Beach

This kid likes sand.

Too much sand for my taste.

At least he has a well-exfoliated digestive system. 

Jillian after her panic attack. (No joke). This was a high surf day, and the waves came within 8 feet of our blanket. She LOST it. After dragging the blanket behind the lifeguard tower, and putting the umbrella between her and the ocean, she regained composure and collected miniature sea shells the rest of the time. I think this is a sunflower seed she is holding in the picture though...

Happy Birthday Ev!

Our Ev turned five last week, and we had most of Ben's side of the family here for it. It was a lot of fun to see everyone. All her presents (except for a soccer ball) were for school. She made bank in the clothing department (thanks everyone!), and really enjoys modeling them. She is so excited to go to school in September. 

3 weeks before her birthday, I asked her what kind of cake she would like. She told me, "Strawberry ice cream cake." After much clarification, I figured out she wanted strawberry ice cream, in cake form. I've never made an ice cream cake, so this concoction turned out well considering that. It had a golden Oreo crust, one layer of strawberry ice cream (Breyer's), a layer of sliced pound cake smeared with strawberry jam, and then another layer of strawberry ice cream and crushed Oreos and sliced strawberries on top. It was a hit, and I will be making it again. 

Great Park

Here in Orange County, there is an old air base that was sold a while back, and the developers are turning it into a huge park. It will be larger than Central Park in New York City when finished. It's the same park where we take the hot air balloon ride. A week ago they had a five year anniversary party, which was more like a county fair. We weren't able to see everything unfortunately, but it was all free! There was so much for the kids to do, and I wish we could have been there longer. 

Fun petting zoo. Gordon wanted to play in the animal water dishes. This was located in the part of the park labeled "the north 40." It will have a working farm for people to come visit when it's finished. 

Ben LOVES airplanes. Gordon liked watching the vintage air show with Daddy. This was the first time we hear Gordon say "whoa!"

The girls were enthralled by this ballet company's booth. 

The armed forces were out, doing drills and taking pictures. This was a big truck the girls were in. 

One part of the park is called "the gallery," where all the kid's crafts, music, dance, and museum booths were. The park developers are leaving most of the original air base structures intact and restoring them and using them for concert venues. This large swath of concrete is part of a run way-turned-sidewalk chalk project. 

It's going to be an awesome park when it's done, but we won't be here to see it finished. It's speculated that it will going to be another 10 years before the park finished. I guess that will be one reason to come back and vacation here. 

Gone

In May, a series titled "How the Universe Works" began airing on Discovery. It was very cool, and I am kind of a nerd like that. It's trying to take basic astronomy principles, and make them understandable to the public. They pair it with cool graphics, and Mike Rowe narrates. Any way. On one episode they talk about these:
This is a simulation of a black hole, a feature of our universe that sucks up surrounding matter and light, never to be seen again.

I think I have one in my house.

It may or may not be related to this:

We have had Ben's wallet, his school ID, and our checkbook completely disappear in the last month. We turned the house upside-down, prayed, to no avail. So we watched for identity theft to show up, thinking Ben had lost his wallet at school. There hasn't been any weird activity, so we are very grateful for that. But it still leads us to question where these things went. I have found some random stuff in our waste baskets lately, and wondered why it was there. Yesterday when I was baking, Gordon got out my aluminum mixing bowls, walked over to our garbage can, opened the lid and confidently tossed them in. So that is confirming our suspicions that some of our belongings are ending up in the black hole that is the landfill.

Better the landfill than with an ID thief. Still better would be if these things had stayed in the house...