Let's Here it for Christmas Spirit!

Okay, before we celebrate the true reason for the season, let's go ahead and get some pagan rituals over with....

gross






We snuck a quick meeting with Santa right before he entered the holiday parade downtown. Finn was kinda scared.



Finn's been "helping" soooooo much in the kitchen lately, making his own oatmeal in the morning and lately, helping me make Christmas cookies and fudge. These may look gross, but they were so delicious.

Beach Day in December!

Sure, if it weren't for all the lights on State Street, it would be hard to tell it's almost Christmas here in Santa Barbara. Saturday was a beautiful day, and if it's not quite cold enough for scarves and beanies yet, then we might as well wear our wet-suits and hit the beach. It's been over a year since Nate and I have surfed, so we called up our good friends Jared and Jos and went to one of our favorite spots. Finn, who has a love-hate relationship with water, found two new friends in Jared's nieces, Evie and Georgia. Did I already mention that it was a beautiful day?

It's funny how just getting a couple of good rides can make waiting out there for an hour totally worth it!





Finn, keeping a safe distance from the waves.



Evie and Finn had so much fun playing in her little dome tent. Hmmm....I know what Finn would like for Christmas.....


And guess who can sit up all by herself now.....

with a little help every 12 seconds or so.....






This is Nate saying, "You're supposed to put your wet wet-suit to dry on the rocks, NOT on my dry clothes!" (oops.)


It was so good to get out there in the peacefulness of the water with Jos. We used to go all the time. The colors of the sky and the mountains against the ocean were amazing, so peaceful.



Happy girl after a blissful nap at the beach.



crack kills.

Giving Thanks

I have so much to be thankful for right now: A loving husband, two adorable little rug-rats, a tight group of devoted friends, a great extended family and another year in beautiful santa barbara. Our Thanksgiving holiday was sweet. We saw both sides of the family. We love having our families close together....but it does make for lots of bouncing around. :-)

We spent Thanksgiving day in Yuba City, save for a 10k turkey trot in Sacramento with Aunt Jo Jo. 26,000 people participated in the Run to Feed The Hungry. The crowd was insane. I loved running through my old stomping ground though.
Thanksgiving in YC

Aunt Jo Jo


My mom did so much work to make our Thanksgiving great. A special touch this year was little individual turkeys at each place setting, made of oreos, jelly bellys, candy corns and frosting. It kind of makes my stomach turn to think about eating that combo, but they were really cute.



Great grandma "nana"



Papa Summy lookin good, ready to attack the turkey.



There's finally enough kids to have a legitimate "kids table". For years it was just my siblings and cousins....in our twenties and thirties.


We had a babysitter this year....it's called a bounce house. Kinda awesome.

Weekend in Woodland

Papa Tom and Granny Peg


We celebrated Great Grandma Alice's 90th birthday!!! I really enjoy Grandma Alice. She is so sweet and fun to talk to. It was fun to see her meet Selah for the first time, though Selah wasn't in the mood, as you can see. I like this picture anyway.


Four generations!


Reading with Uncle Dominic.


Despite the look on Finn's face, we had a great field trip to the train museum in Old Sacramento. The look on his face has more to do with the scene of a zillion kids in the toy train area...

Madness.


Uh oh......another hair cut from Papa Tom!


Daddy got one too! Twinsies!

You Just Can't Beat a Monley Wedding!

Well, Tia Lina went and got married last weekend. Wooo hoo! So, now there's a new uncle in town...Tio Mark, and we love him. The Monley clan (and the Bornsteins) really know how to celebrate. Family members flew in from all over (Honduras, the East Coast, Iowa, Italy I think...) and most folks made the long drive from Northern CA. Orange County didn't know what hit it. As is a tradition in the Monley family, the wedding day kicked off with an early morning tennis tournament, the First Fourth Annual Nuptial Classic. The sweatbands and short shorts were in abundance. Here are a few pics that capture that morning.


Nate and Dominic laying down the tournament bracket and showing off their tennis outfits. Dominic looks a little too comfortable, I think.


The bride and groom celebrating a win over me and Dominic. I stink at tennis. Sorry Domo.


Just hamming it up with Lina.


Lookin good.




Best shorts of the day goes to.....cousin Jason. (This photo may have to be removed, for I did NOT ask Jason's permission)

Nate and his brothers played beautiful music during the ceremony and I was a bridesmaid, so we had our hands full most of the time running around with the kids and doing our wedding duties. Besides one incident (you may ask me personally....not gonna blog about it) staying at the Embassy Suites with a ton of family was a blast. Some of the best times of the weekend were spent just hanging with everyone over breakfast. The kids loved getting to know the extended family....and all the attention.

The wedding was beautiful and everything went so smoothly. Lina and Mark are adorable together and we are so happy for their union.


The beautiful bride and groom.


Proud parents




Lina and her loving brothers.



Finnegan loved hangin with Uncle Josh. They are two peas in a pod...both into percussion instruments and seeing how things work, like this big oil pump they found.



The ladies.

Family, Friends, Fevers and Fires

Wow. The past few days has been a whirl-wind of events. With the recent Tea Fire here in Santa Barbara and Montecito, friends have been temporarily displaced and some have even lost their homes, including my recent boss at Westmont and his family along with 13 other Westmont faculty. The fires were pretty amazing and came on so quickly. It was scary to watch (we could see much of it from our house at times). The air quality was so bad that night and the next morning that we decided to get outta dodge early and head to Tustin, Orange County to visit Tia Lina for her bachelorette festivities. Apparently we brought the fires with us, as 3 different fires blazed through their county. Yikes. Finn woke up feverish and vomiting in the middle of the night and spent the next 24 hours in and out of bed. But our visit with Tia Lina and friends was good, especially considering we were there in the wake of the recent passing of her soon-to-be father in law. It was good to be together I think, to share some meals, some hugs and even some laughter. We are really looking forward to a Monley wedding next weekend as Lina and Mark get hitched!



Poor sick little Finn.


Lina's roommate and maid of honor, Robin was a God-send! She took care of our family as we took care of sick Finn.....and took over her bedroom.


Krista, Lina and Jenny...enjoying some low-key bachelorette fun.


Lina got all the bridesmaids these sweatbands to wear for the traditional tennis tournament that takes place the morning of all the Monley weddings.

AND NOW......Some recent pics of our easy-going Selahbob.

So Cal Vacation

We took a long weekend and headed down south to do some touristy stuff. Along the way we stayed with friends in Newport who have three kids. Little Mary, Aubrey and James were adorable. Aubrey and Finn connected right away. Here are some cute pics of the two of them. Aubrey is so cute here. It looks like Finn never quite got it together...

After visiting some more friends in the Newport area we headed to San Diego to spend time with the Jeremiah and Joanna Heath. Their kids Owen and Elizabeth took to our kids right away....expecially to Selah. They LOVED Selah! I think she enjoyed the attention, since Finn doesn't really give her much. :-)

The Heaths came with us on our day at Sea World. It was a blast. We were there for 7 hours.....we closed the place down. I've never seen Finn so tired in my life.

I can't wait until I can put pigtails in Selahs hair like Elizabeth "Bugs" has here. I think it's so cute. She reminded me of the little girl in Monsters Inc.

Our timid little boy was pretty adventurous and went all all the kiddy rides and wasn't scared of any of the animals. (He is kind of scared of little dogs so I wasn't sure how Sea World would go.)




Finn probably spent an hour just running and thrashing around in this soft kid area made for toddlers.


We got some funny looks from people when we took our infant and toddler and sat down in the "Soak Zone" for the dolphin show. We were pretty far away. We didn't get wet.

Selah was a trooper. She just hung out all day with no complaint and slept a lot.