All in a day's work....

Hot, Hot, Hot!

We broke records yesterday in Santa Barbara with the thermometer reading 106 degrees. Oy. It does not pan out well when heat and pregnancy get mixed together. Thank goodness for friends with pools and take-out.

Lori & the Brockstar (her bambino, Brock) visited Friday night, pool time, family dinner with the Spiers Saturday night, pool time, Bailey's birthday party Sunday and more pool time last night!

Here's our weekend in pictures...

Family Date Night!

We had a family date night with Ben on Saturday night - we went to see Micky's Live Disney Magic Show at the Granada Theater. It was a great show and we all found it quite entertaining (along with mesmerizing - the magic was really, really good - even Steve, the family magician was impressed!).

The show was at 6:30, we had a late dinner after and then got gelato before heading home to crash.... was so fun! :) We realized that it will be fun to get a sitter for the new baby and continue to have these kind of nights with Ben after his brother arrives.

UCSB commercial

This should be on the front cover of their catalog - I especially love the Dora socks he is wearing!

3 interesting things about Ben...

1. He is obsessed with having doors closed and always shuts doors behind him.
2. He won't go potty in the toilet if there is ANYTHING in it - he must have a "clean bowl".
3. He wears my shoes whenever he can get his hands on them!

I wonder what this means?!?!

After Pics

I finally have my washer & dryer inside of my house where it SHOULD be! Here are a few shots of the afters... picture a full bathtub where the W + D now live.... I have a beautiful folding area and a new bathroom w/ more storage and a very streamlined look! We also have all new eco-friendly bamboo flooring throughout the entire main area of the house... picture pergo/fake wood where the bamboo now lives... ahhh, so happy the mess is cleaned up and we are pretty much operating back to normal around here - whatever that means! More garage projects to come, a bedroom switch upstairs to make room for Ben and the baby to share a room, and revamping the guest room is also on the agenda pre-baby. It never seems to end!

Minnesota Trip #3

Ben and I just returned from a third trip to Minnesota this year... this time, the reason for the visit was multi-purposeful... of course it's always great to see family, but I wanted to travel with Ben to my parents one last time with JUST ONE KID (oy!) and also we had to leave our house in Santa Barbara as we had some construction projects going on here that we too chaotic to live through. We put in all new (gorgeous) bamboo floors and completely renovated, gutted and revamped our downstairs bathroom to make room and add in the washer and dryer to live in there (has always been in the garage, which I have never understood and always felt slightly irritated by). So this was our moment... we planned it all out, set up the dates, ordered the materials and Ben and I left Steve to deal with the chaos and management of it all.

Pics of Before/After to come... for now, some favorite MN pics of our last time home this year (as you can see, it was quite busy with tractor riding, lawn mowing with poptop, baking with grammy, riding horses, hanging with friends, fire pit, making s'mores, swatting mosquitoes and being with everyone!)... and a few pics of my last time travelling on a plane with just one very, very well behaved and easy to travel with little boy named Ben. (thank you portable DVD player & iTouch!) :)

Pier to Peak

As is Steve's way... he felt that he needed more challenge when it came to his 1/2 marathon career, so today he completed the Santa Barbara Pier to Peak 1/2 Marathon. He left the house at 5:45 am, ran down to the start (about 1 mile from our house) at the famous dolphin fountain and started the race at 6:30 am. It was 13.1 miles straight up hill (with an elevation of 4,200 feet) and by the time they hit mile 4, it was 85 degrees on the mountain.

My friend, Rhonda (she had numerous friends in the race too) and her daughter Ella picked Ben and I up at 7:30 am and off we went to try to track down the runners and meet them at the finish. The last mile was literally straight uphill and as spectators we had to hike up part of it to see the finish line. I cannot imagine doing that last stretch after the first 12 miles... and they did it willingly!

Minimal pics, but the pride is there -- great job Steve-o! :)