Coronado islands: blue whales and diving videos!

When T came to visit, he was on a mission. A dry suit diving mission!

Day one was a little exhausting, a little hairy but still a good time.

Day two we took a dice boat to the Coronado islands.
On the way there and back we ran into a few groups of Blue Whales!






Video from our dive...

the wyoming trip

In July we made it up to Wyoming for the rodeo!

one night S&P wanted to take the kids to the carnival; only thing
is that no adults wanted to spin in circles. Well no one except K!



Too much spinning and too much cotton candy!


the one ride big sis did get on...

...which was one more then me!




I'm not even sure where we were here?




The weather was pretty much perfect the entire trip.
Kind of a bummer we couldn't access the cave but we did
get in some good hiking, swimming & fossil hunting.



The next series of photos cracks me up.

The sisters picking the giant dandelions...









The next generation...





Who knew another BIG part of rodeo was hula hooping?
At least it was a big part of our evenings.


I decided not to show any footage of the but-darts here, but
it's worth a youtube search!



Making the home brew

After 4 months in the making....here it is!

with no (good) excuses on why i have been neglecting my blogging this year, i will jump into a couple of pictures!

one of the more recent photos of the front yard. the squash was very happy out front






It was recently MOVEMBER time again. Cyrus was more excited than i was.....
a picture of the brave, young-looking participant at the beginning of the month


for some reason, i can't find a pic with the mustache.....
anyway,
more to come. sooner this time, i promise.
k

p.s. Cheryl, your turn!

I forgot how good the view of the fireworks is from our
front porch! No Driving. No Traffic. Best of all no climbing
on the neighbors roof via the sketchy complex mailboxes.

official title of SD county fireworks display:
BIG. BAY. BOOM! who comes up with this stuff?




Rainbow in the back yard the other day. It eventually
got darker and turned into two rainbows.
Does that make it a Double. Barrel. Bow.?






The morning dew in the corn stalk.
It's really hard to focus on that little dot of water.





life is good

part 2

So what else has happened?


I went on a snowboarding/team building trip
with my company. In Lake Tahoe!


This is that day that everyone but 3 of us caught
our scheduled return flight to the office.

Can you say Sick Day or SICK DAY?!!!




RAD & C brought their new son LAD to the house.
super cute.



J also came for a visit. not much evidence other than
this photo that i tried to take of everyone in the room
texting away. Correction. not much photo evidence.
Tons of evidence in broken dishes, cuts, bruises & a finished Shed!





here is a pick of our corn popping up in rows...isn't that a country song?



Happy Anniversary to us! Our new tradition is to plant
a tree every year.
Year one: Tangerine tree in the front yard!




We were also given a free nights stay at our wedding location by
the H's. Thanks guys it was amazing! We got a free nights stay,
a free tour, $50 gift card and a free bottle of wine! wow, super stoked.

South Coast Winery Rocks!


Probably shouldn't put bubble bath in a Jacuzzi tub!

K keeps telling me she is going to update it, but...
she tells me it's too overwhelming to do 3 months at once!
LMAO!!!

Ha. Too much fun to report it all as it happens!

Here's a summary of April - June.

We kicked April off with a great show. Still not over
bad religion opening for rise against.

M came to visit but I can't seem to find any evidence other
than not having any jars of grape leaves left. we ate a lot of Persian food!


This photo is from a whale watching trip we got invited to.
We were pretty hesitant to go and even tried to miss the boat...BUT
the boat waited for us!
Happy kids



We saw 2 baby hump backs! super cool.
They even gave us "I saw a whale stickers"






At the peak of guava season even the parrots came down for a snack.
stoked to have them come chill in the yard.





We did a trip to Catalina Island.
The. Most. Beautiful. Camping spot. Evah.


Apparently back in the day Catalina was a great place to shoot
movies about the old west. Now they have Buffalo...who knew?







K doing her morning yoga on the water.
What a view...




The view from our tent. Nothing but ocean, cliffs and water.
The most beautiful tent camping we've done yet.




Two of our friends flew in...gave us a buzz on the way out!





OK I've got a few more picture to come (blogger couldn't handle em' all at once).


LIFE IS GOOD!!!!!!!!!!

Maz Jobrani

We had a blast in vegas this past weekend celebrating the pops' 60th... details to come later. On Friday K, L, E & I went to see MJ. Super funny! Well Maz, not as funny as your brown and friendly bit... but still super funny! I think this picture should be on his next email news letter...

broccoli version3

Can't believe the broccoli is ready for harvest already,
seems like we just planted the little guys yesterday.

We spent the entire weekend in the garden pulling weeds.

I think the solution to less weeds is more vegetables!

Next crop is going to be tomatoes, corn, jalapenos, more

bell peppers, and everything salsa.

Did I mention the lime tree has blossoms!

life is good

surf to summit

We headed 3 hours east last weekend
to check out bear and snow summit mountains.






Good times as always!
What made it great times was the forecast for 3-7 inches
turned into about 2 feet!


A winter wonderland...

...can you see all 3 cars?


The city was totally unprepared for the amount of snow
that fell so it took a few hours to get the street plowed.

In the mean time we had to dig all the cars out of the drive way
and attempt to put on chains...
Lucky for me I had 7 girls to dig em all out!

(this photo should be titled: attack from above!)


We ended up getting stuck on the mountain for an extra night.
Super scary driving conditions and even scarier California snow drivers...
i think there was an 18 car pileup on our exit route that night.
Good call with the extra night.


The next day the weather cleared up and it was amazing out side.


This is the smile of a girl who just had fresh tracks!

life is good

dude a cold front blew through today...
it's like 55 and raining. what happen
to the sunshine? you take it Seattle?
hopefully we can have it for a week
so we can hit the mountain over the weekend!

San Clemente camping

This weekend we made it up to San Clemente state beach
and/or campgrounds. Our first time camping at a so cal beach.
We will be hitting up all the rest soon! What a fun weekend.

Friday was perfect...Thanks Lincoln for getting us a holiday!

No one else around and an ocean view...

awesome.



We camped next to a bunch of sites that were closed off for
vegetation regrowth. Reading on the bluffs above the beach,
totally silent; priceless.



We managed to hike down the cliffs a couple times
for some good beach and surf sessions.

K# said this is one of her favorite picks of me so I had
to include it.






Good times around the fire with new friends.

Did you catch what team K is supporting?
Converted to the Texans! Sorry E but she
has gone to the brighter side of the force...

...at least it's not the dark side!




A perfect end to a perfect day!



Life is good!

another amazing day!

morning sesh for C and an afternoon sesh for K!
sounds like we both scored some pretty fun waves
today. PLUS we both had great days at work.

can't wait to get back in the water tomorrow!

other then that, not much to report on. no time for
pics today (it was dark when we left and dark when
we came back). Hope everyone else out there had
a great day too.

gardening time...

...in the winter!

gotta love so cal winters!

one of the most amazing Januaries ever.

what's your air temp?

our guava tree. every day we pick up around

20-30 guavas off the ground. The birds love

em, the possums love em, and so do we!

we both have taken a few FULL grocery bags

of guavas to work; and our co-workers love em too.

still producing...

our eight cloves of garlic. i planted 4 cloves when we first

move in. they didn't do well. BUT, this year 8 plants

sprouted up! how cool is that?

All this green is cilantro! it all came from one plant

that seeded. I shook it, sprayed it with the garden hose

and scattered the seeds about. A few rains later and

we have harvested more cilantro then we can handle.

Even after taking bags of it to work too!

And finally our broccoli...what a beautiful color on

this plant.

I think the broccoli must have eaten the spinach planted

in between the rows!

the first head is starting to form! Oh-i can't wait

to see 4 bunches of broccoli in our back yard..it

looks so cool!

LIFE IS GOOD! Couldn't be happier...or as Rick said

"well maybe a million bucks...!"...but I would rather have a

million days with K#! (I can thank ALL (NO ALL!) for that quote.)

Hope you get better soon SQ!

just another bird

so i meant to just take a pic but some how ended up

a video.

with double spaced text.

why do you hate me today blogger?

(it also took 5 attempts to get this video uploaded)...

The IB parrots are HUGE compared to the OB parrots.

Lately they've taken a liken' to our guava tree!

if i were you i would only watch the first 5 seconds.

otherwise you might get sea sick!

say that 3 times fast! ha

deep peace of the quiet earth to you

I'm still not sure what that means but i do like the

idea of the quiet earth having deep peace to me. what?

This sign was in our mountain rental.

I though this pic was appropriate because we've had anything but

deep peace or quiet...as always, it's non stop action around here.

surf, work, surf, snowboard, surf, work, bike/skate, work.

Our daily activities are a little to extreme for the camera and

my laugh is a little to loud to share the video! man we have some

funny video.

Yesterday we spent the day cleaning, reorganizing and gardening.

The most beautiful few weeks ever. Sunny. Warm. Waves.

I'll take pics of the broccoli today, it looks amazing!

First of all, we were very spoiled this christmas! many thanks to
all of our family and friends! thank you thank you
thank you. thank you.

Guess we've been having too much fun to sit down
and update this thing! but we have finally started taking
pictures again so hopefully that will help motivate us
to update more often.

Last week we took off early and headed up to Mammoth
for some mountain time. Good times with friends/coworkers.

Everyday was beautiful, sunny and warm----perfect spring riding!





The first night crew.

We stayed at a nice condo at the base of a few lifts &

the gondola. Getting ready to head out

yeah i didn't land it.