Hat whacking Joe

Some things are priceless. Well, maybe not priceless, but at least silly and awesome like this picture:

I am easy to spot in the picture. I am the one with the squished up face and sour mouth. You might, however, find it more difficult to spot Joe. That is because he too busy getting whacked in the face with the brim of a Dodgers baseball hat to have bothered to smile for the picture.

Do you know who did smile for the picture? The guy who's hat flew off and hit Joe in the face. Yes, that's him. The one two rows up with the big head and HUGE cheesy smile.

Luckily, the guy one row behind him was busy clinging to the guy next to him, so he dodged the chapeau that then hit Joe.

Is this funny to anyone? I still laugh every time I see this picture (which is why it may be priceless). Perhaps it is because I can still see Joe's baffled face as he wiped a baseball hat out of his eyes and handed it back to it's rightful owner. Or, perhaps it is because we laughed and laughed for as long as I can remember for a really long time. Or, perhaps it is because we were just so happy to be acting like kids, riding roller coasters and hanging out together for the first time in what seems like ages.

In any case, we had a great time enjoying our annual passes and decided that we will have to make a repeat visit soon. We also stopped for a picture with this rather large monkey just to awe and delight our daughter.

And delight her we did. When we showed Maggie this picture, after making enthusiastic monkey noises, she ran to get her stuffed "George" monkey that she got for Christmas from her Aunt Sam and Uncle Jeff. Then, she made sure that the person monkey in the picture was smothered with stuffed monkey kisses, complete with kissing noises and more monkey sounds.

Also, this afternoon date was all possible thanks to a great friend, Emily, who watched Maggie while Joe and I acted like teenagers. And, when we eventually got home, this is what we found:

So, all in all, I would say it was a great day.

San Simeon

Los Angeles is great. I love living here. Don't get me wrong; I love the beach, the weather, the traffic. Ahem, I mean . . . did I mention the traffic?

So, back in November when we had the rare chance to escape, we headed up the coast to San Simeon where we met my sister Jenni and her family.

Camping + toddlers + cold + family + bubbles + elephant seals (hundreds, literally) + the beach = vacation (hopefully deserved), fun, and not quite enough sleep. Luckily Maggie is a cuddle bug, so sleeping in a tent is not too much of a problem.

We visited Hearst Castle, an incredibly fascinating place, built by eccentric billionaire William Randolph Hearst in the 1920-1930's. Hearst imported art from Rome, Italy, France, etc; some dating back as far as 230 A.D. In the creation of his castle, he was inspired by his childhood tours of Europe, and if you were to erase the palm trees in the picture below, you would probably be more likely to think that the picture was taken, well certainly not in California. One of the pools, styled after a Roman bath house, is mosaic'd with tiles including some made of clear glass fused with gold.

Maggie kind of adored her cousin Lydia. Once, she managed to catch Lydia in a hug. Meanwhile, Lydia called out for help, "Momma, stuck! Stuck!"

A rare family photo. We slipped tube socks on Maggie arms to keep her little hands warm while we were hiking.

I like these two.

The little girls started their lunch (the part that the seagulls did not fly away with) while sitting on rocks that would never have reasonably seemed seat sized. They have such tiny bums. So cute.

Watching a toddler eat a sandwich at the beach is painful.

Maggie is past putting handfuls of sand in her mouth just for the heck of it (at least mostly; she has been going through an dirt eating phase that I have not entirely figured out).

Still, I just turned my head when she used her sandwich to dig in the sand at a beach birthday picnic. I am not sure that she did any sandwich-sand digging on this day, but she has definitely brought a new definition to sand-wich. Ha Ha Ha.

I just want to kiss those wind-burned cheeks.

Christmas

1. Idaho. Utah. Family (wonderful). Cold, but no white Christmas this year
2. Seeing Maggie with her grandparents made me really happy
3. 4 little rugrats running, jumping, screaming around a bright pink princess tent
4. Painting cookies with 4 toddlers = lots of extra sugar, a big mess, and lots of fun
5. Staying up way too late playing games--wouldn't be a family get together if we didn't
6. One super long and super intense laser tag game in which the girls destroyed the guys (okay maybe we didn't destroy them, but having superior guns and vests didn't hurt)
7. Lots of cousins, aunts, uncles. Maggie loved playing with her cousins!
8. Santa is awesome (Does that mean I am awesome?)
9. New Year's Feast!
10. Maggie pulled a Christmas tree down . . . twice
11. Trampoline fun
12. Maggie having a full-on thrash around on the floor and scream temper tantrum just as we lined up to board the plane; nobody even noticed ha ha ha
13. After my mom dropped a veggie tray on the floor . . . Tabs said, "No, no grandma!" She thought it over for a minute, and added, "It's okay Grandma. It was an accident."
14. It was great to have a houseful of people on Christmas morning.