Long Time, No Blog

It has been awhile since our last post (starting a full-time job in August hampered my blogging a bit), so here are a few snaps of what we've been up to this fall...

Enjoying the end of summer at our favorite local San Clemente beach with Kelley's dad.

Christopher and Shayla hangin' at home and doing their favorite things out back. Christopher (our avid reader) is relaxing with a good book and Shayla (our little monkey) is swinging on the monkey bars. This is where you can usually find them both.

Dave's dad and his wife Judy visited in October. Here we are at our church -- check out the awesome view!

Christopher is now a Wolf Cub Scout, and Dave is the den leader for the second year in a row. Aren't they handsome?

I think you can guess what was going on in the picture below, no?

Shayla's first-grade class Halloween party, complete with witches' brew!

And a couple of random ones just for fun...

A day at the park near Mission Bay in San Diego below. Did I mention how much Shayla loves the monkey bars?

And Christopher is always ready for a photo op!

Here's one of the resident dog-walker (Dave) with our two labs, Aspen and Bailey. Aspen is recovering from minor surgery -- she's a 10-yr-old gal and had a doggie "tune-up" recently, hence the t-shirt attire.

Which brings us to last week, when Shayla received an award for hard work and responsible classroom behavior. Way to go, Shayla!

Shayla's New 'Do

Check out the new Shayla! She got her hair cut just in time for picture day at school. She is thrilled to have short hair now and really looks like a big first grader. We love that she can brush her own hair in the morning, in 5 seconds flat with no tears.

Back to School

Shayla and Christopher had their first day of first and third grades this week...very exciting!! They love their new teachers and walking to school together. The house is sooooo quiet now. :)

Grammy's Visit

Grammy came to visit for a week at the end of August, and we enjoyed the kids' last week of vacation playing with her. We even got to go to Disneyland -- thanks, Uncle Arpad!

Visiting Popie in San Francisco

We had a great visit with Popie in San Francisco and played tourists for a few days. It was cooooold near the bridge, but otherwise is felt like summer most of the time. We took a ferry boat ride under the Golden Gate bridge, rode on a cable car, went to the Exploratorium, visited friends in Petaluma, and saw lots of sights, all in only 3 days!

August Fun

Summertime fun in San Clemente! Here are the kids with some friends from the 'hood enjoying our beautiful beach near the pier.

Here's What's Happenin' In July

We celebrated Christopher's 9th birthday a little early this year with a Pokemon party in our backyard. It was our first "drop off" party with 7 of Christopher's friends and one friend for Shayla, Pokemon cupcakes, pin-the-tail on the Pokemon, a "20 Questions about Pokemon" game, and even a Pokemon bounce house! On his actual birthday, July 2, we drove to Santa Barbara to visit some friends and stay overnight, which just happened to be when the Goleta fire started. It was a little scary for all of us when we left as ash was raining down on our car and we could see flames on the hillside above UCSB. We celebrated 4th of July at home with a bike and scooter parade around the neighborhood -- so cute! And Shayla lost something else, as you can see from her picture above. Then it was off to Julian with the Cub Scouts for a weekend camping trip! The scouts loved panning for gold at the old Julian gold mine.