Chasing Bluebirds

xmas 2009

a few highlights
first look at santa's gifts

one of my favorite gifts:a chasing bluebird! bought at bella cosa our new local shop full of local crafter's items (my owls and new snakes are there, hint hint)
the bag i made (one for each girl)


so thats a glimpse of our morning, this christmas felt more relaxed for some reason, glad for that! Merry Xmas everyone!

flip flops and christmas

ugh!! it was so warm today, flip flops were in order. i have a hard time getting into the christmas spirit in this gloriously perfect weather. i crave rain and wind and snow... but still managed to complete most of my christmas present crafts, some baking (this is amazing!!) and have cookie dough ready to bake off on christmas eve. whew!!
the potential lunatics are a local kid punk rock band that we recently met up with, they are soooo awesome and i can't wait for my two camp fire groups to meet with them next year. they are home schooled and so very mature, talented, confident and self assured. watching emma i was inspired to look into guitar lessons (yes i will be starting in january) and i am reminded of my love for "the brat" and other punk rock girl bands of the 80's.

liz and our neighbor friend lauren took over the "bar" serving up soda and water.
here is a cool shot of emily. she is in the student council and recently met the mayor of long beach where she was asked to bring christmas cards for the local childrens hospital... well she took it to heart and spent hours writing up cards... begging to stay up late to finish just one more!!! i saw a real "camp fire spirit" in her and i am so proud of her! Last, i have made a new animal to sell, snakes!! i am hoping they will be a big hit at our local crafty store. pictures to come soon!

Handmade Christmas 2009

So, keeping with tradition, we are doing our handmade christmas again. I came up with three ideas for our camp fire meeting (and was lucky enough to have Jen help me, yay!!) We made compound butter (herb butter: chives, basil, salt smooshed together) which was a big hit and so easy to make. Decorated soap (something i did back in the 70's with my mom, just modge podge paper on to a bar of soap) which was also extremely easy and fun and made book plates out of name tag stickers, stamp and doodle with the words "this book belongs to" written on. I think they came out great and this weekend the girls and i will do our christmas elf routine making gifts for everyone, i am really looking forward to it!!



thanks Jen! xo

portland thanksgiving

quick peek of our recent trip to portland... more to come...hopefully!! so busy getting ready for xmas now, so behind, so crazy!
we stayed at the Kennedy School, which is a hotel made from an old schoolhouse. it was the most amazing hotel i have ever stayed in, hands down, i would highly recommend it to anyone. the place has a great restaurant, tons of beer (with it's own brewery), several fun bars (detention hall and honors bar), a fantastic movie theater (you eat pizza sitting on couches in a huge auditorium and watch brand new movies for free), amazing artwork, lots of history and the rooms are crazy fun (chalk boards all around and your closet is the old cloak room). it was inexpensive as well. the vibe is pure fun and the staff were super nice.
it was hard to get pictures though, dark dark halls.
we did several road trips: here is one to the gorge, vista house and several waterfalls


we took a drive to the coast (my love, the beach!)


we did a search for the "goonies house" and stumbled on it
plus a super cute siam mix kitty
views driving to the beach through farms were awesome as well

ok... if this post isn't kooky enough... back to the beach (cannon beach, another goonies movie spot)
ok, more to come... xo portland!

last day of summer

someone or something is "pooping" in this picture! naughty girl! off to the park with the most insane parents yet (uptight!!) first day of school tomorrow, man that was one fast summer!

close encounters of the family kind

i had to use that title again (i had it on my facebook status and really liked it) i could use it for our entire vacation so far actually, close close close. we are road tripping each day, seeing the local sights of colorado, wyoming and southern south dakota and have settled in to a pretty good routine. i have always enjoyed reading books on families who take a year off and travel the world together, what an awesome gift you could give your kids. i am not willing to sell my house and do that just yet, but i really admire those who can manage it. the girls are finally able to entertain themselves and work together on projects without constant help, it makes the sight seeing so much easier. all this togetherness has its ups and downs, mostly ups which include lots of lovely conversations with the girls. lizzie is growing up so fast, she has wonderful ideas and thoughts, so chatty and fun. being the baby of the bunch, her neediness and whining can get on nerves and its nice to see her maturing and joining in on conversations in a productive way. of course she still has her moments (like pooping out halfway around the tower) this is devils tower in wyoming, it is the first national monument and a sacred area to the indians who lived here. it was also used in the movie "close encounters of the third kind" which we are dying to see now. i recommend it as a nice day trip visit, it is relatively close to mt. rushmore. we really enjoyed coming over the rolling hills to see it off in the distance (the surrounding farm land is gorgeous right now as well). we took the short hike around it (liz made it about halfway) and enjoyed it from all angles. i'll leave you with some prairie views on our way back to colorado being the bookaholic that i am, i always choose a book to read to give my trip a "theme" and this trip i brought the third olive farm book (i had read the first third but couldnt get into it, moving on to the twilight books). it was a perfect choice and i have enjoyed moments of quiet reading, traveling to the south of france each day. carol drinkwater is a fantastic writer, very sensuous and lyrical, i cannot get enough! lucky for me she has two new books out making that FIVE olive farm books (i also have the companion photo book which is glorious all by itself) so i get to continue my journey with her when i get back home. we have one more day here and then its a two day drive back to so cal, back to house cleaning and work...back to school starting and camp fire meetings... energized, refreshed and ready to go!

black hills adventure

this trip: black hills tour (southern south dakota), mt rushmore visit, custer state park and devils tower (wyoming). i would highly recommend this part of the country to families, lots of beautiful scenery and kid friendly sights. my only complaint is the food (expensive and BAD for the most part) we did best when we made sandwiches from our cooler and stayed away from restaurants. the best place on our trip was a super grungy mexican place in wyoming, just off the highway that was EXCELLENT and cheap. here is some of the tour: this is custer state park and mt rushmore, i will post more photos and add devils tower later...more adventure today. we are off to estes park (we once had BIG plans to move there and a visit is always in order when we are in town). stay tuned!

camp wintaka

emily is off to camp today, a whole week of fun for her. i truly can't believe how lucky i am to have a kid who wants to go to camp and embraces it with as much enthusiasm as i did as a kid. hooray!

for all of you who wonder how it is possible to let your kid go to sleep away camp, lets just say this is the best experience for them, the greatest gift you can gift them. they learn to be independent and strong, to fall in love with the outdoors and being one with nature, to make friends they will have for a lifetime (i sure did!) and to feel the magic of CAMP!!! oh how i miss her already, but i know she is having a blast. I'm Wintaka born and Wintaka bred and when I die I'm Wintaka dead! rah rah Wintaka, rah rah Wintaka, rah rah Wintaka, rah rah rah!!!

adventure playground

nature in the oc

rafting, tree house building, mud slide, tire swing...perfection a new dog, oh how lovely she is! (not ours!) concert in the park

let summer begin!!!

glad to have a completely errand free day! now if i could just stop my mind from spinning on to new projects, stop it already! happy sunday!