Chasing Bluebirds

chickens

a good friend of mine helped start an urban farm as a project for a local nonprofit group that helps inner city kids... i have been lucky enough to see the many stages of progress as she turned it into a lush green edible kitchen garden where a dilapidated vacant lot once stood. what a glorious example of what "could be" smack dab in the middle of a crowded cement city, a place to grow real food, teach children how to farm and spend time out of our busy days relaxing among vegetables and flowers. 

 

 

squash goes up the side of a strip mall, glorious!!
so a visit the other day was extra special since the chickens have been added to the mix



i have also become involved in a project... yep more and more projects! along similar ines...check it out and pledge if you can! this will be a great project for my camp fire groups (as saving the wetlands has probably become a tad boring to them) i am hoping if it is funded we can volunteer from the ground up. there is also a mulching station in the works on site, which i dont know a lot about but sounds interesting. if you're local, let me know if you want more info, especially parents/kids as i can mix you in with my camp fire kids. :)

more puppy

  so we had a little scare with our new puppy, thought she might have been sick... but luckily she is feeling better today and a vet visit confirms she is 5 months old, not 3! craziness!! now we have to rush to get her spayed and the puppy 101 is desperately needed. i am enjoying most of this though.... she sure is fun!

kitty love

   this is my mama, daughter duo and i have to say, these gals are the easiest cats i've ever had. they stay in the backyard and never ever go in the street. like never. i love them so, even if they are a bit skittish at times. they are lovely to look at and pet and i will miss them when their time with us is up.

cali weather

somehow (when we move far far away) i would LOVE to keep our house here in so cal... just to come back for the winters. this is the best time of year here, clean air, storms, rainbows and the beach just down the street. winter, the best time, yes!

been awhile

hey there! busy busy!

found: high school friend who is a make up artist to the stars = camp fire meeting (lizzie got a sunburn)
blisters and a tat
amber got a black eye (emily did too)
crazy sky the other day (coming out from work i saw this lava sky)
hank turns one
emily is running for vice president, 4th grade
camp gvl
yes that is chris in a mullet wig...
future son in laws

tonight was our "kiniya" ceremony (a camp fire tradition to honor service projects) lots of fun even though i lost a kid for the first time as a leader, oops! it ended up ok, but yikes was that scary!! happy friday (tomorrow)!!

wanderlust

on a strange house search...










so i am dreaming of crazy modern mountain homes and hard core beach houses. obsessed is all i can say. :)

a special ceremony

so my brother is getting married and we were so excited to be invited to the bride's traditional vietnamese wedding ceremony... my teeny family (parents, chris, girls) were just blown away by all the colors and rituals. it was really quite sweet, much more interesting than a traditional american style wedding (which comes next month, wedding part 2) the girls loved it and bragged to everyone that this was their first ever wedding! i know my brother's new wife to be gets shy about her family's culture (she and her siblings are very "american" now) but i think learning about cultures that differ from your own is intriguing and special. chris and i both felt privileged to be included, lucky to be gaining such a large extended family to share the future with. here are a few snapshots i caught with my camera... iphone of course, it was hard to be sneaky with the camera when we didnt know what was really going on, i was mesmerized! stay tuned for the traditional "american style" wedding coming up next month, we will be fancied up and photographed to the hilt and hoping for cooler weather!

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!

topanga hike

met up with my buddy maryann for a nice 4 hour hike, yikes! cant believe i made it, but i did!

this would make a lovely plein air painting, have to keep this one in mind when and if i get some free time to paint. so many fantastic paintings i want to do! i wanted to mention i made some vegan chocolate chip cookie sandwiches last weekend from this book and at first i wasnt sure if i liked them but they are really growing on me! i hope to make some more and i would like to try other recipes from the book. it has some strange ingredients but i am used to that kind of cooking. hopefully i can get some baked up for the rummage sale coming up! it would be nice to have a vegan choice on the table. today was a fun day but i know i will be sore tomorrow. gotta keep it up though.