Silly Kids in a Crib

Tim and I stole Carter and Lily from their parents and took them to visit their baby cousin, Leanna way up north. They’re all pretty goofy and very cute.

Leanna wasn’t so sure about these “big kids” and their shenanigans in her crib…

…but, she soon joined in the fun.

Carter may be one of the craziest boys around, but when he gets around babies, he definitely knows how to slow down and soften up.

Lily learned how to make goofy faces since the last time I saw her. She thought she was pretty funny.

Carter learned that Lily’s pigtails make for the perfect horsey reins to hold onto. Lily was the giggliest horse I’ve ever seen.

Model baby

I told Lily to do something goofy, and Carter didn’t really approve. He put his arm around her and explained that I shouldn’t tell his sister to do things like that.

I’m glad we stole them, even if they did eat all of our food and make us buy more every 10 minutes…

Baby Boy Brody

Do you remember Brandon and Stefanie’s maternity pictures at Laguna Beach? Brody is about 1 month old now, and he is so cute! This week, Katie and Joey joined me to take a few pictures of him. Brody was so good with the three of us and a bunch of lights in his face. : ) Here are a few of my shots:

Birthday Girl

Today, Katie turns 21, and she’s going to Disneyland. Yesterday, I made her cupcakes:

Happy Birthday Katie!

Stanislaus River Rafting & Camping

In September, we went on a little weekend trip to Knight’s Ferry with Matt and Heather. The weather was up in the 100s, which I thought was perfect. Our tent was just a couple feet back from where Tim is fishing…nice and close to the river…and the mosquitoes (Sometimes I feel like I really have turned into a city girl, yikes!).

I love things that look like hearts. I do, I do.

Coffee, apple turnovers, and turkey bacon for breakfast- gotta fuel up! : ) (Also notice the multiple cans of bug spray on the table. Bug spray is gross, but the bugs were grosser).

All 4 of us hopped in a sturdy raft to head down the river…We put in at Knight’s Ferry and hopped out at Orange Blossom a few hours later.

Heather and I were no slackers in the paddling department. We paddled til our shoulders and arms burned…of course, the guys went on their own the second day and told us they had discovered that we didn’t really need to paddle so hard after all…

If you go after Labor Day (which we did), they speed up the flow rate in the river so that it goes a bit faster. That was nice, but it would’ve been nicer if the rapids were a little further from the start point…after we got the hang of what we were doing…

Tim and Matt used their paddling terms from dragon boat racing, and Matt sat in the back to steer and give steering-related instructions. We had a pretty good system worked out.

Thankfully, we never needed to take the advice of this lovely sign. Remember to breathe, relax, and breathe.

Heather was rockin’ out in the back of the raft.

After rafting, we walked across the covered bridge in Knight’s Ferry and wandered around taking pictures of the pretty scenery. All in all, it was a pretty nice trip. : )

Labor Day at Santa Monica Pier

I have to work every other weekend (which means Friday night and Saturday night), and that makes Tim pretty sad. He gets tired of spending his weekends alone, and who can blame the guy? I don’t like bring home alone either. I had to work Labor Day weekend, but Tim and I both had Monday off work. So, to “make up for lost time,” Tim got a discounted rate at a fancy shmancy hotel on the beach in Santa Monica. Here are some pictures from our “weekend.”

The view of our hotel from the beach:

The view of the beach from our hotel:

Has anyone else noticed that the more expensive a hotel is, the less you get for free? We had to pay an extra 30 bucks to park in their parking lot…

Speaking of extra costs, here’s the food tray and the stocked mini-bar we were careful not to touch. (We called to ask how much the m&m’s were, and when the guy told us they cost 8 bucks, we decided not to ask about the rest…) However, we did take full advantage of the complimentary coffee and tea “pods” they provided for us. Yumm…

Here is our view of the pier from our window. We got a free upgrade to a “partial ocean view,” because they accidentally booked us a room with two double beds. No thanks, man…we want a king! : )

In the morning, we took our breakfast (coffee, blueberry muffin, yogurt, and odwalla smoothie), and lounged in this neat round “chair” by the pool with the ocean view.

Ahh, coffee, reading, sunbathing, and lounging to the new music Tim put on my ipod…

Tim was obviously too relaxed to open his eyes for my long-arm shot.

We headed down to the beach before the crowds so that Tim could play on the playground…err…I mean workout equipment. I didn’t even try…didn’t want to show him up, you know.

I always tell Tim he should be a gymnast- he got to show me all his mad skills that morning. : ) I think all these things were more difficult than they looked…on the monkey bars (or whatever they call them), you have to swing like crazy and use your shoulder muscles to pull yourself back for momentum. Tim was wishing he brought his rock-climbing chalk for the slippery metal handles.

We need one of these playgrounds in Long Beach!

We walked around the beach and headed to the pier around sunset:

We tried to go to Bubba Gump Shrimp Co. for dinner, but the wait was 1 hr., so we found some free wi-fi and used my killer ipod to find other restaurants in the area. We ended up walking a few blocks to Buca Di Beppo, and it was quite nice.

We had lots of fun making different shapes of bokeh in the twinkly lights- more on that when we perfect the technique! (well, as much as we can, anyway).