Saying Goodbye to Papa

The Stephens family has said good bye to Papa, he was Grandpa Tim's father, my Papa and Logan's great Papa. There ceremony was at the Riverside National Cemetery with full Military Honors.

Logan waving goodbye to his Papa

A picture of Steve and Fluff (Papa and Yaiayi) in their much younger days.

A list of the combat missions flown during WWII by Papa.

We love you so very much and will miss you.

A Visit with Mumi

Logan and I spend a considerable amount of time at Mumi's house, and this past trip we took a quick trip to the lake to feed the ducks. I fed the ducks here as a kid so its only natural...



A bit of background:

I used to visit my Granny as a little girl and stay the night with her and Pop. Each morning he would bring her coffee in bed, and I have always thought he was the sweetest man to do so and my Granny the luckiest lady. So I think that it is only fitting to teach Logan to bring his favorite lady coffee in bed! And right now that lady is still me, one day I am sure his future wife will thank me (that is if she is a coffee drinker).
Here is Logan and I sharing our morning coffee in Mumi's bed.

Southern California in November

Lo and I spent a beautiful weekend camping at Doheny State Beach. Lo swam in the water and collected rocks...

Ate lunch at our quaint little camp spot...

Road bikes in the parking lot...

And relaxed on the warm sandy beach.

In the evening Lo and I chased each other around with seaweed poppers, and we even found a little crab. We watched him until the tide took him out to sea.

We put on warm dry clothes and hit the beach again to watch the sunset, just amazing!

Goodnight Sun.

Since its fall and the sun goes down sooooo early, Logan and I headed to the grassy park for a game of Frisbee. Our game very quickly turned into a game of fetch, I throw the Frisbee and Lo retrieves it. I'm sure one day he will look back and be totally appalled that I played a "dogs" game with him, but for the moment he thinks its FANTASTIC.

I swear I have the bravest 3 year old on the planet, Logan saw this tree and climbed right up it. He was pretty high up there, but had no clue how to get down. Thankfully I was there to rescue my little monkey, Mom to the rescue!

We were lucky enough to have Avery and her mom, Mayo come and join us for some traditional camping activities. We toasted weenies and marshmallows over the fire, and all snuggled down in the tent for the night.

Sunday was gorgeous once again and back to the beach we went, where both kids ran right into the water.

Here is Mayo helping to make Avery into a beautiful beached mermaid. As soon as a decent picture was taken, Lo was allowed to smash Avery's whole tail. Thank goodness, the wait was killing him.

So many times over this past weekend I realized how lucky we are to live in one of the most beautiful places! Camping at the beach in November? The weather was just perfect! I am truly blessed with great friends, perfect weather and an amazing kiddo.

Skateboarding with Daddy

Logan is spending more time with Daddy these days, and he is going to learn to skateboard. The first lesson was held inside on Granny's living room carpet since it was dark outside. Next time we will all have to head out side!

Halloween Hangover

The day after Halloween is always a bit rough, so Lo spent the day relaxing with Mumi and then visiting Sylvie at her new house in Long Beach.

Mumi is so fun, she lets Lo clean the table with shaving cream!!

shaving cream hands = happy kid

Then we were off to hang with our good pal Sylvie, the men spent some serious couch time watching football, while the ladies got a chance to chat.

Football was followed by a very serious game of trains. Honestly these are two of the cutest kids in their chonies having a chocolate milk together! A wonderful way to say goodbye to October and welcome November.

Halloween 2009

2009 seems to be the year that Logan starts to "get" things. Its almost like the concept of Halloween clicked, and we had the best time. He was super excited to see pumpkin, skeletons, ghosts and witches everywhere we went. And now he continues to tell me that Halloween is NOT over. I guess he likes this holiday as much as I do.

Here is the cutest UPS man in front of our winter veggie garden.

I realize that in a few years Logan will no longer think its cool to dress in a matching outfit with him Mom. So I took full advantage this year and dressed us both up as the UPS man. I did it last year, we were both Pirates, so hopefully next year we can still match, we shall see...

Lo's friend threw an AWESOME Halloween party complete with treats and games. This is a picture of my favorite; all the kids turned the Mommies into Mummies.

And there was a puppet show (and Lo sat through 1/2 of it, very impressive).

And finally Halloween night arrived, everyone came to celebrate with Lo: Mom, Aunt Ellie, Uncle Mike, Grandpa Tim, Linda, Mumi and John. Quite the crew! Mike carved his pumpkin and tried to get Logan to help, but my child was totally freaked out by the pumpkin "guts". Please keep in mind that this is the same kid who walks right into haunted houses without hesitation, and even says good bye to the Monsters. In fact there was one house that freaked Aunt Ellie and I so bad that we screamed when the monster banged his chain on the floor, but Logan went up to the scary guy took his chain and banged it on the floor. Wow!

Not only did Lo love going house to house and gathering candy, he loved giving out candy! Check out how much loot he is giving to these big kids! And his phrase of the evening was "Trick or Treating, Halloween" Too cute.

Happy Halloween all!!

Pumpkins!

I admit I am a total pumpkin patch snob. I have issue with pumpkin patches in parking lots with carnival rides and bounce houses, I prefer to pick my pumpkin directly off the vine. I am pretty sure that Lo disagrees with me, and would much rather bounce than wander through tiny gardens filled with fresh herbs. One of the problems with my snobby attitude is that pumpkins do not always cooperate, and are not always ready for harvest at the exact time I want to make a jack-o-lantern. So Lo and I to a chance and went to the sweetest garden and nursery, Summers Past Farms. And there ARE pumpkins on the vine, you just couldn't pick them because they are barely pumpkins.

Logan attempting to find the perfect pumpkin, there were so many nice ones he just couldn't choose. So we left empty handed and stopped by Trader Joe's to get a pumpkin from the store...

An actual pumpkin on the vine, I couldn't be more pleased.


Lo and his boots checking out the lovely gardens

And of course we had to check out the tractor. This kid LOVES a tractor.

The next day we met some friends in the park to decorate our pumpkins. Here is Lo's masterpiece.


*Apparently this place has a fairy festival in June each year that looks amazing. All the mommies of little girls should check it out. * http://www.summerspastfarms.com/fairyfestival.htm

There are no words

All I can think of when I see this picture is "Y-M-C-A, its fun to stay at the..."

This poor kid is going to be so mad at me when I show this at his wedding. Hee Hee Hee.

Tijuana Estuary

We met up with our hiking group at the Tijuana River National Estuarine Research Reserve, fancy name for a small estuary next door to the Navy's helicopter landing pad. But it was nice to get outside just the same. And the kids had a great time spotting birds and even a few crabs.

Boys on the trail

Boys off the trail

My boy and his binoculars.

Hullabaloo

We went to see Hullabaloo play at the Lyceum theater in Downtown San Diego. It was such a blast, but I think Logan's favorite part was the trolley ride to get there.

Dancin' on stage

more dancin'

Lo(gan) and his buddy Ko(a) at lunch after the show.

Julian!

Lo and I took a modified camping trip to Julian. I'm actually not sure we can call it a camping trip since we didn't spend the night, but there was a campsite involved...

Anyway the point is that we did all the fun part of camping:

We played in the dirt with friends...

rolled in the dirt...

hid under the table with the dog...

played a serious game of tug-o-war...

got very, very dirty!

Then a trip to the orchard for apple picking, we made Matt sit in the back with the kids...

We rode an old tractor...

We picked apples.

And we sat by the fire.

Really a lovely camping day.