An accident waiting to happen

Happy birthday, Ginger

Ginger's birthday was a few weeks ago. Here's a short video of her eating her birthday cake. She just kept shoving the cake in by the fistful.

As I watch the video now, I wonder why it's so shaky. Apparently I couldn't sit still so hopefully you don't get sea sick.

¿Como se dice...?

Yesterday while we were in the car driving home from the grocery store, I had the following conversation with Penny.

Penny: "Mommy, how do you say butt cheek in Spanish?"
Me: "Umm..."
Penny: "Is it abuela?"

Scott's wedding

We went to my brother Scott's wedding this weekend in Salt Lake. He married Ashley James from Nebraska. Welcome to the family, Ashley!

Here's the happy couple:

Here's me and my siblings and step-siblings:

My little, happy family:

Me and six of my siblings, without Kathryn who's on her mission:

Penelope and Ginger at the reception:

Marriage Bliss

Today's our anniversary. Stephan's grandparent's were also married on August 14, except in 1947. Here we are with them in 2004 at Christmastime in their house in San Diego. They both died this last year.

I was looking through our photo libraries trying to find some pictures of us from the last five years. In the first two years of our marriage, we have tons of pictures of me and Stephan doing lots of fun things and we both look good and alert and happy. Then after Penny was born, all the pictures are of Penny with one of us, or just her. And, I swear, I look better in all the pre-children pictures than post children. Childbearing has done something to my photo-taking abilities or maybe just to my skin and hair.

Here we are, five years later and a happy little family. (We have river-walking booties on, in case you were curious. And, the pants around Stephan's neck were wrapped around Ginger to protect her from the swarms of attacking mosquitoes.)

Here we are walking off into our happy future.

Devils Postpile

We went camping last month near Mammoth, California with Stephan's parents and his sister and her family. The Lovstedts camped there when they were kids so it was a fun walk down memory lane for Stephan and Julie. We did several little hikes, one of which was Devils Postpile.

It's this cool geologic formation. Being the daughter of a geologist, I was intrigued by how it formed and how it got these hexagonal shapes to the columns. It really was crazy. Apparently, it had something to do with a lava flow moving down the valley and then it cooled at varying speeds, causing the vertical jointing. Or something like that. Julie's husband, Greg, is a PhD student of geology so he had lots of explanations for what we were seeing.

These are the pillars from the side with the pile of rubble in front.

The whole group.

We took a short hike to the top of the postpile. Here's a view of the tops of the pillars.

Taking a break on top with the girls.

Penny and her cousin Chloe playing with Grandma's walking sticks.

Penny and Chloe resting on a log bench along the way.

Penny and Chloe, again. Check out Penny's knock-knees. Cute, uh?

Meanie big sister

Penny loves making movies with our little digital camera. Here's one she made a few weeks ago. It's hilarious! We're not exactly sure what happened but obviously Penny made Ginger mad and then ran away because she knew she was busted. Whenever she gets in trouble, she runs to this corner next to the back door. The other day she said to me, "I don't wanna be busted, Mommy." Apparently I've told her she was busted one too many times. Funny, uh?