Ooops, it's September!

Well, I've been out of town for most of August, and the blog and visiting teaching have suffered for it. But, it's the beginning of September, and I'm recommitting to both!

My first out of town was Girls' Camp for a week--no pictures, you're glad as there were also no showers at Camp, no electricity--you get the "picture". It was a fun week though. I loved hanging out with the other grown ups, and the mountains were just breathtaking. I remembered what a good fire builder I was and how much I love to just stare into the fire. At our house in Ojai growing up, our fireplace was one of the main sources of heat in the house. So, building a good fire was more than just fun stuff if you wanted to keep warm at night.

I cooked all of the food for the 22 teenage girls in our camp! For those of you who know me, you know that I am not used to cooking for 22, let alone 22 teenagers, let alone on a camp stove with no refrigeration other than coolers for a week. It went well though, no one got food poisoning, and we had pretty fancy food for camping--Cafe Rio Pork Salads, yogurt/granola parfaits, eggs and pancakes, chicken salad croissants, etc. Biggest lesson learned...next time each age group of girls is going to be assigned a day and do all the cooking that day.

Chris and the kids were about to kill me as I was preparing for camp. I'd mention Costco, and the kids would say, "No, Mommy, please we don't want to go back to Costco!" I was talking to a friend that I grew up with and went to girls' camp with as a teenager. She helped me to realize that my vision of what camp food should be was very distorted due to the fact that when we went to camp as teenagers, we really went to a spa type of get-away: meals served to you in the cafeteria, then off to the pool for the afternoon, just in time to get ready for the dance that evening.

My next get away was much more in line with my spa type vision of what vacations should be like...a week in Laguna Beach.Yes, that's it...no cooking responsibilities, no certification responsibilities, ok, no responsibilities whatsoever. I went to the beach day after day and laid there and read my book--love it! Of course, I was lying under an umbrella, with 70 SPF sunblock on, and a shirt and hat. As you can see from the photo, my skin cancer paranoia extends to all of my family, and I make everyone cover-up. Oh, well, we are tourists, so why not dress the part.

I drove alone with the kids straight through to California the morning after camp, so my LA driving skills have not lapsed into those of a tourist. The directions were "Take the 15 to the 91 to 55 to 5 to the 133." Ok, no problem, I can do that! But, my patience for Orange County traffic has waned as my biggest commute at home is about 10 minutes doorstep to destination.Atticus readily got in touch with his California heritage as he hopped on this boogie board and started saying things like, "Mom, look, I'm in the tube!" Yes, well, he still is not a very proficient swimmer, so the picture above is what he calls being "in the tube". Back to swimming lessons before he hits the North Shore of Oahu. He had so much fun though and gained so much confidence in the water! Actually, right this minute, Atticus is in the backyard "shaping" a long board out of a branch from a tree that fell in our yard. He's got gloves on and a piece of sandpaper to shape the wood--no eco unfriendly foam for Atticus--he's straight up old school.
Tiare ventured much further out in the water, and, as you can see, even got me to go with her. She is a strong swimmer and loved going out beyond the "drop off" point--where it gets deep. The water was so clear, can you tell from this picture a little bit?

We had a great time looking at the tide pools. The Laguna Beach tide pools mean a lot to our family as my mom used to live in Laguna and did a whole series of paintings based on them. She'd paint them very up close, and then call them cosmos--she loved the micro in the cosmic perspective.
We stayed with Chris' mom and had so much fun visiting with GG! The kids love her so much. We also got to visit my godmother Mitzi up in Santa Barbara (Tiare and I went up for a night and day just the two of us for a mother daughter mini vacation). We were so busy relaxing and having fun that we have no pictures with GG or with Mitzi. Chris is taking most of the pictures, so he goes largely undocumented once again. He had a great time on the trip too. He got to go surfing with some old friends and got in some work too. We also got to see all of my wonderful aunts and uncles, cousins and their kids in Orange County. It was a wonderful vacation! We ended by staying in St. George and trying to see where they filmed High School Musical 2--we didn't find it, but had fun anyway. We pulled into home Sunday night, and the kids started school the next morning! One last picture that captures the feeling of California...