Guess Who Got to See Santa?

.....Well the little guys got to see Santa too. (Thank goodness they kept their pants on.) Evan cried and wouldn't sit for the photo. Sam was amped to tell Santa everything that he wants for Christmas. The list keeps growing. I advice him that he might want to narrow it down a bit.

Sam is sooooooo excited about the gingerbread house we put together! Can you tell?

Celebrating Evan's First Year

"One day, someone calls her 'Mother'. This is what she remains for the rest of her life."

-Cao Xue Qin

(I turned to this in my daily quote book on the day I went into labor with Evan. Then, I immediately called my Mom and told her to change her flight. Thankfully, she made it that night @9pm and Evan was born early the next morning @ 7am.)

*See post below for a slideshow of Evan's first year.

Yosemite

Oh the glory of this beautiful place! You must put this on your checklist of places you want to see in your lifetime. And if you go make sure you're not camping with little ones in November. We naively headed for the mountains from our constantly comfortable existence at sea level expecting maybe a slight chill (we really should have known better). The first morning we awoke to the sound of a bear gulping down orange juice (I'll elaborate more on this in a bit) and to a bitter 16 degrees. The kids were crying because they couldn't feel their hands and we spent the morning huddled around the fire. That first day we realized that due to the location of our camping spot deep in the canyon, we would not get the sun until high noon and after a few hours it would hurry off behind the other side of the towering granite walls. From then on we were up early and out of there, off to find the sun.

Evan's dirty suit. (Thanks for the idea Aims.) He had multiple layers underneath. Evan loved to crawl around and get into whatever he could so we just let him have at it, then stripped off the outermost layer when it was time to get into the van.

Hiking to higher ground. Joe, Evan, and our friend Mike.

I got to snuggle with both of my boys all night long in the comfort of our van's queen size bed. It was seriously really warm and cozy, and we should have slept peacefully if it wasn't for Sam getting sick and the bear that I previously mentioned coming back to our camp night after night. Yosemite has an issue with a surprising number of Black Bears that are no longer like traditional, wild bears. They are addicted to human food and therefore campers must store all food, toiletries, and anything with a scent in the bear locker-locked. Well the second night I was awakened by the sound of a bear munching on potato chips. I called to Joe above to scare the bear away. He looked out to see a large bear who had just hit the jackpot. Our friends had mistakenly left their food storage box unlocked and the bear was eating its way through the weekend's food supply. Joe started honking the horn and flashing our lights to get the bear to bolt. When the bear took off Joe, only slightly scared, hurried out of the van, shoved the food in the box, locked it, then back inside. Yes, the bear came back and thankfully didn't smell anything it wanted inside our van so it moved on to the next camp. The third night we were all extra cautious to make sure that everything was correctly put away and it worked. The bear stopped by, but didn't stick around. However, the following morning we got to see a different bear taking a nap in a tree overlooking the park's market. By this time we're actually getting quite comfortable seeing bears and let me tell you these are not small bears. So our last night, Oct. 31, we (adults) are sitting around the fire telling scary stories when our friend pauses and completely calm says, "Hey there's the bear." And sure enough the bear is just prancing down the road. We could hear screams, banging pots, and other loud noises as the bear made its way through the campground. Pretty scary Halloween-eh?!

A scenic bike ride. This is El Capitan, a famous climbing route. Look how small I am. Crazy climbers.

Lunch break. Sam enjoyed making an avalanche of rocks rolling down the river bank.

Sammy...this is his "I now know how to do a cheesy smile for the camera" pose.

Love this photo of the brothers. This was our last day camping. Sam is feeling better while Evan is beginning to get the crud which by the end of the drive moved to his lungs which meant our trip ended at the ER. (It took us weeks to recover from this trip. Hence my tardiness my fellow bloggers.)

The drive home took us up above the park, then south along the Eastern Sierras. So, so beautiful! Despite the challenges traveling out of LA (and a few others), it was and is so worth it to see all the magnificent and diverse terrain that California has to offer. BTW: this was our first family camping trip with the van....so worth it!

Visitors

Despite the coziness of our place here, we still love to have visitors. Russ and Julie took a break from all of their house projects to enjoy a little beach time and more importantly play with our boys. After spending a year together in Steamboat, we miss seeing them on a regular basis. Thanks to the "powder day" Russ got to experience surfing and Julie's smooth time on the stand up paddle board, we hope they'll make this an annual vacation. Next up....Grandma and Grandpa Carberry. We can't wait!

Aunt Julie hooking the P's up. aka: Helping w/ bedtime routine.

Trails Beach: Sam likes being buried w/ Uncle Russ

Uncle Russ having fun as well.

Now to bury Sam solo.

Maybe this is a nice time to let Evan have a little payback.

Evan likes this!

Pumpkin Heads

Wanted to change our new "wave shot" to this great photo taken by our friend, Robert Zaleski (he is also the Art Director for C&K). Work forced Joe to take the weekend and explore the less inhabited coast north towards Big Sur. They traveled with their overnight gear strapped on to stand-up paddle boards to a surf spot only accessible from the water. On their ten mile trek they bumped into a dead male whale. Hopefully Joe will share more from his adventure along with photos in another post soon.

Walking.....

...well almost with his Walker Wagon. (Thanks G & G Carberry for the early birthday gift). This is the first toy that Evan recognizes as his and therefore gets very frustrated when Sam disturbs his playtime with it. Sam does enjoy pushing Evan in this and Evan can actually push Sam as well. It is nice to have something that Evan can walk with because otherwise he wants me to walk everywhere with him. I guess he prefers to be upright now like the rest of us.

Next up....you might recognize these cute little buns of steel from a similar photo about 2 years ago. At three and a half, making their reappearance and looking just as tight as ever. Sam once again initiated this look on his own. The boys were already naked due to our impromptu dip into the pool out back, but the boots were his own idea. He even put "princess shoes" on next which I was unable to document because the camera's battery died.

And our water boy.....he could play out here all day if I would let him. He actually dives in and slips and slides around. (Notice how low the water level is.) Love and miss you all!

Beginning to feel a wee bit like Fall....

I didn't notice it last year, but this year I can tell the subtle change of seasons here in Southern California. The temperature is hot in the daytime and thankfully is beginning to cool at night. Some leaves do change color and fall here, however most just winterize meaning they aren't as green due to less sunlight hours. We are enjoying the Fall harvest as I am sure many of you are from your backyard gardens. Unlike you, our harvest is coming from one of the only actual farms left here on this fertile soil. We recently became part owners of the South Coast Organic Farm where we receive a weekly CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) basket of food. The food is amazing! Sam loves to check out the bountiful basket and I enjoy the variety of vegetables that I normally wouldn't purchase. Why did we ever move away from this way of eating?




Check out this cheesy grin. Evan is all about smiling. He is enthusiastic about everything and is particularly fond of the bathroom. He's already locked himself in there and got the plastic bolt cover on the toliet stuck in his mouth. I can't believe he's ten months already and walking is just around the corner.

Big Week

Monday we celebrated Joe's 33rd year. Sam loves birthdays! He wants to celebrate any and all. He helped me make the birthday cake, frost and decorate it with of course, his guys. These particular guys happened to be surfing. We made signs, homemade cards, and wrapped up a few items from @ the house. As you can see below, Sam can't get enough of the frosting.

Tuesday was Sam's first day of Serra Preschool. On the way there he kept confirming with me that I would be dropping him off with his teacher and not staying with him. I could tell that he was a little nervous, but at the same time excited. He greeted his teacher with hand picked flowers, put his bucket in his cubby and was off. When I picked him up later he told me, "I had fun mom."

Our family band!
Julie-notice how Sammy plays the guitar.

The Van

In the Blackhurst Family when one says "the van" it brings up memories of one hiding in a row of seats after being picked up from junior high, or wrestling with several siblings on the back platform, or of course many of us experienced running out of gas because dad thought there was enough gas to take the scenic route home. For some reason our dad always had a special place in his garage for this beast and still does. Well, our little family decided to purchase a van which will hopefully bring new meaning to the word. So here we introduce our latest addition: The Carberry Eurovan. So scroll on down for a glimpse of some of the fun we have already experienced going to the beach with our new van.


At Old Man's Beach. Notice the pop top which allows for standing room and a built in bed. The back bench fold out into another bed. Sam has already taken dibs on the top bunk. Just think, now we have a traveling guest room!

Sam is showing how we use the inside table. There is also a small refridgerator underneath the back seat. I had to get over the whole sand in the van issue. We have a bucket of water for the dirty feet, a towel, and then we sweep the rest out with a broom.

Evan on the move. The van has earned its worth already just for the simple fact that Evan took three naps in there last Saturday at SanO. Because you will probably be seeing a lot more of the van in the camping months ahead, enjoy some cute photos of the boys that our friend Jeff Moag took.

p.s. Feel free to share some of your memories of the van. Love and miss you all!

So Squeezable!

Lately.....

Evan is on the move. He wants up and then down. Sam's Lego's are put up high. The books and magazines are flying off of the shelves. And yes Sue, my baskets under the bench are dumped out daily as you predicted. The beach now means constantly pulling the sand, seaweed, and other oddities out of his mouth which by the way is now filled with six rather large chompers (4 top, 2 bottom).




I like to blame the teeth for Evan's new resistance to sleep. He has been getting up every two hours at night and taking only two 30 min. naps in the day. He, I thought was my sleeper. As you other mamas with babes can understand this wears you down after several days of this and then you start to be short tempered, impatient, negative, all those lovely things that begin to wear on the rest of the family (sorry Joe). Ahhhhhh.......

Luckily Sam is sleeping soundly and eating.....& eating.....& eating. In the AM it goes something like this: cereal, juice, breakfast bar, toast or pancakes, ham or hard boiled egg, and after all of that he'll often have room for a smoothie. Imagine all of the feeding I'll be doing as the boys get older.
Random shot: This is Sam at his first Angel's baseball game which we got free tickets to a couple of wks. ago. Our seats were of course up in the nosebleed section so we tried to snag some empty seats a little closer. This was just before we got caught.


Evan looking so peaceful as he sleeps. Kristie has the magic touch and helped get him to nap several times while they were here vacationing. He's so precious....my cherub.

While Joe stayed home with our sleepy and not so sleepy wee ones, I got to to out and have a much needed night out with my girlfriend Grace. She had free tickets to a concert with Diana Krall at The Hollywood Bowl. The hour drive up to the city reminded my that my mom did this commute twice a day while she was here for her doula training, definitely an impressive feat and thank goodness for GPS. The concert was well worth the drive. Diana Krall is known for her soothing deep voice and smooth jazz on the piano. Check her out on Pandora.

The Hollywood Bowl. You might remember seeing it from the movie "Beaches".