A Fabulous Fourth

 Nan and Pop are here!! They arrived Monday night, in time for their first celebration of America's Independence Day on Wednesday.

We went ALL OUT on the Fourth of July. Pancake breakfast, parade, pool party and barbecue with family and friends, followed by fireworks. Can't get any more Fourth-ish than that!

The Rotary Club's pancake breakfast was delicious, as always.

 We simply stepped outside the breakfast area for a perfect shady spot to watch the parade from its very beginning.

 Seeing friends in the parade is always a highlight. Here, Stace is waving to horse-riding Sadie, a former soccer teammate of Cora's. We also saw friends of Violet's on a Girl Scout float.

Sue and Gord didn't get to ride bikes from our house - our normal tradition - nor did they sweat through a 100-degree day. But our parade experience, on a much cooler-than-average morning, was excellent.

 Afte the parade, we walked around Old Town Newhall, shopped at Barn and Charm, and got drinks at Honu Coffee. Then, we went home to get ready to host a barbecue.

 We had our friends meet us at the pool. Pam, Cooper and Wylie, and Yass, Kelly, Charlie and Jake, all came to play. Later, my dad and Mel and Nick also joined the party. (Mom was at work, but came with us to fireworks.)

Here, Cooper is "it" during a came of colors.

 Nick amazed us with his ability to list off the Top 10 grossing films of any given year. Here, he's rattling off the top films from 2005. I love Yass and Kelly's shocked faces.

We returned home and got dinner ready, while the kids ran around and played. Charlie loves the trampoline - he's in it a lot when he comes to play.

Thanks to Pam for the next set of photos. Here's Cora and Jake enjoying their Fourth feast.

 As Pam pointed out, our celebration of America was an international affair: we had English, Cubans and Brazilians.

 Pam brought the Brazilian friends - she'd met Marcella and Felipe camping the prior week, and they were on their way down from Yosemite Wednesday. It was their last day in California before they were to fly home, and we welcomed them over with open arms. Stace donned his Brazil football shirt, as the World Cup is in full swing, and gave Felipe an England shirt to wear.

 Yass, our Cuban friend, was in charge of bringing brats and buns, and boy, did he come through. We had something like half a package of buns per person.

Felipe's little boy was friendly, though he spoke no English. He and Violet had fun drawing together (and it was probably nice for Vi to not be the youngest again!).

We then continued the 80s Movie Nights with Back To The Future II.

We then went down to see the fireworks.

 Our night continued at Pam's house, with sparklers and dessert - vanilla ice cream and various sodas, for a Make Your Own Float bar. Just as our Founding Fathers would have wanted!

Wine with Friends

Part of Sara's birthday trip to SoCal was a day at the wineries in Santa Ynez.

I love going to the wineries with Sara, and it was a nice chance to spend time with my mom, who came along. It also was a great opportunity for Violet to spend more time with Alli.

We played Apples to Apples at our first stop.

We made a couple of more stops; the guy at Firestone was especially kind, throwing in a free tasting when we bought a bottle of summer-perfect rose.

We had such a lovely day together, with a perfect setting everywhere we looked.

Week in Review

VBS and the beach weren't all we got up to this past week.

As summer started, our friend Yass suggested we get together to watch 80s movies with the kids, introducing our children to some of the classics.

Stace loved the idea, and we held our first dinner-and-movie night, 80s style, on Tuesday. We watched Big and had pizzas.

On Wednesday, JT came up with Callie and Jonah. The kids played school, we had dinner, and then we had a lovely surprise dessert.

For Stacey's birthday, JT brought a labor of love, a homemade apple pie. It was delicious!

On Saturday morning, Cora had her first swim meet of the season. She had to swim the butterfly so that we could be finished early - and she wasn't thrilled. She hates butterfly.













But, we had brunch plans with John and Linda, who had stayed in SClarita the night before to spend time with my parents. We met up with them at the Egg Plantation, which was thoroughly enjoyable.

After swimming in the morning, Cora went to her aerial class Saturday afternoon. She's still enjoying it, and she's learning a lot.

On Saturday night, we went to Yass and Kelly's house for a fabulous dinner and another movie night. This time, it was Back To The Future. Great Scott! It was a late night, but super fun. Gotta love summer!

More Mandalay Fun

 One of the best parts of staying at an Embassy Suites is the fabulous breakfast. The girls had fun choosing their morning meal.

 We then got ready to head to the beach. It was cloudy and cool at first, but that didn't bother our Arizona friends in the least.

 Eventually the sun came out. It was a truly gorgeous day.

Thanks again to Sara for half these pics!

We went back into the resort and had some pool time, before getting dressed again for another manager's reception.

It was a great day and a half with these special friends!

Mandalay Fun

 When Sara and Tony moved away from SClarita two years ago, she made big plans to return to SoCal to celebrate her 40th birthday. That time came this week, when they drove out from Arizona to the Mandalay Bay resort in Oxnard.

After VBS and Stace got off work, we joined them for the night. We all enjoyed the manager's reception - free drinks and snacks - while we caught up with each other.

 The girls had fun with Hedbanz.

We then stepped outside the resort to the sand, to catch the sunset. Stace helped Sara and Tony create a *most* romantic photo.

 Thanks to Sara for half these photos!

 Violet was so excited to spend time with Alli! These two get along so well. We're now thinking of flying Violet out to Phoenix to visit with Alli and family for a long weekend.

 After the sun had set, the girls watched Sing in the pool.

We also swapped kids - Cora joined Emily, while we had Alli in our room.