Yesterday as we were putzing around getting ready for our weekly trip to Orange County so Bug could attend her ballet and gymnastics classes and I could do a photography shoot I have scheduled, we had a great idea. What if we brought Holly with us? Usually I take her to my mom’s because she is a spoiled rotten dog and she doesn’t like to be left alone in the backyard by herself over night even if the neighbors check on her. No. She likes to sleep with the humans in the nice cozy warm house. She’s not dumb.

Toby is out of town but he gave us permission to stay at his place at the beach and bring Holly with us. The adventure was on! We piled her in the car with all our overnight luggage and we were off. It’s an hour-and-a-half drive so I was a tiny bit curious how she would do.

She was such good dog. I wish she could talk so we could hear what she was thinking as she watched out the window silently. She’s never been on such a long trip I don’t think. She’s lived her whole life in my mom’s yard until she moved in with us. I imagine the freeways blew her mind but she didn’t even seem to raise an eyebrow. She’s just such a mellow dog.

She stayed in the car during ballet and gymnastics with me checking on her every few minutes. She didn’t even seem to mind the airplanes flying over. They are super loud because Bug’s gym is right next to the airport.

After gymnastics and ballet we took Holly right to the beach and caught the tail end of sunset. I didn’t get any photos though. It was too dark.

It was so fun to watch her sniff the sand and then take off down the beach chasing a bird. She’s a funny dog. She is a labrador and labs are supposed to like water but she doesn’t! She hates water! If you turn on the hose or try to get her to take a bath she’ll run the other way. So the I was quite curious to see how she’d like the ocean. And in true Holly fashion she seemed completely indifferent. Nothing seems to ruffle her. Not even a cow-sized great dane that walked by. Funny funny Holly. How we love her mellow soul so.

After walking up and down the beach in the dark we took her home to Toby’s to see how the cat’s would react to her. I didn’t get any photos again (because it was dark and you know how I feel about taking pictures with the automatic flash). We were worried that Pounce would freak out. He’s such a high strung cat. He didn’t like her but since Holly just stood there looking at him and showed no real reaction, Pounce got over it. Lily hid for a bit but now a day later they are all chilling in their respective spots and seem to be just fine.

The next morning both Bug and I were up at the crack of dawn full of excitement to take Holly to the beach. Our old beach town is such a dog town. There are water bowls and treats out at most of the stores along the highway just waiting for patrons to walk in with their dogs. So of course we had to take Holly to the nearby doughnut shop so I could get a latte and Bug could get a bagel.

She fit right in.

Then back to the house to get bags (for poop, which we didn’t need afterall) and my camera!

Pounce was jealous.

“No, Holly, you can’t have my bagel.”

And then down to the beach. The old familiar route was fun and new again with somebody new!

Good Morning old friend!

I could get used to this dog-walking business. Maybe we’ll have to find a place that accepts dogs when we move back…

Doesn’t she look like a beach dog?

Sighs of contentment all around.

Bug got her feet wet but not Holly. She was perfectly content to sit with me on the sand, looking on.

Then it was back home again before 10:30. Dogs are not allowed on the beach after 10:30, sadly.

But that’s okay because home is where Holly loves to be anyway.

Wherever the people are is where she wants to be.

I don’t know the last time I did something clichéd like go camping or have a picnic on a holiday weekend. I think most of these sorts of things just get turned into any other day for people like me. When you’re a freelancer, every day is Monday and every day is Saturday so holidays were just days when the post office is closed and there are more people on the road making all kinds of traffic and beaches are crowded.

But now I have a kid in school and everything is different! I have to set an alarm to make sure we get up in time and then I watch the clock to make sure I don’t forget to pick her up from school. Imagine that, I’m a slave to the work-week schedule just like anyone else. And you know what that means besides making me an annoyed clock-watcher? Holidays and weekends are more special now! Woooo-Hooooo! TGIF means something to me now!

So you know what Bug and I did for our very first special holiday weekend? We went camping. With friends. For the WHOLE weekend. It was awesome.

First we hung out with these monkeys.

This baby is so photogenic.

Then we went to the beach. Good thing I had my new handy-dandy smart phone since I forgot to charge the batteries for my handy-dandy underwater camera.

This is Carrien (pronounced Kareen) who I met through this blog. Funny how that works. (I have a better picture of her further down.)

Then we went to her in-laws and camped in their front yard. As you can see their front yard is nothing to sneeze at. I didn’t do a very good job at taking an establishing shot (perhaps I was too busy having fun) but the inside of their house was amazing and I did manage a few random shots here and there. I hope they don’t mind me posting.

I loved it there. It felt like home. Someday I want to have a home like this. Maybe not as big (they have eight kids) but as welcoming. That was what made it special. It was this big sprawling ranch house with art everywhere and a long country table that invited you to sit down with your coffee AND your laptop. I loved that there were probably at least four or five laptops sitting around at all times. Nobody thought it was rude if you looked down to check your phone.

Carrien’s husband, Aaron, made me Turkish coffee. It was really good with a lot of sugar and no cream. I’d never tried it before but I found I liked it. Like that’s a big surprise. Any kind of coffee made with care is probably going to go over really well with me. I was happy. Coffee, wifi, good company…it was wonderful. I could spend the whole weekend there and I did!

Bug was having her own kind of fun: kids and bouncing. They had a trampoline and a swing-set and a clubhouse and of course lots of hills and trees and rocks to explore. She was in heaven.

There was pomegranate picking…

and chickens

and egg collecting (photo by Aaron)

And a fire pit! We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows.

And then we camped under the stars.

Camping bedhead brought to you by Instagram!

Also, it rained! At 4 o’clock in the morning I felt this faint mist on my face. I thought it was a very pleasant dream but then I woke up and quickly went into survival-girl mode. I put the rain guard on in the dark as lightning flashed around me. Within minutes the raindrops fell. It wasn’t a very heavy rain but it was enough to soak one of the other tents that didn’t have a rain guard. I’m glad I’m one of those people who wakes up pretty easily otherwise this post would have been about a whole other kind of adventure.

We did have a visit from the ranch dogs who were terrified of the lightning but thankfully Bug was pretty aggressive at telling them to get out while I was outside putting on the rain guard. Living with my mom’s dog, Spreckles, has definitely taught Bug how to handle dogs with authority. She’s no wimp.

You’d think that would sum up our super-fun weekend but you would be wrong. We also went to church (after camping!) and to La Jolla for a picnic lunch and some tide pool sight-seeing.

At one part there was a ravine full of kelp. We were all curious how deep it went. So of course we had to investigate.

It was about a foot and a half deep. The kids had a blast walking around in it, jumping in it and generally slipping and sliding and not paying attention to the try-not-to-get-wet admonishments. Who are we kidding? We all knew they were going to get soaking wet anyway. It’s the beach and they are kids!

So they sported the side-knot—a new look for fall.

AND THEN!! As if we hadn’t done enough, we went to a birthday party and the kids slid down this thing:

I’d never even seen one of these before. What a riot! I really should have gotten a swimsuit on and tried it myself but it was in the late afternoon and I was too busy sitting with my mom-friends chatting.

It’s safe to say that everyone slept well after this day. Rain or no rain.

We were very sad to go home. I think I’m adding their neighborhood to my list of possible places to move in June.

We started at Starbucks—a very expensive choice made by me but happily accepted by four non-coffee frappuccino-slurping girls. I really need to curb my caffeine habit.

Then we took Bug to gymnastics (Ballet was out for the week) and afterwards Toby took all of us to dinner on the pier in Balboa. The good thing about not seeing Toby for a whole week is that when he does see us, he doesn’t mind if there are FIVE rowdy girls instead of just two. It was a real circus.

We took Bug’s good friend “Boo” from the neighborhood. We may have been trying to show off how cool the ocean is. She was happy to oblige us and be impressed.

And the nieces. They miss their mom so much that whenever I suggested we take a picture of them together for her, they cuddled together like two little chicks and didn’t even whack each other, which is often their habit.

Us on the pier. I really need to try and be in more pictures.

The light was really cool as the sun was setting because there was this heavy fog bank that blocked the rays that would normally blind you. So we got to take interesting unusual pictures we normally couldn’t see.

Long shadows on the walk back to the car…

And more getting-along-nieces shots. Where did Rapunzel get such pretty lips? Not my side of the family.

Of course Pouty McPouterson had to join the party.

Thankfully the fun wasn’t hampered. “Don’t get wet!” I threatened in vain. Words to the wind, words to the wind…

Pretty pier.

Boo is properly excited.

It’s too bad I have my point-and-shoot camera set up to take super vertical shots and I cut off Super Chic’s face but I still love this photo. It really is a “slice of life.” A super narrow skinny slice. Super Chic is handing me shells to keep forever but of course I put them in some pocket and they are probably lost in the washing machine now. I love Rapunzel’s cackle.

More slices.

I love this shot of Boo playing jumprope with a piece of kelp. She wasn’t afraid of the slimy kelp at all. That’s my kinda kid.

The next day we initiated Boo into our traditional breakfast of doughnuts on lifeguard tower number five.

Patriotic sprinkles were enjoyed.

Tradition!

And then they were off to the sea. There really was no stopping them.

Catching a few rides in the morning soup.

This kid was unstoppable. She’s never had a boogie board before because technically she doesn’t know how to swim yet. But really, she can swim. She’s in the water more than she’s out and she’s not afraid to get her face wet at all. If she had her way, we would have been at the ocean all day and all night for probably the rest of the year. She never gets cold and she never gets tired. She borrowed a board this year and she may have found her life’s calling. I think I know what I’m getting her for her birthday this year: her own board.

Deb and Eric stopped by for a quick visit. I love my old beach friends.

By the way, Deb is on twitter now! One of these days I’ll get her to put up her own website. She really needs one. She has such amazing art.

We stopped by her house for a quick chat and I snuck in a few more photos of her art-filled house. She calls it a mess. I call it beautiful.

Rapunzel was looking particularly pretty and blue-eyed next to this stunning painting. Not sure which is prettier.

And then back to the beach! This time with sunblock.

Woooo-eeeeee! Boo took to the waves like a natural.

Bug stuck to the sand, much to my relief. I took a book to read but I couldn’t get much reading done because I was constantly looking up to count off my chicks. One, two, three, four. Phew. They’re all still alive. Then back to reading.

Which by the way, is a very good book Did you know Journey Mama wrote it? She’s such beautiful writer.

It’s just as much of a pleasure to read as her blog. She has a way with details…I’m completely engrossed in the story and quite attached to all of the characters. I’m not done yet but when I am, I’m going to have her do a guest post and maybe even a give away. I really think you all would enjoy reading it too. It’s a keeper. Of course I’m personally invested because it’s set in Northern California which is near and dear to my heart.

But back to Southern California and the waves…

I think it’s safe to say, a good time was had.

My nieces are here! They’re here for the whole summer! I’m so happy to have them. Of course it means we are running out of food every other day and there are clothes left on the bathroom floor regularly but they are a such a lovely sight for sore eyes. We’ve really missed them.

(photo taken by Rapunzel)

I was planning on keeping Bug in preschool all summer so I could keep to my work schedule but now that they are all playing so happily every day outside all the live long day, I decided to keep her out for the summer. It’s saving me quite a bit of money which is nice.

It’s going to be a summer to remember.

So far we’ve taken them into Orange County for Bug’s gymnastics/ballet class, dinner with Toby and a trip to the beach even though the sun was already down.

They had missed the beach. Sometimes I forget how lucky we are that we see it regularly. Super Chic wanted to go swimming right away of course. I think that girl is immune to cold.

They ran around crazy until it was dark.

Just like old times.

On Memorial Day my mom thought it would be nice to visit my grandma’s grave and put Grandpa’s flowers from the memorial service on her grave. He’s going to be buried there too as soon as the morgues do whatever it is that they do. I’d never been there so it was nice to see the gravestone and look at all the flags for the soldiers.

I wish Bug could have known my grandma. They were kindred spirits in their love of pink.

We attempted a family portrait but the sun was bright and harsh.

Then the park on the way home. Even my dad got in on the swinging.

It’s going to be one long fun memorable summer I know already. So I’m prepared with chore charts to keep things under control so I don’t go crazy. I’m thinking we might go somewhere special if they can fill these up with a lot of stars. I’m pretty sure they can. :)

everybody from secretagentjo on Vimeo.

I love my niece-com-poops.

Yesterday was the Sand Castle Festival at our local beach. I’ve blogged about it for years. We even entered it in 2004 but sadly those blog posts are lost. I have them somewhere on a CD but I’ve just never gotten around to re-uploading them.

Anyway, the Sand Castle Festival is near and dear to my heart. I love it and try to visit it every year. I take horrible pictures every year too because it is just about impossible to capture on camera how fun it really is. I try and try but you just can’t crop out the people and all their junk and still show the hustle and bustle of it. Plus, sand is never as photogenic as it seems in your mind’s eye. I should probably use a better camera but it’s the beach and no matter how careful you are there’s that nasty sand that gets in lenses and breaks them.

Now I have a new problem. My new laptop has some color-temperature issues so I’m at a complete loss on how to color-correct my photos. I’m opting for not correcting at all. If you notice a difference in my photos as of late, that is why. They all look greenish to me. But if I correct them to my eye they’ll probably look purplish to you. Hopefully I’ll get it figured out soon. Maybe they’re not so bad.

Poor Bug. I should have taken a better shot of her with both eyes open.

As usual when we visit the Sand Castle Festival, we got inspired to make our own castle. Everyone does. This year was extra fun for me though because Bug is really getting castle-building now. We certainly practice enough all year round. She doesn’t topple things over just when they’re perfectly built anymore and she’s great at fetching water.

If you know anything about anything when it comes to building sand castles, you know how important water is. If fact, in a proper contest you really have to spend a good hour or more beforehand soaking everything down. That’s the only way to keep the sand solid enough to carve without it crumbling into a flat mess.

All that water fetching means somebody has to get wet and for some reason it’s always overcast on Sand Castle Festival day, and just the tiniest bit chilly. So of course we wear long pants, or in Bug’s case, what she wore to church. (What, doesn’t everyone go running around the waves in their pink puffy skirts? Insert eye-rolling here.) No matter how careful we are, there’s always going to be a wave that comes in faster than we expected and washes all the way up to our knees. We both got soaked, naturally.

After years and years of living by the beach, sandy wet clothes don’t even faze me anymore. What can you do? It’s just part of life. Sand in your bed, sand in you hair, sand in your carpet…if you have a sand aversion, don’t visit me.

It is all worth it when you have good times like these though. I actually came down to the beach in a bad mood. Something Toby had said or done had set me off and no matter what I did I couldn’t get the negative thoughts out of my head. I desperately wanted to hash it out with him but arguing with him during his work day means he loses valuable time, and he is always so busy and behind schedule. I knew I had to shelve it and work it out with him later.

I hate shelving arguments. They just fester and fester in my head and I can’t think straight. I’m definitely the type who likes to confront things head on and not bottle them up inside. Unfortunately, I’ve had to learn with time that I can’t fight fight fight. I have to calm myself and there is nothing better than making a drip castle to do that.

Squeezing the wet sand through your hand drip by drip by drip can be very zen. Before I knew it I was festering less and focusing more on the tiny drip towers each handful would make. My kid was happy, my mind was quiet, all was well with the world again. And then people started stopping by and telling us how cool our castle was. It kind of surprised me actually since there were castles everywhere to comment on. Why bother with ours? I’m sure my adorable pink-outfitted assistant had a lot to do with it but it got me to thinking…

We’re good at this. Maybe we should enter the contest together next year, just Bug and me.

The thing I love about winter and fall at the beach is how clear the sky gets. The skies are so blue and the clouds seem to go on up forever unlike they do in the summer and spring when they hover low and thick because we usually have a marine layer of fog and low clouds. I catch myself looking up at the sky often and wondering if I could be like Georgia O’Keefe and paint the clouds. What colors would I use? How could I capture how big and vast they are and how small they make me feel?

I was out in the desert with my Dad this last week and I caught myself admiring the crazy cloud formations after a quick desert thunderstorm. There were big giant towering formations with glints of gold around their edges. It was beautiful.

“Aren’t they amazing?” I asked my dad as we were walking between my mom’s old house and her new studio apartment next door, carrying a load of household items with us.

“What? The sky”? he asked, looking at me like I’d lost my marbles. “It’s just the sky.”

I shook my head in disgust. How many people have I encountered who could walk right past a brilliant sunset and not even notice it? But before I shuffle my dad off into the pile of people who just don’t see things the way I do, I have to give him a break. He’s a long haul trucker, and he does drive across the country weekly. He sees all kinds of skies. I notice bright brilliant skies more because here at the beach we are so often socked in with fog or a hazy mist. In fact, it’s misty so often that when it’s clear, the mountains scare us. Where’d you come from Saddleback?!! Of course, I love the fog. But I love these crazy blue skies too.

We had a great beach day, Bug and I. It was pretty hot and the water was soooo warm! It’s funny how that happens. It has something to do with the upwelling of cold water from the bottom of the ocean in summer and then that goes away in the fall. Water temperatures are much colder in July and August than they are in October. If you like to swim in the ocean, I’d suggest going now. It’s the perfect temperature. I hardly ever go in the water since I’m terrified of big surf but I spent quite a bit of time splashing around and even getting wet all the way up to my hair yesterday. Of course I didn’t swim out past the surf, like I’d like to. I have to wait until Bug finally learns how to swim to do that.

So anyway, I’m reading a book my friend Sonja lent me, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle as you can see up there in that picture Bug took of me. It has me just as perturbed as that other book. Sometimes I just want to close my eyes and not think about these terrible things. La la la la la la, I am IGNORANT!!! As most everyone already knows it’s all about the author Barbara Kingsolver living off her land without being part of the massive industrial food chain that America has become today. No more tomatoes from Chile, no more hybrid turkeys that will never reach their full maturity because if they did they’d become too fat to walk, etc. It’s all very well and fine and I admire her greatly but I just discovered Costco this year so it is not sitting with me well. Lettuce in GIANT bags! Peppers for less than a dollar each!!! Please don’t take that away from me! Sigh. Sigh. Sigh. It’s still a very interesting book though and it has me looking twice at the fruits and vegetables I buy.

Which brings me to this little Japanese-French bakery another friend of mine took me to the other day. Cream Pan in Tustin. We missed breakfast so I really don’t know how wonderful their French pastries are. I’m sure they are absolutely divine because that’s what everyone says and I could tell by the meticulous way they kept their shop that anything they did would be perfection. It was so cute and French inside. But mostly what impressed me was the thriving garden of Japanese eggplants growing in front of their store.

See? Eggplant! Great big purple beauties too. There were bunches of them. I don’t even like eggplant (I don’t think; I haven’t really tried it enough to say) and these look good enough to eat to me. I might even go back there and try an eggplant sandwich just so I can say I’ve eaten one grown in a strip mall. It truly amazed me. The plants looked strong and healthy, not covered with dirt and brake dust like I would expect from growing right along side a parking lot.

And then on the other side of the building was a trellis of bitter melons! I actually didn’t know what they were but a nice woman was walking by and overheard me wondering about them aloud to Bug. How ingenious is this? The vines act as a sun shade to the restaurant inside AND they grow melons! Or something like that. There were also some sunflowers and something growing along the bottom that I didn’t really look closely at because I was too overwhelmed by how cool the vine sun shade was. This small plot gardening put me to shame. I have about a four-foot patch of dirt between my neighbor’s air conditioner and my other neighbor’s fence and sadly I’ve done nothing with it but grow lemon-scented geraniums and buried a few dead birds. The geraniums have thrived and taken over but they’ve given me no fruit or vegetables. Harumph!

Anyway…

Back to what I am doing well…

…enjoying my beach and these amazing fall skies. I really need to break out the paints and attempt to capture this. Though I know I would fail miserably.

* * *

Also! Please go read and comment on my Pancakes! post for Kellogg’s Share Your Story program. Don’t be shy! You might win $100!

Bug and I woke up early and took a walk to the beach with the jogger stroller this morning. I always feel good about coming home after being gone for a while and getting back to the beach. I feel like I’m appreciating being home and what it has to offer me. We’ve had a couple of hectic weeks and I’m looking forward to slowing down. Not that we didn’t have fun, we had a blast.

But slow is good too.

Sometimes when I’m bragging about my blog (or more likely defending it) I like to say a little self-righteously, Well, at least I’m big in the UK! as if I had thousands of fans across the pond. It would only be a small misuse of the truth because while I probably only have a few readers in the UK they are a VERY BIG DEAL!

Specifically, I have the most wonderful loyal reader named Lynne in the UK. She doesn’t have a blog (yet) but she does have a pretty cool animation site and she’s promised to help me animate Secret Agent Josephine someday. Wouldn’t that be fun?

Anyway, Lynne has been reading this blog since way back…back in those days when I wrote embarrassing things that I have since taken down. She’s one of those loyals. And I love her dearly. She’s written here before as a guest poster but most of you know her as Gingermog. That’s what we all call her. We even called her that when she showed up at my house and we went to the beach. You should have heard Bug hollering out, “Gingermog!” on the beach. It was pretty funny.

Anyway Gingermog and her husband and her friend Barbara were out for a visit this last weekend. We took them to the beach and got smashed by some small but mighty waves. The beach was hot and packed with tourists but that did not stop us from having a really good time—the FULL California experience, as I like to call it.

There really is something invigorating about sitting in the sun with a passel of people, getting all hot and sweaty until you can’t stand it a minute more and then washing off all the sweat and grime with the most bracing cold salt water. It’s even better if the wave is surprisingly big and knocks you around a bit. You come out of that ocean a whole new person.

I challenge anyone having a bad day to try it.

This would explain my horribly styled 80′s side part and eyebrows that are not combed upwards like they are supposed to be. I just got tackled by a wave! But you know what? Who cares! At least we are in our bathing suits (or swimming costumes, as Gingermog calls them) and having fun.

I think the best part for me was dinner. I thought we should all go out to eat because I didn’t really have anything planned and I badly needed to go grocery shopping. Toby didn’t agree since (he hates restaurants and) he recently treated everyone for my birthday lunch and he was still sort of recovering from that. He suggested I just make some fresh pasta and reheat some old Chicken Cacciatore sauce I had in the refrigerator. It sounds terrible that I would serve my guests leftovers but they are pretty good leftovers so I reluctantly agreed.

After the beach, we walked to the small market by my house and picked up some lettuce for a salad, some berries for dessert and a can of whipped cream (thanks to Gingermog) and a couple of bottles of red wine (thanks to Barbara). Apparently, that’s all you need for a good dinner with guests.

I’m sure the wine played a large part but we had the best time. We ate on the floor, (on my terribly stained carpet that I fret about entirely too much!!!) gathered around the coffee table and talking. Who needs chairs!? Bug pulled out all the stops, of course, doing cartwheels on the couch and just plain being silly. It was a great night.

Gingermog gave me this tea towel. I need to take a better photo of it because it has red double-decker buses on it and it is so very British. I love it. I almost don’t want to use it but Gingermog promised to send me another one when this one gets stained. So I’m going to use it everyday and remember the good times!

We enjoyed some very summer-like weather out in the sticks this last week. Complete with a dip in the kiddie pool of course.

I know this photo is blurry but I love it so…

Yes, I totally drank my chocolate iced coffee in the kiddie pool. Them’s the perks of being a full-time mom.

My Dad grilled for lunch and dinner… it was so nice. He even let me grill some apricot halves I had a hankering for after reading this post. You should try it. They were DELICIOUS! Just like little bites of apricot cobbler. Mmmmmmmm!!!

Then I kidnapped my niece for a few days of fun at the beach. Nobody appreciates the surf more than a twelve-year-old from the desert. She and her boogie board are best buddies.

And of course Bug was all over the beach days as well…

The water is perfect right now. If I didn’t have a little kid to watch with my eagle eyes, I would swim out past the buoys and just float with the pull of the ocean. I love doing that. One of these days I’ll do that again…when I teach Bug how to swim! Maybe this summer, I hope.

If you’re looking for a place to vacation, I can’t recommend my beach enough. I’ve lived here fifteen years and I still love it. I wish I could offer my house as a bed and breakfast but sadly, that’s not possible. And of course hotels around here are super expensive. But I hear if you’re diligent you can get good deals in Laguna Beach… anyway, here’s to summertime! I hope you enjoy it wherever you are at!

On Mother’s Day morning Bug and I took a long walk on the beach while we waited for Toby to wake up. We did other more traditional mother’s day things later in the day but this was just some time for the two of us. I might have to make a tradition out of it.