Looking for the Light

While her poor brother was hard at work looking for the needle in the haystack, this one was only looking for one thing...

the spotlight! This kid can spot the camera almost immediately when I pull it out.

And she loves to let me take her picture! What a little ham.

The Needle in the Hay Stack

Okay where did it go? Where did it go?

I wonder if it is somewhere on the grass?

No, maybe it is somewhere in the street. If only it wasn't so small and grey, I could probably find it here on this grey pavement. Maybe next time I shouldn't take my Star Wars Lego fighter ship outside when I am doing my Star Wars fighting moves in the middle of the street.

(I just wish I could have gotten the picture of him doing the fighting moves in the middle of our culdesac. He stopped before I could get the camera out. But when I saw him looking so hard, I had to take his picture. He ended up seeing me and asked me to help him look for the Lego piece. Yes, Mom saved the day and found it in the grass!)

The Girls

The Girls '09

All the girls, my nieces and my daughter, except for the newly married one, hanging out on New Years Eve. They are all unique in their own way, and aren't they all beautiful? And what is so great is that they are all just as nice as they are beautiful. Their Nanny would be so proud of all of them!

2010

Happy New Year!

One of my New Year Resolutions is to get back to blogging and back to creating a diary of my family's life. I have missed creating memories for my family and documenting what has been happening in our life. Once I got out of the habit of regular blogging, it became easier not to do it. The problem is that blogging was the only scrapbook that I had for our family. It also meant that I stopped taking as many pictures of the kids and what they are involved in. This makes me very sad.

So resolution No. 1 is to try and post something everyday. Here is to my family and our memories in 2010!


"Should auld acquaintance be forgot and never brought to mind..."--Robert Burns.
Happy New Year everyone!

A Special Day

My entire family headed to the coast this weekend to help celebrate the marriage of my niece. They were married in Half Moon Bay and the wedding and reception were wonderful. My niece was beautiful and her husband looked pretty good too! Here are just a few of the pictures that I took.

The Bride getting ready to make her entrance.

My brother escorting his first daughter down the aisle.

The lovely couple.

Professing their love for each and saying their vows.

The New Mr. and Mrs.

The lovely attendants. My nieces are the two beautiful ones in the center.

What a beautiful bride my niece made. I never saw her smile as much as she did this day.

Toasting on the balcony

Posing for the paparazzi.

My entire family on the dance floor!

We had a wonderful time and it was so nice having my entire immediate family there. My brother and his family came from Indiana, my brother made it in from Alaska just in time and my father, who did not think his health would allow him to travel to the wedding, was also able to make it. It was a blessing to have him there for his first grandchild's wedding.

Scenes from the 4th

We again enjoyed the small town 4th of July Parade in Cayucos, CA. It makes you feel like you are in Small Town, USA. It was a beautiful day, not to warm, not windy and full of fun and festivities!

Sprinklers

The weather forecast called for extreme heat this weekend. It was 104 degrees today and it is going to be hotter tomorrow. Oh Yeah!

So yard work was done early this morning, while it was still tolerable. Afterwards the kids wanted to play in the sprinklers. It wasn't even noon but it felt so good. The backyard was shaded and with the sprinklers on it was really quite pleasant. It was nice just relaxing and watching the kids play.

It was funny they both wanted to leave their t-shirts on. My daughter got the snow sled out and was pretending that she was surfing. She did end up "surfing" when she fell on her behind from all the silly dancing she was doing.

It is so nice that they are still small enough to share a chair and young enough to still want too! It makes me happy when I see them get along so well.

Our little Lila Girl enjoys the kids being outside with her. Now that it is so hot, they don't go out for as long of a period, but my daughter loves going out to play with her still. It is almost always the first things she does when she wakes up in the morning.

While they were taking a rest from all the sprinkler fun, I had fun taking pictures of them. It is funny how they will sit and keep talking to me even though I have the camera in front of my face.

It doesn't look like it from these pictures, but my son was having a good time and he wasn't upset.

After enjoying the sprinklers we went to see UP. My sweet son cried at the beginning and the end of the movie. He is so sentimental and matters of the heart always pull on him. I hope he always has such a kind heart.

Having Fun!

Oh what fun it is to have such a big, strong and willing older cousin!

Disneyland Day 1

We got to Disneyland around 3:00pm in the afternoon. The kids were excited about going and seeing Disneyland for the first time. We decided to start our visit with a ride on the Disneyland Express. This is the train that goes all the way around the park, with stops in each different land. We got to see many things that we were anxious to check out. Next we rode the Monorail to see if we could get another perspective of the park.

We got off in Tomorrowland. This is where we would end up spending most of our time. We rode the Autotropolis Cars. The line was long and we were surprised at how warm it was. My son was not to happy about driving but his sister was a different story. She was ready to drive!

We next went and watched a interactive show about the home of the future. This was interesting. The kids loved the Peter Pan room. The kitchen and the dining room table were so full of technology that it was mind blowing.

We grabbed a quick bite to eat in Tomorrowland. A not so great hamburger and chicken sandwich, but the drinks tasted very good for the warm day. We also were able to find were the Jedi Training Academy was and what show times were. My son could not wait for the next day.

We were all pretty tired after traveling and celebrating a busy Easter the day before. So we went and found a place to watch the parade, before calling it a day. We found what turned out to be a great spot, right in front of where Mickey and Minnie stopped! We enjoyed the spectacular show that was put on. We walked back to our hotel with great expectations of the days to come!

Easter 2009

We all had a very blessed Easter 2009. We started our day celebrating Mass and the Resurrection of our Lord and then spent time at Grandma's and also at Papa's with both sides of the family. This combination is always a guaranteed good time. The kids of course made a haul in both places.

The Secret Ingredient

My son and I were sitting at the table and he was talking about cooking. He told me that he thought that I cooked everything really good. Just what mom's love to hear! I told him it was because I always used a secret ingredient. This piqued his interest. Really, what kind of secret ingredient, he wanted to know. I told him that whenever I cooked I always made sure I put in lots of love. He didn't want that to be the secret ingredient. I told him that it was and that love made everything better.

Skip to a couple of nights later.

I had planned on making a baked macaroni and cheese for dinner. I looked for a recipe but didn't have all the ingredients. So I made a regular mac and cheese on the stove, but from scratch. When I was all done, I called everyone for dinner. My daughter started throwing a fit because she did not want to eat "that" mac and cheese; it was Kraft or nothing for her. She was sent to her room, by way of my husband having to carry her. In the mean time my son takes a bite and says "Yuk! I don't like this stuff." I am ready to cry because it was late and nobody was happy. My son then says, "Mommy I think you forgot the secret ingredient." Both my husband and I started laughing. It was what we needed at just the right moment.

When my husband tasted it, he too said that something was not right. One of the cheeses I used was way to strong and it was not good. The best part was a friend called and was bringing over some Cioppino for us to try. My husband and I had that and the kids got peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. And everyone was happy!

Winter Wonderland

Finally the view of the cabin from the sky. It looks like a winter wonderland covered in snow! It would be so much fun to be there enjoying the beauty of the snow. The view from the back deck.

The main entrance

The backside and entrance

The Front

I remember one time going to the cabin the first weekend of June. While we were there a freak storm came in. It snowed lightly almost the entire weekend. The trees and the ground got covered and it was so beautiful. We stayed in the cabin most of the time with the fire burning all the time. We drank hot chocolate and played cards. We ate lots of food and laughed so much. It was a great time. Seeing these pictures reminds me of that great weekend.

The View from Above

When my husband and brother went flying, my husband took my camera to take pictures of the landscape from above. They took pictures up in the mountains and where we live. They also flew over my Father's ranch. This is where both my sister and my brother live. It is also where my grandmother and my mother were raised.

This is a view of the houses that are on the property. My brother's house, on the left, was where my grandmother was raised. Her family owned that side of the road. My grandmother then married the man across the street, and she raised my mother there. It is the little house on the bottom right. My sister and her husband built their house in the upper right hand side in the early nineties.

This is a close up of the house where my mother was raised. It is hard to see the house because it is in the middle of the trees. But you can see the little garage and all the little chicken coops and the corral for my dad's cows. This is also where the tractors and the supplies are kept for farming the land.

This is where my brother lives, in my great grandmother's house. It is a cute little adobe house that has a lot of charm. I love the palm tree lined drive. It looks like a little island out in the middle of the farm land.

This is my sister's house. You can see my dad's cows in the bottom left corner. I like the little semi circles that the tractor made when it was making its turns.

I love the way the land looks from above. It looks like a patchwork quilt. The rows in the soil look so straight and neat. My grandmother would have loved looking at these pictures. I doubt that she ever saw her property from above. When she was alive, she raised cattle so the land would have looked completely different. She was an original Pioneer Woman.

FIrst Flight

On Sunday night, my brother asked my husband if he wanted go flying with him. If the day was clear he was planning on flying over my Dad's cabin to check it out. That was all he had to say and my husband was ready to go. He loves to fly and will go any chance that he gets.

He was so happy when Monday morning was crystal clear. When he was getting ready to leave, the kids wanted to go with him. He told them he would ask if they could have a ride when they got back; since my brother's plane is not big enough for all of them to go together.

A few hours later, hubby calls and says they are back and the kids can go for a ride. The only problem is they will each have to ride by themselves. When I asked the kids, they both enthusiastically said they wanted to go. So off we went to the airport.

My brother had to make some adjustments to the seat for the kids. First was trying to see if their car seat would fit, but that didn't work. So he got a file box and a pad to boost them up, and they were ready to go.

My daughter, the brave one, was ready to go! She wanted to be first and my son gladly let her go. She loved putting on the headsets so she could talk during the flight.

She gave us a big thumbs up and they were ready to take off. The only part she didn't like at this point was that it was windy from the prop and the windows were still down!

It was at this point, them taxing out to the runway, that I thought, "Oh Lord, take care of my baby!" It was that mother's internal panic button that started to go off as I saw her leaving without either of her parents.

But they took off gracefully and my brother radioed us from the plane and said that she was doing great. She was looking out the window and having a good time.

If it wasn't for the glare on the window, you can see her little head looking down at us.

When they got back, she gave us another thumbs up, and wanted to go again. She loved it.

Then it was her brother's turn. Before they landed, he had decided that he was not going. I told him that I had an opportunity when I was his age to go up in a hot air balloon and that I didn't go because I was too scared. It is one of my biggest regrets. When he saw his sister get out with the big grin on her face, he decided that he would go.

The big grin on his face was for the camera only! He was a little nervous, but he thought the headset was pretty cool. He was cautiously ready to go.

In this picture you can see my brother waving and my son looking down at us.

Here they are ready to land. I had not been nervous when he went up, but I was happy when they were landing.

He had a big thumbs up when he landed. Both the kids had fun and were telling me that they felt like they were giants. They talked about the things they saw, how the cars looked like ants, the land patchwork and how fun it was to be up there. Next time they want to go longer!

My brother is an excellent pilot and very cautious. I knew that I had nothing to worry about with him taking my children for a ride. I would have said the same prayers if they were getting on a commercial airline. So THANK YOU, UNCLE BOB, for making my kids day, and my husbands. They will never forget their first flight!