4th of july

4th of July was lovely as usual.  The weather was perfect, the food was good, and the festivities were fun.  Couldn't ask for more than that.


















I like taking pictures of food, don't know why.


Extreme close-up pictures of food.














Chatting away....









Playing games.....



















Cheese.....

















These pictures were SO unbelievably typical....they cracked me up.




Mariah is being a smart-ass cause I told her to smile bigger, and Mallory is annoyed that I had to take a second picture because Nana wasn't looking at the camera.








Then Mariah started crying because Arissa yelled at her.











Then I asked Jesse to take the camera so I could get in the picture too.  And this is what happened.









Then FINALLY, he got it together and everyone looked at the camera and smiled and all was good.









Then we went to Nina's to watch fireworks.....it was sooooo cold!  Much colder (in July, mind you) than it is now (October).  Weird.

My dad's funeral could not have been any nicer, and his burial ended up being the same way.

I brought all the pictures from California that I'd had framed, and we had a table all set up to put them on but the wind kept knocking them over.  So I put them on the ground instead, all around the grave.  I liked it better that way anyways.









There were so many things we needed to bring for our trip.....normal vacation stuff, plus all the funeral stuff.  I must have asked a thousand times, anytime we left somewhere: "do we have my dad.  Is grandpa in the car.  Someone check and make sure Grandpa is back there."  :)


My cousin (my Nana's sister's son) "officiated" the whole thing and dedicated the grave.  My other cousin (my Dad's brother's son) who I haven't seen in probably 15 years or so, he spoke and he was very eloquent and appropriately emotional and it was so nice.  Me and Jesse laughed afterward because during both of my cousins talks, they mentioned Jesse more than me!  What a great man he is, how much my dad loved him and thought so highly of him....etc. 

Anyhoo, then it was my turn, and I really hate speaking in front of people so much I can't explain it, but the feeling of wanting to honor my dad was bigger than the feeling of fear & embarrassment, so once again I spoke. 

Then it was over and we mingled and packed everything up.







I looked high and low for the perfect flower display.  I didn't want to spend a TON of money, but I didn't want to go cheap because that wasn't my dad's style.  I didn't want to WASTE money on flowers that would maybe freeze if it snowed that night or the next day.  I checked the florists but found what, to me, were the perfect flowers at a grocery store.  The hydrangeas there were too pricey and not up to my standards, so I got this real pretty bunch of azealas in a pretty little woven basket type thing:






We took them afterward and I left them at my cousins house that we were staying at, so that they could enjoy them.


I guess how it usually goes is that the grounds people are watching you from afar and as soon as everyone leaves, they descend upon the scene and do the actual burial and clean everything up.  But I wanted to put it in the ground myself.  I thought it would make me feel good.




So the groundskeepers let us do that, and I put the urn in the ground, and then we put the framed pictures of my dad with each of the girls in there too.  And then all the kids, my girls and their cousins, put in red roses too.










And then when we were done, that nice man in the overalls put the gravel on top, put the square of grass back on, and packed it in.








Then we headed back to my cousins' house that we were staying at, and they opened their house & graciously put on a nice lunch get-together for everyone.

Best sandwiches I ever did have.










The girls met some new cousins:










Played with friends:






Perfect weather, perfect day.  Felt so happy with it & hope my dad was pleased.

snow day part 1

The weather in Utah was nice and sunny and pretty much like San Diego weather....which was THRILLING for the Utah locals, but kind of a bummer for us....

Everywhere you go up there, they ask for your zip code when you shop....when they heard our foreign zip and asked where we were from and I said "San Diego", it was so cute: the cahsiers' eyes would light up and they would, 100% of the time, say something like "so how about this weather!" and they would literally beam with pride.  And I didn't have the heart to tell them that, honestly, we were hoping for some snow.

So we went out to find some on our own.

We figured a place called "Snow Basin" ought to have some, and we were right.  There wasn't as much snow in that basin as there usually is in April, and it was kind of melty, icy, brown-at-the-edges snow.  But there were some skiers at the resort so we figured if was good enough for them, it should be good enough for us.

 And some good old "sledding down a hill in jeans":

As well as "making snow angels...........in jeans":

It's hard to make snowballs without gloves:

What on earth could make poor Mariah cry like this? 

She didn't get slugged with one of the snowballs her sisters were making, she didn't slip on the ice or fall down the steep hill.....she was crying cause it's cold.

She was real emotional about it. :)

 

 

in the park

Last summer we went to every single 'concert in the park' in Lemon Grove.  I used to go to these each summer with my mom and some friends of ours.  It's so much fun, I looked forward to it every week.




 






Sometimes the music is good, but most of the time the real entertainment is just being outside on the grass, and watching the best dancers in Lemon Grove do their thang:




 







The girls got to use one of their birthday presents, those cute new chairs from Pottery Barn:




 




Personalized with their names:


 



I love those chairs.  :)


The girls loved the treats:



 






One week they were handing out balloons, and Mallory was so excited to get the last one.....you'd think she'd never gotten a balloon before in her life!




 


So much fun.  Can't wait for next summer.