Family time

I had a great time last weekend in Florida, celebrating my dad's 80th birthday.

The banner on the wall said
"Growing Old is  Compulsory,
Growing Up is Optional."

I loved being there with all my sisters and my mom. 

Barefoot Beach, where the seashells are plentiful and beautiful!

Lots of talking and hanging out together!

Happy Birthday, Dear Old Dad!

Edwin A Carter, my dad.

Here I am!

This blogging stuff is harder than it looks. Especially around Christmas; I was so busy, too busy to stop, take a picture, and describe what I was doing or how I felt about it. Plus, I was working on presents, and I didn't want to post pictures before the giftees received them!

Star in Star for Molly

Star in Star for Emma

Dog for Mackenzie.
Made from a pair of Bill's Nordic ski socks.

Then, I had the BEST Christmas EVER!
There came a point when anything that wasn't finished didn't have to be finished. When the focus was on being ready for my kids to come home for Christmas, and that's all. The Tree got decorated, the lights hung on the house, cookie dough in the freezer. Ready.

What an honor that everyone came and stayed! There was lots of game-playing, and movie-watching, and hiking, and tide pooling, and visits to various parks, and cookie decorating, and lots of talking and laughing!

There was plenty of great food, but food wasn't the focus as much as being together, and working together. Though I didn't work at all! I cooked twice, and I cleaned once. The rest was all done by my great family! Homemade pizza, the most awesome macaroni and cheese, delicious tempeh and veggies, salads; healthy, wholesome goodness.

Honestly, the more I hear about other families, the more I like mine.

Joseph said, "I like this grown-up Christmas," and I know what he's talking about. The grown-up perspective that wasn't about presents or expectations, plus the magic of Poppy's Christmas experience made it all fun.

I wrapped several of my Christmas books, and every day Poppy unwrapped one or two, and we read them to her. After learning about the Nativity story, Poppy rearranged creches to honor the most important figure.

The adult kids enjoyed an evening out while Ralph and I took Poppy, with the required popcorn, hot chocolate, and Christmas cookies, to see lights on houses. And she loved Christmas presents, from the boring pajamas and slippers to the Light Brite and pink scooter!

On Christmas Day, the household doubled in size with the addition of many uncles and aunts and cousins. I loved every minute of it. Ralph never got to play croquet, thanks to the weather, but there was ping pong, Spades, Scrabble, and plenty of conversation to go with all the good food!

I still want to show you a couple other things I made for Christmas.

A dress for Bethany's favorite childhood doll, Becky. Remember the Strawberry Shortcake dress I made for Poppy? Bethany totally saw the resemblance, and loved it. Poppy isn't really old enough to love Becky yet, so Becky will continue to live here in uninterrupted sleep until Poppy is ready to treasure her.

You either think this is creepy, or cute. It's me, huggable, with a plateful of cookies and an armful of books. Got the idea from Angry Chicken. Bethany said Poppy had fallen asleep a few times holding a broken Christmas ornament photo of me. This will be cozier.

Have I gotten you caught up, now? I'm still trying to keep up, here!
Happy New Year! I hope I'll give you lots to see here this year!

What I did on my summer vacation: Cape Cod!

Poppy and I took a little trip of our own to visit Dad and Dana.

We did it last summer, too, and we have so much fun there.
We eat our favorite food. For me, that means seafood! For Poppy, it means ice cream. Dana took us to Four Seas, where we enjoyed ice cream cones and chose several pints to take home and restock the freezer. (I have dreams about the fresh peach ice cream, and I was not disappointed! Lemon Chip! Penuche! Peppermint Chip! Frozen Pudding! Pistachio!) Ice cream was eaten every day.

We swim twice a day, every day. Beach in the morning, lunch, pool in the afternoon, or the other way around. 

Dad and Dana are great sports about coming to the beach with us, and sitting on the sand, watching and admiring Poppy's growing confidence in the water. Actually, I love seeing all the friends who greet them on the beach, and are so happy to see them there. And I love watching my dad boast about his great-granddaughter visiting! You see, with Dana's help, my dad is fighting cancer, and through it, he is cheerful, and positive, and personable, and it's really a joy to be with them.

I love swimming in the Atlantic! The water is warm, the waves are gentle. Poppy and I played a game for about 45 minutes where she would jump off my bent knee and swim back to me, with her life vest giving her lots of confidence. We went to the sand for a while to rest and eat a snack, then Poppy jumped up and ran back to the water, and we resumed our game. She jumped and swam for another half hour or more before she realized she didn't have her life vest on! Her face looked like Wile E. Coyote when he realizes he's run off a cliff and is about to fall, "Gramma! I'm gonna drown!" 

We also went on a couple outings. Have you ever taken the Duckmobile tour? The open-air tour bus is an amphibious vehicle, so after you drive through the streets quacking at people on the sidewalks, you motor into the water to see the sights in the harbor! 

Poppy got a little scared when the bus went into the water, and she asked Dana to sit  on the outside of the seats.

Here's a sweet picture of Grampa Win and Poppy in front of the Zooquarium.

We had a wonderful visit. Thank you, Dad and Dana!

Big Sur for the day

Ralph's brother, Ron, was camping in Big Sur and invited us to join in. We wimped out on staying overnight; the daunting task of collecting equipment, concerns about an overcrowded campground, and the need to clean house in preparation for an expected house guest almost caused us to give in to homebody-itis, and going for just the day meant a lot of driving. Nevertheless (I love having the opportunity to use that word! It makes a story sound like an adventure!), we made the trek and enjoyed the scenery on the way. At Cambria, we hit fog, and there were places along the drive where the fog rose from the ocean below the cliff to the road level, so it was like driving on a cloud. Cool!

We thought we'd be in cold fog all day, but the sun broke out and we enjoyed sitting on a rocky beach. I will host Book Club in a week, and I just bought the book because I'm still #12 on the library waiting list. Being away from housework (have to) and quilting projects (want to), I read 1/3 of the book while on the beach. Lovely!

Sitting here, I felt like Queen of the Rocks.

Ralph joined me on the beach, and he watched his brother and nephew surfing. It was pretty entertaining! The waves seemed to have a bump in the middle, so surfers started out fine, then got bucked off, and sent flying through the air. I sure couldn't do it!

Hey, look! There are two whales breaching!

Really? No, they're rocks.

*oh*

Here's John, returning from a hike around the bend. I tried to join him, but wasn't confident in my ability to cross the creek without falling in. John came back with some beach-tumbled jade, really pretty.

It was great to sit around a campfire, and I'm sorry I missed waking up in a campground, but I sure do like sleeping in my own bed!

Spring on the Central Coast

We took a drive yesterday afternoon; it was a glorious sunny day, and I wanted to take some photos to share with you. People love how beautiful the hills are in the winter, when the rains have come and the hills are lush with green. It's beautiful, alright, but I really want to be able to show you how the hills compare to their summer glory, when they are golden, and dotted with dark green oaks. So when summer comes along, I'll take some more pictures for you, and we'll see if you can agree that the golden summer

look is especially beautiful.

Because of the sun's direction, it wasn't such a great time for photos of the hills, so we headed to Guadalupe State Beach to breathe in some ionized ocean air! It was one of those days when the wind was blowing sand into our faces, and the road was covered in places with sand drifts.

The waves were churning, and foam piled up at the edge of the water. Then, a gust of wind would blow clumps of sea foam across the beach, and the little fluffy, "bubble bunnies" that skittered across the sand made me laugh! The wind was too much for us, though, so we went off in search of other scenery.

Who doesn't love a turquoise barn? There are some very picturesque farms around here.

Turning toward Casmalia, we saw these cows enjoying the sunshine, and when we stopped to take their picture, the steer decided to stand up and show off. The calves are so cute! Happy California cows, but you know these cows are not where cheese comes from, right?

The wildflowers are just getting started! It's going to be riotously colorful in a couple more weeks! Here are California Poppies, our state flower, blooming in time for Poppy's birthday!

We live in a beautiful place, and I'm glad we can enjoy it!