Here are some more random pictures of what we've been up to lately...




Reading a book while driving. ***Warning*** Kids, do not attempt under any circumstances. This stunt should only be done by highly trained professionals (or children 1 year old or younger).







Elijah testing out this artistic abilities on our wall. Where are his parents???







Spaghetti night! Natalie totally got into it.









Time for a quick swim in the pool.







And what day would be complete without some home-made orange juice popsicles? Ahh, this is the life!

More Projects

Here are some pictures of our latest projects. We're always doing something around our house. It never stays the same for very long.

One of our main art projects for Elijah's new room was making pictures to hang on his wall. In his old room, we did bug pictures made from cut-outs from magazines. We did the same thing this time, except we made pictures of some of Elijah's favorite toys that he likes to play with.


(L-R Top): Garbage Truck, School Bus, Police Car; (L-R Bot): Train, Fire Truck, Bulldozer


Here are upclose pictures of two of them - the Garbage Truck and Fire Truck. The glass makes the pictures a little warped...their not...really.










We also found some super old board games at an antique flea market on Sunday and hung them up on Elijah's wall above his bed - (L-R)"Chutes and Ladders," "Feed the Animals," and "Winnie the Pooh."



In Natalie's room, Laura collected a random assortment of frames from our local thrift stores, painted them white, and then sewed fabric letters on patterned fabric to spell-out Natalie's name.


This coming weekend is Labor Day weekend and I'm sure we'll be working on more stuff. More to come.

Lame-O Ticket

Let me just start off by saying, "Don't ever get a ticket in Ventura County."

While we were on vacation in Ventura in July, we went for a drive looking for a ColdStone. Laura had the address so we drove to go find it, but it wasn't there!? Very disappointing. "It has to be around here somewhere?" We kept driving around, up and down Ventura Blvd. looking at every store/ shop/ restaurant ...no luck. Totally lame. We decided to give it one more pass. On that last pass, we thought we'd look extra careful, just in case we had missed it the other 20 times we looked. "It has to be on this corner." So we turned into the intersection, but we were looking so hard, that we didn't notice that the light had turned red. We ran the red light (you can't just stop half way in the intersection). Anyway, it just so happened that this intersection was equipped with cameras...and we got our picture taken.

Sure enough, when we got back from our vacation, a ticket was waiting for us in the mail. Here are some of the pictures they included with our ticket...just in case we forgot and wanted a souvenir from our vacation. Yup, that's a picture of me driving. I guess everyone else in the picture gets a bubble over their face.









Here's the really dumb part. So when you get a ticket you go to traffic school...which is usually pretty easy because you take it online, take the silly test, they mail the completion certificate to the court and your done. That's NOT the case when you get a ticket in Ventura. Oh, by the way, did I mention that the ticket was $385 dollars!!! Anyway, usually when you finish the online portion of the course, you take the final exam. Ventura requires that you take the final exam in person...meaning that you have to either go to the court and take it or go to a Notary Public and take it in their presence and have them sign it. Can you say Lame-O? Then you have to fax the test to the company, then they mail you the certificate of completion(another Ventura stipulation) and then you have to sign and mail it to the court. I guess they want to make sure you have a horrible experience so that you'll never want to get a ticket again.

Anyway, it's all over now, but I'm still bitter about it :) Oh! And I should just mention that the day after we got the ticket, we found the ColdStone while coming back from a Krispy Kreme that I guess turned into a Chick-Fil-A...2 miles up the road (shaking my head).

Our Saturday

It's fun taking pictures now that we have our camera back!!!

Here are some pictures from today.












Corn and Tomatoes from our garden. The corn looks better than it tastes. These were the first two we tried. Does anyone know anything about picking corn? Maybe we picked them too early...the corn kernals were dense and chewy.







Natalie wearing an English Constable police hat. Just a random item in our "dress-up" box.













Elijah working on his Monkey Bar skills! Hang in there, Elijah!

















One of Natalie's favorite things to do outside is play with the limes that fall off our tree.













Elijah and Natalie going down the slide.




















Towel Heads!!!

Our Camera Saga

Long story short, we have our camera back. It broke about a month ago (almost to the day). For some odd reason, the lens stopped working...it extended out and would no longer retract nor could we take pictures anymore.

Our camera wasn't even a year old! We bought it last September, so it was still under warranty. After talking with Canon reps, we ended up shipping it back to their service center in Illinois to get fixed. We got a letter back saying that our warranty wasn't accepted and it was going to cost us $130 to get it fixed. Whatever. I called them right away. They pointed out that our camera had a small impact dent in the left corner and that voided our warranty. There was no impact damage...that was their way of trying to get out of fixing it. I specifically remember there being no dents on our camera. The only way it could have gotten dented is while being shipped, but I packed it pretty good...unless the UPS truck ran over it a few times, there was no way it could have gotten damaged. When I pushed them on the subject, they had another technician "examine" the camera and they said they'd fix it as a courtesy (just this time). Translation: "there really was no damage." They knew as well as I did that even if there was a tiny little dent on the exterior, it was nowhere near the lense and could never mess it up that bad where the lens stopped working. That's right they'll fix it! Anyway, they fixed it and we now have our camera back :)

When we got our camera back, I checked where the dent supposedly was...there was none. That's what I thought.

Our Garden

Every year we grow a garden in our backyard. Most of the time, the stuff we grow turns out just ok. Last year was a complete dud...especially our tomatoes and corn...maybe it's the SMOG or the fact that our backyard is just below the a major freeway? Usually, we'll plant everything along our fence, but this year we created a 10 ft x 12 ft plot to grow our garden. I think we made a good choice. Everything is growing much better and is very healthy for a change.



In our garden this year, we are growing: 4 types of tomatoes, bell peppers, green onions, cilantro, basil, chives, zucchini, yellow squash, cucumber, and sweet corn. Can't wait to eat it all! Yum.