Ojai retreat

Tom's office had an IP retreat in Ojai last weekend.  The firm is really great about inviting spouses and kids to most of the events, so we were able to tag along.  

Tom was in meetings for a few hours each day so the kids and I had some fun hanging out around the hotel.

The kids spent quite a bit of time trying to squish each other.

Jonah likes to do this thing where he says, "One, two, three!" and then jumps.  Only he can't actually get off the ground.  It is pretty funny.  Here he is trying to take off.

This was a pretty fancy place so after we checked in they brought chocolate cupcakes to our room.

Note to the Ojai Valley Inn & Spa: if you don't want chocolate frosting all over your hotel rooms, don't give kids chocolate cupcakes.  This is Jonah before his ended up on the floor, frosting side down.

 And here he is after.  Harper is really great about sharing and she was happy to let Jonah have a little of her frosting.  He dove in face first.

 Jonah loves to wear shoes.  If he sees shoes sitting around the house, he will put them on and walk around for a while.  This has led to lots of abandoned shoes around our house.

The hotel had a big cage with some parrots in it.  One of the parrots, Casper, was very verbal and would say "hello" and bark like a dog.  This is Harper's response to Casper laughing hysterically and swinging around the cage.  Jonah's reaction was to run away screaming.

 These two love each other.

 When we were checking out they gave us these gigantic strawberries.  I hope the hotel doesn't mind all of the strawberry juice that ended up all over our white bed.

 I love these guys :)

My best friend from high school, Cynthia, and her husband Eric (who I also went to high school with) have lived in Santa Barbara for the last few years.  We visited her once . . . about three years ago.  Cynthia and Eric have joined the Peace Corps and are moving to Cameroon next week, so I was happy that they agreed to meet us in Ventura for lunch on our way home.  I have been really terrible about keeping in touch with old friends, but Cynthia is really great and it was so good to get to visit with her.  And Eric too.

 Jonah was completely exhausted from our trip.  Here he is on the couch after we got home.

Visit from Gramps

A couple weeks ago Tom's dad was able to stay with us for the weekend.  Tom has been planning and saving to build a new mega-super-awesome computer for several months now, and he finally had all of the parts so Reid came down for some computer building fun.  We really enjoyed having Gramps here, especially Harper.

Dear God, this is me Harper.

The sort of thing that makes a parent tear up: Harper prayed last night that she could eat ice cream without "getting itchy."

She has come to the point where she really takes note of what she is allergic to.  When she was little she would just pretend that things she liked could never make her have an allergic reaction, but she has now decided that getting super itchy is not worth the joy of eating things she likes.

I too pray that one day she can have dairy ice cream like most people without worrying about the severe itching that results if she has some now.