The Afterbath

You'd never guess the condition of the bathroom after these two take a bath. Their cuteness belies the damage they can do. (It also saves their lives on many occasions.)

Binky Addiction

Muddy Mormons

Church let out early today when everyone was invited to go home, change clothes, and help with the mud clean up on Ocean View. Brandon was on call and had to go see some people at the hospital, but when he finished up there and tried to go up Ocean View he was actually turned away because so many church members had already arrived. The same thing happened yesterday in the neighborhood of Chuck Woodhouse, a member of our church, when he sent out an email for help. Click here to view a brief news clip about it. (Click on some of the other videos to see even more amazing footage.) People can knock organized religion all they want, but I don't think anyone in those two neighborhoods was complaining when entire congregations of Mormons showed up with their shovels and wheelbarrows!

The helicopters are back

I had a hard time sleeping last night. I kept waking up every few hours to the sound of heavy, heavy rain. For the last decade of our married life, waking up to the sound of rain has meant possible flooding or leaking so I've been conditioned to feel dread when I wake to that sound. We flooded three times in Iowa (one time was two days before Christmas when the main city water line on our street froze and burst, filling up our basement with more than a foot of freezing, feces laden water - lovely) and we had a leaky roof in our current house that caused some minor damage until we replaced it last year. But I feel very grateful today that we are not in the mudslide zone. I feel so bad for those people who lost their homes. They are just a few streets over from us and the helicopters have been going overhead all day long, rattling the windows just like back in August during the fires.

We were surprised to find so much water this morning in our back patio area where Brandon keeps his bonsai trees. As we lay there in bed this morning, the kids jumping on the bed telling us all about it, Brandon said to me with his eyes closed, "When I was at the hardware store yesterday I saw some galoshes and thought 'those might be nice to have sometime'." Too bad he didn't get them.

Homemade waffles to warm everybody up on a cold, rainy morning.

Okay, not that cold.

Little Girls

We got Kate a really great book for Christmas that she uses to learn (and do!) all kinds of stuff. One of the many things is how to make an ivy crown, modeled here by cutie pie Rachael.

This moment was just too cute for words.

Another priceless moment, but in a different way. (She's trying to extract as many gummy worms from a chocolate pudding pie as possible.)

There are some things

What We Pay For

You've got to admit, biking at the beach in January is pretty sweet. (Especially if you've grown up in the mid west.) Back in early January we loaded up the bikes and went to Santa Monica for a little beach day. It was actually the weekend of the Rose Bowl so we were not super excited to find GOBS of people swarming the place, Oregon and Ohio sweatshirts abounding.

The brilliant ibert.

We biked far enough down the coast we couldn't see the pier (or the people) anymore. We found the prettiest beach with a fun outcropping of rocks that the kids played on for about a half an hour.

As I was biking back to the car Rachael started yelling "HORSE!" and pointing wildly toward the building we just passed. I hadn't even noticed the carousel inside.

Driving home I couldn't resist taking more pictures of downtown. (There's Bob looking on.)

The traditional post-beach meal. What else is there? Seriously.

What more could you ask for? Simple menu . . .

Cute uniforms (look at that safety pin!) and fresh potatoes ready for frying . . .

Satisfied kids.

Heaven on earth, wrapped in a paper bag.

I've Seen Fire and I've Seen Rain

I love James Taylor. I wonder if he was living in California when he wrote that song.

The rain has stopped (for now) and much to the dismay of the media there were no massive mudslides bringing wide spread destruction. We don't have cable so I'm not totally sure how it was portrayed, but I know that more than one person from out of state contacted me to be sure I was okay and I'm guessing it had something to do with the news coverage. The way the mountain sits behind our house, the mud will flow into a big ravine a block away. We actually hiked down there on Sunday and it was fascinating to see the changes made from both the fire and the recent rains.

This first picture was taken outside the grocery store a day before the rains started. Clouds like this were common in Iowa, but it's always a little surprising to see them here.

These next two pictures were taken in front of my children's school and from our church parking lot. This is also a little surprising to see around here - especially with a palm tree. Snow this low only lasted one day.
This snow will last a little longer. I heard on the news today that the ski resort town of Big Bear (about 3 hours north) is running out of food and gas from all people coming up there to ski!