time we ate lunch at this place.

Who should drive up not 5 minutes later? You guessed it - Dennis Franz. He came in and had lunch with his wife.

Pre-Halloween Party at Nickelodeon Studios

Friday night was the annual Nickelodeon Halloween Party in Burbank. Our good friend, Ashley, is a producer there, and provided us with tickets again! Here was our clan, which everyone thought was one family, all offspring from me! You cannot believe the looks we got. The fun started with tons o'food. Cotton candy, candy apple station, sliders, hot dogs, fries, pizza, etc. MMmmmmm. Junk food.Here's Ashley, enjoying her last day of work before she has twin girls in a couple of weeks. There was also cookie decorating, crafts, and pumpkin decorating.

Then we visited each department in Nickelodeon to trick-or-treat. They were amazing! Each department (i.e. Sponge Bob, Dora, etc.) decorated their hallways into spook alleys. THey were pretty cool, but the kids were much more interested in the candy.This is the Sponge Bob underwater dance party balloon stomp.And here the kids are digging candy out of a huge nose.This was some show, which they 3-D animated around a campfire. Grayson liked it! ANd then it was time to leave. Now we get to do it all over again tonight!

Fall at the Bradfords

DISCLAIMER: Recently an unnamed member of our family dropped my camera, destroying the lens, so a friend offered to lend me her old camera until I can replace mine. Thus, the quality of these pictures is not the greatest.

So here is what Fall means to us in the lovely SFV (San Fernando Valley for the non-Angeleons out there). First, it means soccer. Our lush, green city fields offer the perfect playing surface for our children, who are forever grateful for the ever increasing city taxes which serve to keep all our public facilities kept up so beautifully. Where are we, Afghanistan???
Carissa is on the U-10 "Cotton Candy" this year, and has a great team! She is the "frustrater" (as Lee calls her), and has the best stamina of any of the girls. She's really improving each year! The pale green weeds you see are courtesy of the rain showers from a few weeks ago. And of course, MY favorite- Fall brings volleyball season which means, not one, not two, but 3 all day Saturday tournaments for Lee! The last is today, which will be the end of the season. His JV team and the Varsity are both undefeated and should easily take the city title (the equivalent of the Sac-Juaquin Section).

We graced everyone with our presence for one full game this week. Why only one, you say? Grayson+ Bleachers= TROUBLE. Plus, Derek doesn't care for the warm-up music. Fall, of course, means back to school, and the return of Miss Bradford and her loyal pupils Grayson and Derek, and the other "imaginary" class members. (There's a class list.)Things go well until the unruly students decide to not follow directions and Miss Bradford inevitably learns that teaching is a thankless job!And what Fall would be complete with out a trip to the Pumpkin Patch. We went to Lombardi Ranch with Grayson's class which included an animal tour ("Horses were brought to the west during the colonization period. Who can tell me what colonization means?? Hmmm??") I'm serious. Anyway- we skipped the tour after the "horses" incident and Grayson spent the remainder of the time throwing straw.

Then I decided to skip buying the $15 pumpkins that were trucked in and placed in the farm. "Mommy, we didn't get a pumpkin", said Grayson. "That's because we're going to a different Pumpkin Patch, honey. It's called Trader Joe's Patch." I'd say that at $3.49 a pumpkin it was a wise move.

Now I'd better get into the kitchen before the pumpkins are butchered by Miss Bradford and her class!

Spring Break'09 Project (finished last week)

Last year we decided to do a little backyard project on the patio that would take, "a couple of weekends- tops". Just jackhammer some concrete, pour a new patio, plant some stuff, and done, right? WRONG!
Remember this? It took place 2 days before Spring Break started, the week were to start the project. Lee wasn't exactly in a state to jackhammer a patio that turned out to be- I kid you not- 18 inches thick.

But eventually he did, and working as a family we lugged the broken pieces to a ginormous bin in the front, then Lee prepped the area for concrete, and with the help of Dad, built the frame.The concrete people finished in about 2 hours. We planted grass on the new dirt area, and put in shrubs which will soon offer a screen between the neighbors yard and ours.

Then Lee built a trellis and we decided to cover the lovely pink brick. Thinking we were professional masons, we got open stock stone and tried to put it up. Big mistake. It's an art, and Lee and I are definitely not meticulous, methodical, or patient with this type of thing.So it all came down, was given away on Craigslist in about 10 minutes, and we bit the bullet and bought some nice El Dorado stone instead. We like it a lot! Eventually the vine will grow through the trellis and hang down from the top and we won't have the pleasure of waving to our neighbors in their bedroom from our bedroom window.
Lee also built a gate, which I think he did a great job on!
Now we are trying to figure out what to do in this corner. But for the time, we are happy to not be looking at pink brick! The boys may miss the play structure that once stood here, and was falling apart,but they've more than made up for it with their PVC pipe swings, as evidenced by the dead lawn spots. Maybe next Spring Break we'll fix those!