4th of July Weekend

We had a really great weekend...it was a good mix of lots of fun and play, and getting the house unpacked...Friday morning we drove out to Santa Monica for our first beach trip...Lauren is a total water baby, and Kate is a close 2nd, although Kate much prefers the really warm weather and water...Lauren couldn't care less if it was pouring rain and freezing...she'd still be in the water...

Both kids couldn't get enough of the water...it was definitely a 2-parent activity to keep our kids from drowning...


We came home for a few hours of resting and unpacking and then headed back to Pasadena for a BBQ with some good friends of ours...unfortunately I didn't get any pictures...it's nice to just sit and relax with good friends, although the night ended on a naughty note when Lauren and Noah decided to fling beans and rice all over the kitchen, dining, entry and living room (complete with grand piano)...both children sat in time out for a good 30-45 minutes while 4 angry and sweaty parents swept and vacuumed the disaster...unfortunately there are still lots of beans in the strings of the piano...this was going on in the house while us parents were laughing outside about how Noah and Lauren would date, and then he would leave on a mission and come home and marry Kate, or some version of that...then we noticed it was too quiet...

Saturday we organized all morning and then went to a big BBQ at my parents' house...our good friends from OC drove up and our kids had a great time together...the very apparent bruise on Lauren's head is where she turned and directly ran into the door earlier in the week...yeah, she cried...and more evidence that all Kate does most of the day is suck on her lower lip...will she still be sucking her "binky" when she goes to Prom?

My parents just completed a major overhaul of the pool area...the whole structure was rebuilt, with new lighting all over the whole area (very cool at night)...the pool was re-plastered, and new pavers put in all over the lower yard area...this was their big debut...there's also a new water feature...sort of visible in a lower picture, and a new counter/storage area was built, along with another pool shed/storage being demolished and rebuilt...

You can sort of see the fountain...it has three spouts coming out of the wall and a small pool right below it catching the water...my mom is standing at the counter/food serving area...the kids had a blast bobbing for ice from the bucket...Lauren and Leda...hopefully they will be as good of friends as their mothers...