Southern California

So I put a 1970's filter on these photos, and isn't it marvelous? Totally gives off an incredible vibe and makes me nostalgic for a life in the past that I never lived because I wasn't even a thought in the 70's but this filter is just plain perfect for Southern California. Moving on...

About a month ago now (ah, I am so far behind on blogging!) we drove down to visit my sister in San Diego for a couple of days. On our way down, we stopped off at the second of our three hometowns, Santa Monica,  and were able to meet up with friends we hadn't seen for two years! We picked up right where we left off, and it was fun to see our girls play together. We wished we lived closer, but it was nice to pick up right where we left off and know that any time, any place we can always be besties.

My sister lives in a beauuutiful city, with a beautiful home, and a beautiful family. She just had a baby 4 months ago, and we had to get down and meet baby Shane! Somehow I only took a limited amount of photos during our trip... what is happening to my blogging spirit? Even my camera has been neglected! For shame!

a report from Tink and Pan

the big fresno fair

I totally used to knock my hometown, thinking it was kinda unrefined and dull, but I'll say we've been busier the past month than we ever have been and Clovis has kinda bumped up a lot of knotches in my book of coolness. We've really been loving being back! I will say that there is no other fair like the Fresno Fair. Jared and I had been looking forward to it for weeks, well, years kinda if you count the ride "the Zipper." It is such a classic ride, yet over the past 5 years we haven't been able to find it at any of the carnivals we've gone to, so we were soooo happy to see it in operation again!

This fair year was particularly exciting because our niece (only 4!) was competing in the Mutton Busting World Championships! I seriously had no idea that a sheep could be so scary and charge that fast! I was impressed that kids had enough guts to hang on for dear life. I kinda wanna put Evelyn in it when she's old enough.

Yeah, it was a good time. Was I saddened when we left without eating a single fair food, especially fried oreos? Yes. But boy did we have a rockin' time! Thanks Grandma & Grandpa for treating us!

sunday evenings are for rabbit hunting and duck duck goosing. oh, and some swinging, too!

I sat on a wire chair about 5 feet away from Evelyn as I watched her. She approached Warner, whose legs were dangling motionless, she said "ooooOOHH kay Warner, yous want to go hi-wore? okay, okay." She then ran behind the swing and you would have thought someone was tickling Warner's belly or something the way he started giggling. He did a rapid bounce and excited squirm the minute Evelyn placed her hand on the back of the swing, like some electric bolt of anticipation was running up his back. Warner loves swinging, but he loves it most when his big sister is pushing him. He gets such a rush, and I do too just watching all the energy going on between them. I sat there looking at them, Warner with his big grin, and Evelyn with her grin, too, both of them happy. A bit later they made their way over to the play car together. Evelyn has started calling Warner "handsome boy." Warner crawled over to the back of the car and stood up and began pushing it. "Dood dob (good job) hansome boy, dood dob!" Oh, shot to my heart!  I wanted to freeze the two of them right there and just, I don't know, cry from joy? It really is the little things.

And here I break from the tenderness to share with you a triumph of other sorts. If you follow me on instagram, then you saw a couple weeks ago my post about my parents having 2 ginormous hares that roam freely in our backyard. I had caught one of them, but the other had been rather illusive and dodging my attempts at "capture." So I was determined one evening to pet the darn thing, and after an enthralling "hunt" I could declare victory! The kids LLLLOOOOVVEE the bunnies. Like, love. Evelyn gets a good portion of her daily exercise chasing them around the yard all day, and Warner, well, that kid signs bunny the moment we walk downstairs in the morning.

And what evening isn't complete without a game of duck duck goose? Evelyn had never played before, so once she got the hang of it, she was a'chucklin'!

i'm not dead, just 3 weeks behind on blogging!

Chellooo blogging world! Good grief, I feel like I'm coming back from the dead since I've been absent for a couple weeks now. This has never happened to me before, the feeling of "oh I'm so far behind in blogging how will I ever catch up I think I'll just quit," but I am trying so hard to muster up the energy to keep this space going right now. Let's play a quick game of catch-up.

Soo... we moved. Really far. We said a tearful goodbye to our home in Virginia, a place we had grown to love, along with so many wonderful friends. I'm still living in vacation mode and it hasn't hit me yet that we will not be returning, but once it does I am going to be a wreck. On the plus side, we relocated back to our roots in California. That has been more fabulous than I had anticipated. Every day we do something with either set of grandparents and the kids see their cousins a couple times a week. Having family around is definitely something we are not accustomed to, but we like it!

Our first weekend back we hit up our local farmers market. Our little "old town" is small but super charming. Evelyn jumped on her first pony ride and squealed with delight the whole time!

Two of the many nice benefits of having so many extra familial hands around - 1) someone to always hold your kids. I occasionally forget I have two children (i kid!) because someone else is always holding them and I'm looking at my empty arms and hands thinking "what is this feeling of freedom!?" and 2) Jared and I can get a couple more snapshots TOGETHER.

Ok, next on the camera roll... Warner's birthday! Yes, his real birthday was back on the 19th, but we "partied" on the 22nd with family.

At first he didn't like the cake.  He was so cautious and deterred by it's sticky nature. He poked at it, examined it, cried about it, threw the cake off the plate on to the grass. But once it fell on to the green reeds, I dunno, maybe he liked that presentation better but he ate it! And THEN he licked his plate clean :) 

Annndd I have to stop there before this post becomes the longest pictorial overload in the history of blogging. Uh, I actually hate this post. Not the photos or happenings, but my writing. So blah and just all "here's what we did." Not fun, but it's taken me three days, THREE DAYS, to find the time to get these photos up here. I'm actually in the middle of something else that has been taking up a ton of my time, but I'm super excited about it and hope I can launch it soon. Til then, I'm stuck typing lame-o recountals.

Ok, so, we also went to the zoo and Ev hand-fed a giraffe and pet a stingray and Warner had a stare down competition with a sea lion and rode a comodo dragon. Tada! Coolness.

Ok, for realz, this post is done now.