Halloween - October 2012

Our traditional Halloween feast!
My kids LOVE mummy dogs!!

My Handsome Husband.

Summer (age 6) dressed as some kind of cute fluffy monster.
Ben (age 8) was dressed as a Ninja. 

And they're off!!  Time to fill their bags with candy.

Happy Halloween - 2012!!

Summer and Ben were so cute.  Ben loves trick or treating.
Summer loves the candy and dressing up but she gets nervous
knocking on doors.

We went all through the neighborhood for two hours.  We had
to stop by the house to drink water and empty out their bags to make
more room for candy.

And now for the best part - candy sorting and trading (after
mom takes a few of her favorites of course).

What a fun Halloween. The kids are at such a great age!

October 2012 - Indian Maidens Fall Camp - Catalina Island!

Summer and I are a part of Indian Maidens and have so much fun together.  There are 3 camps a year:  Fall Camp, Winter Camp, Spring Camp.  This year we were able to go to Catalina Island for Fall Camp - so exciting!!

Summer and Samanth on the ferry over to Catalina.  We stayed in tent cabins, had flush toilets, showers and all of our meals were prepared by the people who run the camp - this is my kind of camping!!!  And it is right on the beach!!

Our induction ceremony.  My good friends and I started our own tribe - we are the Shoshone Tribe.  It was fun to get to know all of the other tribes.

We went kayaking, snorkeling, swimming, and played in the surf.  It was such a great time!

October 2012 - Indian Maidens Fall Camp

We spent lots of time at the beach - the weather was awesome! 

Lots of fun in the surf and sand!

Summer and I had so much fun together - she was just so cute to hang out with.

Our cute little Shoshone Tribe - What a great experience!!

September 6, 2012 - FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

First Day of School!!  And on Summer's birthday!  She turned 6 on her first day of FIRST GRADE!
Ben is in 2nd grade and both are at Eader Elementary 1 block from the beach!

Summer was very nervous and cried the first day - just briefly.  The 2nd day she cried even less and on the 3rd day she told me she wasn't scared anymore and was very brave and didn't cry.  Her teacher is Ms. Hart.

Ben is so easy going and was excited to meet his new teacher.  He gave me a hug and kiss, a big wave and he was good to go. He is such a sweetie.  His teacher is Ms. Vigor.

Christmas Eve - December 2010

We are starting a new tradition this year for Christmas Eve. Instead of the usual "appetizer" dinner we decided it would be festive, fun and less work to get dressed up and go out to a nice restaurant.

We let the kids each open one present from one of their cousins before we left.

This first present of the Christmas holiday is very exciting and important. They were very good about taking turns and patiently watching each other.

A zhu zhu pet from cousin Clara and Oli - VERY exciting.

Next it's Ben's turn!

A Start Wars - lego Kit - Whoooo Hooo!!

The Daily Grille - December 2010

And so our new tradition begins. We love Fashion Island and they have a huge, gorgeous Christmas tree so we thought this would be a great setting for Christmas Eve. We had dinner at hte Daily Grille.

We had such a nice time just spending time together as a family and having conversation about what Santa is going to bring and how excited everyone is. It was so cute and so fun.

The food was fabulous and the kids had a great time getting dressed up, eating at a nice restaurant, etc.

The Christmas tree was gorgeous, as expected. We knew it was time to head home when this was the best smile we could get from Summer. Wondering who is being naughty and who is being nice....