July 13

Looking out their front door!


I took a walk this morning around the big block. The sun was finally out...the Marine Layer seemed to have burned off finally! I saw some interesting sites: a couple of couches and mattresses on the side of the road, and a lot of colorful flowers.
I felt like I was in a botanical garden! Tall palm trees in the middle of a busy city!
The guys went golfing at Lost Canyons for most of the day so Sarah, Mom and I stayed home with the kiddos. Maggie and Adia put together an animal circus show with Anders and Alex as the dogs and Hannah was the acrobatic tiger.
Jacob quit the circus earlier in the day which seemed to cause some ripples, but they recovered and put on a nice show. They have a beautiful yard in front of their house that is completely fenced in, so the kids can play hard and safe. It is weird to hear cars zooming by near them, but they are safe because there is like a ten foot fence and bushes between them and the road.
In the afternoon, Sarah and I took all the kids except Jacob (I think he wanted a quiet day at home with Ama) down to Venice Beach and boardwalk. We saw skateboarders on the skateboard park, lots of "interesting" tshirt booths and restaurants and people. We spent some time on the beach and the kids built sandcastles and watched one of the lifeguards go into the water to get people away from the rocks. The water was so blue and the waves much bigger than I remember on the Atlantic Ocean.
Mark and Steve's cousin, Joel Otto, and his family came over for dinner on the first leg of their California vacation. It's always good to see family!

We celebrated summer birthdays with cupcakes and the 5 year olds got a few presents.