M- I- Crooked letter- Crooked letter- I -Crooked letter- Crooked letter- I- Humped back- Humped back- I

Yeah! Anna just brought me her memory card with photos from her Mississippi trip with their dad. Is it just me or do you see evidence of a budding photographer behind this lens?

Mississippi has very tall trees!


I have to admit our family has always loved anoles.




After some egg dying they had a very long hunt. The Easter Bunny hid them all throughout the forest!


There is nothing like the beauty of a pear blossom


You won't see this kind of love at home, but take them away from all their friends and look what happens. Shhh, I won't tell if you won't!


Collin in the canoe


Who would believe that cattle pics could be so trendy? Thanks once again to The Pioneer Woman!





And that's all folks! Come back real soon, ya' hear!

I forgot

...to show the piece I was working on while we were in Utah... just kidding! The artist is Louisa McElwain and we bought this oil at a gallery in Park City. I want to paint like her when I grow up.

Ski and Sea; Part Two

We arrived in Los Angeles early in the afternoon so we had plenty of time to site see and shop ( did I mention our luggage was hundreds of miles away on our original flight), but your not going to hear me complaining. The pics below are at Manhattan Beach. The water was cold but the sand was warm and Ryan didn't want to leave.

What was he looking at?


Ahhhh, ships on the horizon. Reminds me of one of my all time favorite picture books, All Those Secrets of the World.


Run, Ryan, run before the ocean catches you!


OK, so I had to squeeze one posed photo in. I love this little guy, and his daddy, and the ocean and flowers and the color green and...



After much coursing we hopped in our rental car, and followed Highway 1 along the coast to Malibu. Magnificent. If only we had time to go further, but our schedule was tight so we checked in to our hotel and met my cousin for dinner later in the evening. I think the restaurant was called Ocean, seafood of course. We had oysters on the half shell and impeccably fresh fish. It was delicious. I had no idea there were so many varieties of oysters. One tasted like watermelon, I kid you not! After dinner we climbed into that Heavenly bed because morning was sure to come soon. And it did. Our wake up call was prompt at 4:45AM and in a flash we were on our flight back home, with three time zones to clear and a pocket full of memories.

Below, Sam took this incredible pic out of the window of the plane. You have to enlarge it to really catch a glimpse of what 's visible. Can you see? It's the Hollywood sign on the edge of the cliff through the clouds.

Ski and Sea; Part One

One family and four different destinations was the plan. Gib decided to join his friends in New Mexico for snowboarding, Anna, Maren and Collin moseyed on over to Mississippi with their dad and Brooke, Blake and Brayden cruised to Cozumel with their mom. So, last Thursday Sam, Ryan and I flew to the beautiful, Olympic famed, Park City, Utah. I have to say, every time I stand atop a white powdery mountain, I am in awe, but this place is simply majestic. Utah is known for their snow and we were thrilled to be introduced personally. Ryan geared up for some snowmobiling... or in his words, "let's ride the playmobil"! This was a blast until Little Guy fell asleep... I guess the two hour ride of bumpy hills was too much. Poor Sam had to hold the napper and manage to drive the snowmobile at the same time. It was hilarious! The next day we rode the vintage train through the mountains and tubed with our friends, Joe, Erica and Claudia. The tubing hill was smaller than others so Ryan was able to go down all by himself! I delight in independence.











We played in the snow everyday, but not once did we actually ski this trip. Crazy, but I really believe everything happens for a reason. We ate too much, rested almost enough and shopped a little too. It was fabulous. After six days of coldness, our time was up, so off to the airport we went to catch our flight, only to find it was overbooked, but, to our advantage, the airline offered to route us through another city on a later flight. In a matter of minutes our itinerary changed from ski to sea and we were on board a west bound jet to visit my cousin Ryan (little Ryan's namesake) in sunny California. WooHoo!

To be continued...

March 8th

Today is the birthday of Janet Carolyn. People know her as daughter, wife, sister, cousin, aunt and friend, but to Lara and me, she is Mom. She has always been a constant source of love, whether or not I would admit it, and even then, she still loved. My mom is the kind of person that will welcome you... in the middle of the day or in the middle of the night. There is always room for one more at her inn. She is a true giver in life, and as I have watched her over the years I have learned many things, but most importantly I learned how to be friend, to laugh, to cry and to love. I can't even begin to count the number of times people have told me how blessed I am to have a mom like her, and I always say with a smile, " I couldn't agree more. "

Happy Happy Birthday, Mom! I love you!

Pilates 101

I have recognized my need for increased physical activity for some time now. At one point, I had a personal trainer. Ok, I did loose weight, inches and gain strength, BUT, it wasn't fun and that was also before I discovered The Pioneer Woman. So, I thought surely I could get toned and maintain my goal weight in a more enjoyable way. Then one day, my friend told me about a neighborhood pilates class. Hmmm....



And then there was this mental picture of what I would look like...



I signed up anyway and now with eight weeks of classes behind me I'm feelin' good. So today, we all arrived at class knowing that we were going to do some ball work... you know, like this:



Minus the lush backdrop and sand and well, ok the smile might have been missing too. ( I was working out for goodness sake!)

But, apparently my equilibrium was somewhat off this morning, so as we were rolling all the way back and then up again, I felt strange, a feeling I have felt before, but usually paired with pregnancy or small boats in big oceans. It was getting worse, but I continued because even though my birthday is just around the corner, the number of candles on a cake aren't always an indicator of strength or stamina, right? I am certainly capable of an elementary ball exercise. An then, enough was enough. Finally, I sat up just as my instructor noticed my yo-yo eyed look. She quickly recommended that I continue the rest of the exercises on the floor. She said when you begin incorporating a ball into your workout, some people take some time to get acclimated to the motion and apparently I am one of those people. Wimp was all I heard, but we finished the class, I drove home and yes I do feel much better. All in all, I would say that even though I had some non age-related reaction to rolling on a ball, I do think that this workout adventure is good and I would recommend it. Maybe next time though, I will bring one extra piece of equipment...



Roll on pilates!!!

Love

Fishy Fishy

Before we moved to this area, five years ago, we sat the kids down and asked what was most important in a new neighborhood. Unanimously they squealed, " water, trees and places to run". And you know, after much searching, we found just that... trails, creeks, parks and fishing, all wrapped up in a close knit community of desperate housewives and retired folks. So, today, like many others, the fish were calling Gib's name and lucky for us he wanted to make it a family gathering.

Heddy, of course, had to join us too! She is such a loyal girl.


Gib decided that leaning over the bridge was the best way to "get the fish ready" while keeping little brother and best dog at bay.


Wow, Ryan caught a fish, hobo style! ( When the line is attached to a bottle or can, instead of a pole) I feel like I need to write exclusively in italic when I look at this pic... with the Tower of Pisa stance and all.


And here is a close up of the beautiful Blue Gill!


Now, all was going great until Gib cast one more time and oops, the hook got caught in his shorts. Fortunately, his handy dandy, hand-me-down knife from Pop saved the day.


We left after that because it's always good to stop when your ahead, and obviously the little catch wasn't enough for dinner. Until next time, fishy!