Visitors, Visitors, and More Visitors!

July has always been my favorite month, for a very good reason, of course ;) And this July was NO exception! We were so happy and felt so lucky to have some of our very most favorite people come to visit us this month.
Sister Zoi, aka auntie "o-wee", and Jen came first. It was a whirlwind couple of days, but soooo much fun! What did Zoi and Jen want to do when they were here? A nice dinner... no, go to the beach, perhaps... no, they wanted to go to DISNEYLAND!! Crazy, I know, I never excpected that. But we had a really fun time!

Our silly family on It's a Small World; Kalani's FAVORITE ride.


Arrrrgh!


Next came Carrlee! Kalani liked to call her "dow-wa". Carrlee is my beach buddy, for sure. So we spent a good amount of our time at the beach soaking up the california sunshine and working on our tans :) We went out on my birthday, yes out, and we didn't get home until 1:30am! I have not been out that late in over 2 years!! We had a REALLY fun time too. We got wined and dined by the boy's (thanks John, Wes, and Riviera magazine) and then went bar hopping, again, something I had not done in over 2 years. We even went dancing, yeah, it was awesome! Of course, in our drunken night of fun we didn't think to pull out our cameras to snap any shots, but I do have a few from earlier in the day. We went to the beach in the morning then had burgers (turkey and veggie, he he) for lunch. All in all it was a really perfect day, and a REALLY perfect birthday!!


Kalani sleeping in the booth at Ruby's on the Balboa Pier. My Birthday lunch.


Kalani helping Carrlee with her clothes in the morning; she taught him how to say "bra" which he has NOT forgotten ;)


Ahhhhh, kisses (nice hand placement K!)

Kalani has also become a climbing monkey; I think he was enjoying showing off for all of his visiting buddies and getting some pretty great reactions! He still doesn't say the word "no" which I thought was really great until recently... he now screams instead. This photo shows both of these behaviors quite well!



He climbed up onto his water table (which stands about 2 feet off the ground) and refused to get back down!

Last, but most definitely no least, Great Aunt Kathy and Great Grandpa came down south too! It felt so nice to have more family in town. We had some good nights BBQ-ing and chatting at my mom's house on Lido. Then we finished up there stay with a nice dinner (and a little wine tasting) at Fred and Sue's house.

Happy 4th of July!

We got all around the county yesterday for our July 4th celebration; we went down to visit Granny Sue and Grandpa Fred at Niguel Shores for a yummy pancake breakfast in the morning, then we headed to Nana's house on Lido. From there we decided to pack up and WALK to Balboa Peninsula to see what this day was really all about here in OC! It was CRAZY!!! There were thousands of people everywhere you looked, walking, riding bikes, and generally just partying! This was a big change from the usual northwest festivities that I am used to; generally starting in the afternoon/evening and really focusing on the firework show at the end. Oh no, the party starts first thing in the morning here and goes on strong all day long! We hung out at the beach, had a couple drinks at the bar, hung out at the beach some more, then headed back to Nana's for some fireworks. Kalani liked it! He wasn't scared at all!! He actually got sleepy and ended up nursing thru half of our "show" (whats new, ha ha). All in all we had a great day!

Kalani watching the "snakes" fireworks.