Beach Bums, Bigtime.

I wonder how many days it would take before I tired of life on the beach....14? 60? 1, 324? I've never been there long enough to find out.

We had a great time at Carpinteria State Beach in California. The first part of the week we did not see the sun?! We wondered if we had accidentally driven to Canada.

Later in the week the sun came out. Blessed sun ! I have never been more excited to feel sunshine. I practically worshipped it all day in my beach chair.

Reading, chasing waves, boogie boarding. Does it get any better?

My book Entre Nous; a guide to finding your inner French girl, proved to be a perfect beach read: entertaining, educational, and fun. Merci Beaucoup! I would have liked to spread out a blanket and break out the bread and cheese. We had 'Uncrustables' and fruit snacks and that's pretty close.

We saw seals and a dolphin swimming out there. They like cold water better than we do.

Needless to say we ended up with a lot of soggy sandy clothes that would not dry!Add to that parfum de campfire and you have some pretty smelly beach bums.The campsite from both views. The camping part was definitely the low of the vacation. What kind of person PAYS to camp?...and right next to other people on both sides?? Only true beach bums like me. (Brandon is a good sport to indulge me)
I guess I forgot to zip the door one night, it was just velcroed shut--good 'nuff right?. Brandon saved us by waking up just in time to see a raccoon making it's way in. He jumped up in his sleeping bag and hurled himself caterpillar style to the door. Fortunately that scared the raccoon away before it could wreak havoc in our tent!

Luckily camped next to us were some fun new friends for us to meet. They were up visiting from L.A. and they knew fellow Mormons when they saw 'em. (Did our minivan, kids, and BYU paraphernalia give us away?) We joined campfires and shared s'mores and sang around the campfire with--get this-- a ukelele! Love that!


I spy a starfish...

We explored tide pools at low tide. There was even a marine biologist on hand to answer questions and help us identify anenomes, crabs, mussels, stars and other seaside creatures. She also made sure no one pried away any of the seastars or got too close to the sunbathing seals or squished the anenomes or bothered the crabs or ate kelp or whatever. Treasure trove of shells: A sign at the campsite said no shell collecting?! That obviously applied to CA residents only. What it really meant was: If you drove many hours to get here be very selective when choosing which shells you would like to keep as souvenirs.

One cloudy day, we walked around to see the little shops of Carpinteria. We ate fine chocolates at "Robitailles" (I'm so turning into my mom.) We went to the Carpinteria museum to find out why the town is called what it is (google it if you care.) We went to a cute little used book store and ate the 5-star tamales they advertised at "Reynaldos."

By the way--the only camping foods we ate were s'mores. Who wants to eat hot dogs when you're a stones throw from some really great restaurants?! Bon apetit

SANTA BARBARA

Our last day we packed up and drove a little North to the beautiful city of Santa Barbara: home of the shrimp and abalone industry and yachts, sailboats, and Mercedes.

We took a little boatride on a water taxi from the wharf to the harbor. The crew was very kid- friendly, even letting the kids steer the boat.





Where did I park my million dollar baby this time?

By the time we had explored the harbor everyone was starved. We went for the lunch special at this little cafe: teriyaki chicken , salad, and 10 California rolls. What could hit the spot better than hot buttery rolls and 10 of them, no less. Imagine our surprise when they brought us this...
SUSHI AKA rolls. They taste like they smell. I filled up on the lettuce. So we spent a bunch of money and still ended up hungry.

The plan on the way home was to swing by and visit my old BYU roomie in Riverside. However, we got off a little later than expected. I called her to explain and she shrieked, "You are heading from Cali to Vegas on a Friday afternoon???!!! in a tone that implied "What are you--ignorant tourists???" Then she put it this way, "You can either sit on the freeway with a car full of kids for 20 hours OR you can come to our house, eat our food, swim in our pool and sleep in our guest room. " She even added that we could do our laundry.
Tres Magnifique! did I even need to consult husband?! I did and we quickly took her up on her magnanimous offer.
Just a 3 hour stint of rotting in L.A. traffic and we were there. She cooked us a great meal and practically begged us to take showers. Le Bain--what is that? She had a little drawer of toiletries available that she'd collected from her world travels. Did you know they give you toothbrushes and razors in China?
What hospitality and it was so fun to stay up late and reminisce about college days when we were younger and smarter.

All in all it was a great journey. Fun was had, friendships were forged, and lessons were learned: Specifically...

1. Don't travel from CA to NV on a Friday afternoon or vice versa on a Sunday afternoon.
2. Don't order rolls from a Japanese restaurant.
3. Zip the tent door SHUT!... actually...
4. Stay in a hotel!

Ohhhh. I do love having a home again!

** Special thanks to cc for her indispensable phone. We are so getting one.

And the GPS?! Best investment of the whole trip. I feel like I could drive across the country now...from sea to shining sea :)

WINNERS!

Yesterday, BD and I attended a community fund-raising dinner for a lady in our ward who is undergoing breast cancer treatment. There was a bounty of donations from local businesses that were available to win by raffles and drawings. A few women volunteered to get their heads shaved if they raised a certain amount of money. They did. (cringe :{ ) and we watched it happen :{{ That was hard.
Overall, it was great to see such an outpouring of love and support for this woman.

We bought a few raffle tickets and "went shopping:" BD put in for a couple of things he wanted and I put in for a couple of things I wanted. After a dutch oven dinner they started the drawing. Drumroll please --------
Both BD and I WON things!!!

He got 2 free tickets for 18 holes of golf at Palisades.
I got a yummy fall scented candle!!! yay!!!

I got such a high from winning something, can you tell?! Of course there were a lot of winners that night. I think everyone got an extra dose of the feel-goods knowing they were helping a good cause.

Kate's new 4th grade teacher is also undergoing treatment for breast cancer. We met her last week and I was so impressed with her positive attitude, her excellent lesson plan for the year, and her love for teaching kids.

My mom also just recently found out she has breast cancer...again--this is her 2nd time. Unfortunately hers is spread through her lymph nodes and bones and causing her a lot of pain right now. She will undergo chemo...again. Her doctors have assured her that chemotherapy is much improved in the last 20 years. We hope that's the case. A beach trip will also be part of the treatment plan.

10 Things I LOVE or HATE about SuMMeR

1. Ice Cream Cones--Love them.

We have Waffle Cones for the mature taste buds, regular for the regulars, and teeny tiny cones for...little Bud. With Breyer's Grasshopper Pie ice cream we are in heaven.

2. Rainstorms--Love them...and the rainbows that follow.

3. Bat Droppings--Hate them. I used to think it was mice leaving those surprises all over the front porch. Turns out it's BATS! I peeked and sure enough I saw one hanging there the other night all creepy like. Bats are icky things. They're like mice with wings and razor sharp teeth. Turns out we built the perfect cavelike enclosure for them over our front porch!

4. Family Reunions--Love them, of course. You know--you were there!

5. Bikerides--Love them. The corn is as high as an elephant's eye and we only smell a skunk once in a while.

6. Races--Love them (when they're over) Today I ran a 10K. At about mile 4.5 I doubled over with a horrible side ache. Seriously I could NOT run another step. Never had that before. One of the fellow runners yelled some advice: "WALK 30 seconds, RUN 30 seconds. Keep doing that until it goes away!!!!" And off he ran. Turns out his advice was right on. But dang it I was doing so good on my time until then. I was able to run the last mile and finished with a time 54:12 --meaningless I know except to me that's pretty good for having a stinking SIDE ACHE. There were 14 guys and 4 girls that ran it. 3 of us were in the same age division and I got 3rd in my age and 4th overall (for women) ha ha ha.

7. Weeds--Hate them. We seriously need a herd of goats for some backyard maintenance. Our kids and their shoes are getting lost back there.

8.Grilling on the Barbie -Q--Love it. Thursday is grill-it day. One of the easiest and best recipes:

Dip some chicken pieces in olive oil. Sprinkle generously with lemon pepper seasoning. Add taters, veggies, whatever. Throw it in a tin foil pack and hand it to your man. All I know is after that it comes back to the table steaming hot and delicious.

9. The Fair--Love it. We had fun checking out all the farm animals and the girls got some ribbons for their "Home Arts" entries. They done us proud. We didn't have any cash on us so we couldn't pet the baby tigers or indulge in a deep fried twinkie. We did watch an awesome Bluegrass concert out on the lawn. That stuff is good soul music. I think if our string quartet plugged our instruments into some amps and sawed away at some Orange Blossom Special we'd get a lot more gigs around here.

10. __________ (fill in the blank) What do you LOVE (or hate) about summer?

A Day with Mom

Happy Birthday to my Mom! I don't know how old she is--old enough to qualify for the Senior Discount but young enough to want to eat dessert first.
I drove up to spend the day with her and help celebrate this grand occasion. She chose to go to the Park City Arts Festival.
My mom and I agreed that the people there were as unique and interesting to see as the art exhibits. We had fun watching both.
If my mom was disgustingly wealthy she would have supported the Arts and bought this for her birthday. It would have made a nice yard accent don't you think?

We bought Creamies instead. If they would have called them locally-produced edible sculptures on a stick they could have charged a lot more. As it was we were glad for some comfort food and it was definitely the best deal around at $1.
Where else could a blue or orange or peach house look so pretty?

Back to my Mom: She is one of a kind for sure. Here are some things I admire about her:

• she has no fear. If she wants to say something she says it. If she wants to do something, nothing will stand in her way.
• she is always learning, asking people questions, reading.
• she stops to smell the roses--literally. Then she'll pick them, bring them home, and stick them in a vase.
• she writes music. She can sit at the piano and play whatever tune is going on in her head.
• she never gets angry, even when her body is in pain and doesn't cooperate with her will.
• she gives, gives, gives.

My mom has many talents. She stayed home to raise her children and some of her grandchildren. I asked her what she would have chosen if she would have had a career. She surprised me with "Advertising." She loves to watch commercials and come up with ideas for them. I'm sure she could write some catchy jingles to go with them too.

She let me know that she has her funeral all planned out. She wants more music then talking and more laughing than crying. For the graveside service she wants a Dixie-Land Band. I know she'll be glad to get to life on the other side where she'll be able to dance in a brand new body, join in the glorious symphonies, and smell the roses beyond earthly description.

I'm sure this little guy, Ethan Drake, could tell us all about them. He just arrived 3 weeks ago making my mom a Great-Grandma for the 2nd time. It was so fun to meet him and hold a brand new life.

Try some of these GREAT products today!

BD is off on his brother-bonding camping trip which means....we have to have SO MUCH fun we won't miss him.
The Beauty College was closed for summer break--darn it!! We did our best to rally by having our own at-home spa. This meant sending all the neighbor kids home, NOT answering the door, setting Bud up with a movie, and putting on some relaxing tunes...ahh.

This Glacial Marine Mud by NuSkin left our skin feeling radiant and fresh!

Next we had pedicures using our Homedics Foot Spa. The NuSkin Exfoliating Cleanser was perfect for rubbing onto ticklish toes.

Tired feet revitalized!

Here Adrie is using the Homedics Massager along with her gentle touch. Obviously, Kate is loving it!



You can bet I made the rounds too. Adrie and Brynn each took one of my foots to pedicure. Then it was Kate's turn to work her magic on me with the massager. Why don't we do this more often?!

After relaxing with our at-home spa treatments and with the rain pouring down outside it seemed like the right thing to do next was watch a movie. Brynn popped us some KettleCorn --from the gourmet kitchen of Orville Redenbacher and we browsed Netflix where we found thousands of great titles available to watch instantly.

Goodness! We were having so much fun we forgot all about Brynn's gymnastics lessons. (I sent her anyway-- 25 minutes late.)
After picking her up we headed right to McDonalds for some Happy Meals (Yah, we're lovin' it) For myself I indulged in one of their new fabulous REAL FRUIT SMOOTHIES.

What will we do tomorrow? Maybe steal BD's bike and go on a family bike ride... That's all I got.
Come home soon love!

Serious Fun

TRUTH: Learn it, Live it, Love it.

The C. fam. really knows how to put on a reunion! This year's wins the award for:

• Most devotionals (6)
• Hottest days of the year
• Least hours of sleep (that would be the night of camping)
• Best group of people to be around.

It's true! If you can wear them out with fun and heat and everyone's still smiling and getting along beautifully than you know you've got a crowd of winners!

What's the secret to that you may ask? Have 6 devotionals--Morning, afternoon, evening, we were getting spiritual boosts all day long. This year each family was to come prepared with a memorized scripture about the theme, TRUTH, to present to the family. (Ours was James 1;5)

We had an adult discussion one afternoon where everyone could share their combined knowledge and life experiences. I really enjoyed that. And of course with all that upliftment there was some wholesome recreating and a lot of food.

How do I sum it up? I think we kind of accomplished that in the car on the drive home when we asked for everyone's 3 favorite things:

• Adrie: camping * playing with Olivia at her house * singing Happy Birthday to Grandma.
• Brynn: hiking and catching a lizard * camping *Jumpin' Jacks
• Kate: camping * Jumpin' Jacks * minute to win it games at the church--specifically the one where you have a rope tied to your waist and you have to swing it around and try to knock the cups off the chairs....dizzying...

Notice the favorite theme here: camping??... I guess some things we do for the kids' sake.

Dad said his favorite was beating me on the obstacle course at Jumpin' Jacks. Isn't he so competitive ;)

My favorite was listening being up in the canyon, overlooking the valley, and listening to Uncle Brad tell about how he went from having long hair and smoking 3 packs a day to joining the LDS Church. Wish I could insert video here so you could feel the power of it yourself. Awesome. After that we all felt like shouting the gospel from the mountain tops so that's what we did --in a way-- we sang around the campfire with guitar and fiddles.

Oh yeah, and I can't forget my other favorite. That would be peeling off the sticky clothes and taking a cold shower after camping. Oh how I love 21st century commodities!

We painted truth rocks, played water games, watched Shrek 3 on a projection screen outside, ate lots of food, paddled around the reservoir and played on the beach area, had a firework show.

Seriously fun!

Small Town Fourth

Started the day off with a big race! Ran a 5K and got 36th place overall for women...nothing to brag about but 300 people showed up to this thing--and what do you know, one of them was BD's cousin. (JH) came down with a group of work buddies from up North. It took some convincing on my part to prove that we were indeed related but after giving a few names, he nodded. I know an H when I see one?! Anyway, the race was fun. Yes, running can be fun. For some reason, it's moreso when you're running in a herd of 300. Got home and showered in time for the parade.BD and I thought this was the best parade year ever. Partly it was because we arrived in the nick of time and there happened to be room for a couple of chairs on the front row but mostly it was because the weather was PERFECT!! THEN The kids loved all candy throwing and other prizes, including an invitation to Vacation Bible School. Adrie ran the paper over to me shouting, "MOM THIS ISN'T OUR CHURCH!!!!" Taking advantage of the amazing weather we had, we went to the park for the festivities. This is a fish Brynn caught at the "fish grab"--crazy I tell you. The fish have no chance with wall to wall kids in a big plastic pool. Brynn kindly put her fish back in the pond because we certainly weren't going to eat it! We did bring home our first pet. A frog named Lilypad. Now I have to go to the store and see if there is such thing as "frog food" so Brynn doesn't have to keep catching bugs for it.

We also went to the free swimming and coin toss at the pool. Had ourselves over for BBQ burgers. Made homemade ice cream and did invite friends over for that and sparklers then watched the fireworks from their backyard. Good times. I love a small town Fourth.

UPDATE: No need to buy frog food anymore. Little frog went down the drain. The girls were cleaning his little tank (they get messy and stinky after a day) and somehow he was missed the mark. He went down the disposal side of the sink. I don't know the anatomy of a disposal but apparently there must be a hole big enough for a frog to slide down because after some by feel (Brynn only has the guts to do this) he was never found. Oh well, I guess that's that.