It was so fun to get together with my extended family so everyone could meet the babies!

We headed up to the San Fernando Valley to my aunt and uncles and spent a really nice afternoon with aunts, uncles, cousins and even the kids’ great-grandma. It was such a treat for me to see my grandma and for her to see the kiddos.

Thanks especially to my Aunt Laurel and cousins for organizing it, and to everyone for the sweet gifts.

My brother took some great photos at the BBQ including some really cute ones of us in the pool. You can check them out here.

So, I’ve had all these great intentions of posting more regularly but I knew I needed to catch up on June first. Well, now that July is almost over, I guess it’s finally time to just wrap it up and move on!! So bear with this long post…

Father’s Day

We had a great Father’s day. It started with doughnuts at VG’s in Cardiff, followed by church, and then we headed out to Torrey Pines for a little hike with my dad. I loved getting to celebrate my hubby and my dad together! I love them both so much, and they are both such great dads. We missed having David’s parents with us because Jeri was sick but were thinking of Dan as well on such a special day. We are truly blessed in the father department.

Hiking was so fun. Gigi did a great job on her first real hike as a walker. She’s done several on david’s backpack but she really enjoyed checking everything out and seeing the views. Hiking with a little walker is much slower, but still fun.

Then we came home for a great dinner and ice cream for dessert.

Here’s the album with a few more photos.

Mom’s Birthday

We also celebrated my mom’s birthday this month. She was out of town for her actual day so we all met for dinner the next weekend (for some delicious seafood!). It was fun to celebrate her– she is an awesome mom and Yaya!!

Hangin’ With Old Friends

Another highlight in June was a visit from our good friends the Berrys from Portland. Dave was David’s college roommates (anyone remember the guy with 2 left shoes at our wedding?!) and our kids are pretty close in age which is fun. We went swimming, had good pizza, beer, and conversations, and even hit up a garage sale across the street before they left.

Oh, and I, for possibly the first time, finished a whole beer (!)– California Honey by Pizza Port.

The same week, I had another little college reunion with two of my college girlfriends, Shannon and Kelly. Our babies are all really close in age and we had a fun pool playdate at my parents’ pool! Shannon was here for about a month and it was fun seeing her and her fam a few times.

Oh, and here’s our new solution to the pool causing the constant need to potty.

Here are all the random June Photos.

oh, and here’s one more cute one of the kiddos…

And our photos of the day from June (click to visit my 365 project)…

whew. that was a lot. One more event to share from June, but I’ll do another post for that. Toodles!

We had such a fun time visiting the farm we subscribe to for our CSA. We got to see the fields, pick some strawberries and they even cooked us an amazing lunch with local food. Gigi even got to meet Farmer Joe and thank him for our yummy veggies.

You can view all the photos from our farm day here.

We’re so stoked summer is here! Some friends of ours, Aaron and Michelle have a fun tradition during the summer- a BBQ at their place in downtown Encinitas every other Wednesday, complete with Corn Hole, good food and friends. We’ve gone twice now for a fun, summery time.

At the beginning of the month, Gigi, Brody and I headed up to Temecula to meet Granny, Tammy and Michael for some blueberry picking. We had lots of fun and the blueberries and honey we got were delicious. After the farm, we headed to a delicious Mexican food lunch in Old Town Temecula.

We had a fun Bennett Family get together at David’s aunt’s house this month too, to celebrate his cousin’s college graduation. Gigi loved getting to swim and hang out with the doggie, Lola, and all the cousins’ kids.

Here are all the photos from Early June.

Stacey wrote a lovely tribute to her dad yesterday and we got to spend the day with him on Sunday to celebrate his birthday.

Happy Birthday, Dad/Dan/Granpa!!

We’re adopting! Most of you probably already heard this, especially if you read my other blog, Gidget Goes Home.

If you haven’t yet, head over to our adoption page to read about our journey and keep up on the latest. I’ll be posting over there on the process, my thoughts, etc, but don’t worry, I’ll post any big news over here.

We’d love it if you would pray with/for us as we await the next member of our family!!

October was a busy month for us! Here are a couple of photo slideshows to showcase the month. (Make sure you click over if you’re in a reader or your email inbox).

We had a great time at the pumpkin patch early in the month and then a fun Halloween party with our awesome friends.

Here’s the rest of the October photos, featuring a couple of picnic dinners at the beach, the anual pancake breakfast at Papa’s fire station, a fun birthday party, and some other random things.

So we’re officially the same age for the next four months as David finally turned 28! We had fun celebrating him with some of his favorite things. We started the day with a gift of Mountain Dew and then breakfast at the Original Pancake House… YUM.

In the afternoon we had a little picnic dinner at Moonlight Beach with some friends– old and new. It was super fun, despite the thick fog.

After church the next day we went bowling with the family– both sets of parents and Alex and Angelina, too.


Have you ever seen anything as cute as toddler bowling shoes?!

Here’s a slideshow of the events.

Finally, summer arrived in full force! We’ve had great hot weather the last couple of weeks and have been enjoying summer immensely.

First, you can take a quick look at how we’ve been savoring it.

Then, enjoy a few more photographic treats here…

And finally, if you like, you can look at all the fun we’ve had this past month.

xoxo.

We spent the next leg of our trip staying with our friend from college, Nick, in Alexandria, Virginia, which is just a Metro ride from Washington, D.C. Since Gigi knows my dad’s name is Nick we had to tell her that this was a new Nick, not Papa. We all got a kick out of hearing her call him “new Mick.”

We got to see the historical landmarks that we  saw as a kid (5th grade for me and 8th grade for David) but of which we didn’t really remember much. Seeing the war memorials is pretty impressive. The new WWII memorial was really cool (we saw it at night) and made me think of my grandpa and we also saw the Iwo Jima statue at dusk which was neat. We didn’t go to the Vietnam Wall this time (didn’t want to have to try to keep Gigi quiet at such a solemn place) but wanted to give a shout out of thanks to David’s dad and Angelina’s dad for their time served in Vietnam (side note: oddly enough, they both went out of the same internment center in L.A.).

A major rain storm prevented us from seeing the Capitol building other than a drive-by photo op and also gave us quite a rain delay at the Nationals game we went to, but otherwise we had pretty nice weather and were able to do a lot of sightseeing and even go to the National Zoo, which is free!

We left Washington, D.C. to make a quick stop in Baltimore, long enough to walk around the Inner Harbor and go to an Orioles/Mariners game. As usual, there were many local Japanese fans there to cheer on Ichiro.  One of the recognized Orioles players’ number is shown below, #5, Brooks Robinson. You may be wondering why David has the sad face– my dad has a glove that was our old neighbor’s which is autographed by Brooks, but my dad (and our neighbor before him) has always played catch with it! David likes to give my dad a hard time about it–  I think he believes the glove should be in a glass case or something.

After the Baltimore game, we made the insane drive from there up to Poughkeepsie, New York, arriving around 2:30 a.m. to crash my parents hotel room. This might sound like an extreme drive, but it was worth it for a free night’s stay (thanks, Mom and Dad!) and to get to see my cousin’s graduation the next morning! We were so proud of Breanna as she graduated with her Bachelor’s from CIA– and no, I don’t mean she’s a spy. She graduated from the Culinary Institute of America! We had a delicious luncheon and got to tour the campus a little, and it is a beautiful place, right on the Hudson River. (Pictured below is me with my cousins, Breanna & Marissa.)

From there, we drove back south to New York City! More on that later, but for now, here are some photographic links for you!

• Alexandria, VA
• Washington, D.C.
• Games: Washington Nationals and Baltimore Orioles
• CIA Graduation