friends & relations

We had the pleasure of having the Jacobsen's (minus Aunt Rose) over for a quick bite to eat after they went sailing in the Long Beach harbor last week, thanks for stopping in!

the girls

the boys

On Friday, two friends I used to work with came to meet baby Wyatt. Unfortunately, Mihoko's daughter (almost three now!) stayed behind at pre-school, so we hope to see her next time. She did bring some wonderfully delicious strawberries from the farmer's market though. : )

snuggles with Miho

excited to partake in the celebratory cupcakes from Kari

Kari & baby Bridget

the fair

Kim and I took the kids for our annual trip to the fair last week. It was hot. And fun!

Yes, you can fit three car seats in the back of The Hemi

The ferris wheel started behind her... how scary! ; )

taking in all the sights

mmmm, a frozen banana complete with sprinkles

twinkle twinkle (our) little star

Fish Fry

There was a Fish Fry held here this weekend, and we invited The Miller 5 (known to some in this house as Nathan, Wagon, You-kis, Jil-yee and baby Meeyah) to join us and check it out. As it turns out, Ruby's sounded better, so we earned our lunch by walking the planks of the pier and enjoying a scrumptious meal there. We did lots of relaxing the rest of the time, and the Nathan's took the older kids down to the beach before dinner for a chilly dip in the water. A fun day was had by all!

sweet Mia

silly Jilly

watching the body surfers

Lucas has experience with seals... Slick was tame in comparison

Morgan's 2nd Birthday

Enough with the possum stories (no more incidents to report, but I hope to get a live trap from Animal Control tomorrow), lets get on with more important things! We celebrated Morgan's birthday with the rest of her family on Saturday with a fun filled day at the beach and a yummy bbq at their house that evening.

Happy birthday Mo-Mo!

our little friend

Nathan and I were just sitting here in the living room, discussing real estate, when he calmly said: "Well, our little friend is back." I immediately exclaimed, "Really?" and stood up on my chair... like the possum couldn't climb up and get me.

So, it turns out, they are creatures of habit. This little sucker walked right on in the front door! I got the box, Nathan's bamboo sticks (left over from his old Jeet Kune Do days) to coax it, and a flashlight. Basically the light scared him back out the front door. He ran into our backyard and right into the baby gate at our back door. He would have climbed it in two seconds if we weren't chasing him with a flashlight. Instead, he scurried around back and into some landscape.

Ugh.

They are faster than they look, and he didn't seem as big as he did on the shower curtain rod.

I remembered our broken screen on that side of the house, and had Nathan go and duct-tape it to the window for a quick-fix for tonight. I want to get some sleep.

Any of you folks reading this while living in more rural areas are probably laughing hysterically right now. If so, at least someone is getting a kick out of this. Nathan said he should have taken a picture of me running after him with the bamboo sticks... now THAT would have been funny.

And by funny, I mean embarrasing.

For something more joyous: here is a picture of Amelia enjoying her donut with sprinkles yesterday morning. She kept saying "THANK YOU, Mommy!"

Didelphimorph follow up

Due to the overwhelming response to my last post, I guess I'd better let you all know some more details. : ) We got an empty box and Nathan knocked the thing in there and released him into the alley. So we're halfway expecting him back now. Eeek!

A few months ago our neighbor saw a mother opossum and eight babies following her into our neighbor's yard. Maybe they live there? I had forgotten about them until Friday night.

I had a bit of trouble going back to sleep after the whole incident. Thoughts such as: okay, there are eight babies, how many of them are in my house right now? Is one curled up snuggling with Amelia? Did it get in our bedroom window? The one with the broken screen? No, it must have waltzed in the front or back door. Most likely the back door. But that has a baby gate on it! Apparently no problem for a possum to climb since it climbed my shower curtain! You see, the way our house is set up, we can't have proper screen doors as one on the front door would open up right into our car, and the back door opens out, so we can't have one on that door either. Our solution are cheap walk-through screens that keep the flies out but not R.O.U.S.'s (Rodents of Unusual Size).

'Possum

3:15 am: I was up feeding Wyatt and headed into the bathroom to discover two beady little eyes looking at me from above. My middle-of-the night blur quickly became an adrenaline rush wondering if I was seeing things or if there really was a rodent type animal sitting on top of my shower curtain? I went and woke my slumbering husband, who does not like to get up during the night, but he was gracious to my request to somehow dispose of what I had now figured out was a baby opossum. And of course, we got a picture of this weird occurrence before he got him down.

Tehachapi for the Fourth

For some fabulous Fourth of July festivities, we were able to make our way to Tehachapi for the weekend. We spent some quality time relaxing, meeting up with old friends, and soaking up the perfect mountain air. We were also fortunate enough to have some time with GG Adkins as her 94th birthday approaches.



Uncle Nick bought Wyatt this shirt... which, needless to say, made Daddy very proud.




A quick family portrait before heading back to 'Seauh Beach.'




Four generations of Adkins.




Face-Off at center court! It's Amelia, Paisley, and referee Faith.




Discussing politics and real estate with Shelby's father.




Amelia breaks out the 'funny face' to impress the crowd.




Faith holds Wyatt for the first time.




Summersaults in summer.




What could be better than watching SpongeBob in the comforts of Papa's living room with Gene close by to protect you from any ne'er-do-wells??




Fourth of July Parade in Downtown Bear Valley. And by 'Downtown,' I mean by the pond.




Amelia takes in the parade in the company of a few tame goats.




Grandma 'I-Yeen' takes Amelia and Aunt CC for a ride in her tractor. Something tells me that more rides in this tractor are in Amelia's future.

Calm Before the Fourth

Time to play a bit of catch up. Time seems to be flying by, as it often does during the summertime. We were recently treated to a visit by Uncle Ernie and Aunt Jane followed by a nice dinner with Uncle T-Bone and Aunt Kimmy.




Aunt Jane and Amelia.




Uncle Ernest (heh heh) and Aunt Jane pose for one last picture before heading back to their convention in Huntington Beach. Thanks to their generosity, Amelia and Wyatt have many new toys to play with.




Morgan holds Wyatt for the first time.




Amelia loves traipsing through the house in Mommy's 'flop-flops.'




Our neighbor Al gave us this fine discarded school-desk he found on one of his many cruises through the neighborhood. Daddy hopes she won't end up writing as many 'standards' on the chalkboard as he did in school.