Fall camping at Mount Laguna

We headed up to Mount Laguna about an hour away on Friday afternoon for a weekend full of camping. However, as soon as we got there and felt the extreme cold, we had doubts as to whether we would make it all weekend. We met Jo and Shelly and their families and had fun watching Cole and Bailie enjoy the outdoors. Cole has grown so much since I last saw him and his blue eyes are about the most beautiful I've ever seen on a child - just like his mom and dad! Bailie is at such a fun age now and stole the show while we were there. We had to go into Jo and Steve's giant tent instead of sitting out by a fire because the wind was so strong we couldn't have a fire and couldn't stand the cold outside of the tent. We had fun playing games and watching Bailie walk back and forth from mom to dad. Scott and I felt very small with our tiny tent and tiny backpacking gear while the other couples had huge tents and everything else you would need for car camping. However, Scott and I were lucky because our tent fit perfectly between two trees and kept us out of the wind while both of the other couples didn't sleep a wink due to the extreme wind over and through their tents. After a 30-something degree night, we all decided to leave the next day. But not before a hike around to at least see the area where we had camped and an afternoon where we could finally have a fire and make some S'mores.

Nancy in San Diego

Nancy came to visit and we had a really nice day with yummy food and a great walk on the beach. We walked up around Torrey Pines and then way down along Black's beach. We saw beautiful waves, hang-gliders, and lots of naked men! No pictures of the latter - sorry. ;-)

Seattle

After years of trying to plan this trip, Terri and I finally picked a weekend and headed up to Seattle to see Andria. I hadn't seen her since before leaving for Costa Rica, so this was quite a treat! Caleb is now 3, whereas he was under a year old when I last saw him. He's grown up so much and is the sweetest little thing now. He talks constantly and completely cracked me up - but he's also so polite! And Lauren I hadn't met yet, but what a treat! It took her a while to get used to us and she did a lot of staring, but once she warmed up, her smiles made your heart melt (well, the staring made my heart melt too, what can I say?) Andria and Kevin are doing wonderfully and it was so great to see them and wonderful to get to go out with the girls again! We just missed you, Katie!! We even went on an old buggy ride driven by a tractor! :-)

Old men and Badgers

It's football time again and that means games as the Badgers bar. But this time, we started with a get together to celebrate Greg's 35th birthday. And since he was halfway to 70, we all dressed in plaid (the men as old and the girls as, well.... cute). The bar kicked us all out mid-game because of an electrical fire and we headed to the old Badgers bar who must have been excited to have so many people eager to drink coming in. The night ended with an attempt at karaoke, but the lame DJ was only putting people on who paid him off. Lamplighter is NOT the place to go for karaoke.