Bakersfield

From Santa Maria, we drove through some beautiful country to get to Bakersfield.

Three days of cousins and beach time is pretty exhausting stuff!

So. Many. Vegetable. Farms!!

An orchard or orange grove in development. Isn't the geometry cool? 

Dairy barns and palm trees--they don't seem to go together....

We rolled into Bakersfield Thursday evening in time for supper! Cari did her Cotten blood proud by serving amazing chicken and noodles! Gilbert was fascinated with the noodle making!

Unfortunately, I was incommunicado most of the evening because I needed to turn in a certification exam that evening. Todd and Cari were lovely and didn't even get offended that I came to their house to ignore them. 

I can't even tell you how relieving it was to get that thing turned in. And good news! I passed it. So at least ignoring them was not for nothing. 

The next morning, Todd made chocolate chip pancakes with Elsie and Gilbert. He is great with kids and they adore him! I think he was telling them here about how pancakes are not allowed to kiss. 

A little music together

Cari is a dog trainer, so she showed us some of Jace's tricks! 

Pretty awesome! 

The Coston's, minus Tristan. We had such a nice time with them!!

Todd has a new fan! 

We also got egged. Todd kindly washed it off for us! 

Pineapple palm trees! 

A labor Day bonfire

We had a great, quiet Labor Day. Fiona and Laura came up and we spent the day in Wilmington/Lake Placid on Saturday and then a lazy Sunday with a bonfire to cap off the weekend. 

Hoyt and Elsie are SUCH good friends. Most of the time.

Orange glow of fire!

Climbing up the fallen tree.

The guys

It was a hot fire!

Orianna is getting so grown up! Where did my baby go??

Scott was the bonfire organizer--so he got to prance around throwing large logs on the fire. 

Mumsie

Laura patiently pet Penny for a good long while

And then the pictures were too impossibly blurry without the flash, so I lost all the lovely bonfire color. 

Guys and their phones.... 

Hoyt's Birthday Weekend

This girl? She's awesome!

The kids played out here happily for hours. Currently Elsie was being a dog and her doggie self just happened to die on the lawn. I am not sure how playing a dead dog is fun, but the kids were all very involved and concerned. 

Fortunately, the dead phase didn't last too long. 

Oops! Spoke too soon!

Life is clearly very dangerous for dogs on the back yard. 

Beetle kill elm

They might be destructive, but they do beautiful destructive work!

This picture slays me! 

Things were getting complicated. Lincoln was busily playing Huns (he just learned about them in school) while Elsie was being a dog, Hoyt was playing wolves, and Gilbert was playing cowboys. They were all shouting out their storylines, happily ignoring the fact that no one else was on the same wavelength.

This was where Gilbert caught Elsie and told Lincoln to brand this calf, to which Lincoln replied that he thought it looked more like a Hun. Hoyt said they should probably shoot her because she was a dangerous wolf and Elsie yelled that she was actually a dog. 

There was momentary confusion, then everyone went back to their storylines. 

I walked back in the house and Elliott announced, "Did you know you know I have been spelling "people" wrong all my life?"

These kids delight me!

Then up to Owen and Ashley's for a lunch time birthday party

Little nuts. Gilbert idolizes Elliott. 

Cake!

Shy and nervous 

It is much easier when you have your people around you. 

Presents.

The entire time we were doing presents, Owen was telling us how Hoyt was getting too many presents. At the end, he started asking Hoyt to give all the kids his old toys to make space for the new toys. He sure knows how to make things fun! 

Thankfully Hoyt has the rest of us to roll our eyes at Owen and tell him to get serious. 

Hoyt's new hat and lasso!

Owen sat in cake. Which amused everyone greatly. 

Kids looking like small child soldiers.....

So I told them to stop waving fake guns around. 

Walking down to Grandma and Grandpa's.

Good friends!