Almost Birthday Girl

Samantha's actual birthday (11/28) falls on the day after Thanksgiving this year which is a hard time to get a birthday party together because most people are out of town. We also are in transition this year with the remodel, move and I have another knee surgery next week, so we decided to forgo a big 1st birthday party bash and instead have a few friends over for a birthday play date.

And now to the cupcake eating pictures...... I must say Samantha definitely has a sweet tooth. She dug into her cupcake and then proceeded to eat everyone else's cupcakes. I am pretty sure she had 4 cupcakes.

Our little party animal stayed up until 9 PM last night and then crashed with her new birthday bear.

The Zoo

The Santa Barbara Zoo never gets old. Buying the annual pass is one of the best investments we have made. Samantha and I like to go and have a picnic lunch and then check out the lions, giraffes and the gorillas. And now that she is walking it is even more fun - the animals have become second fiddle to the play area.

Here is one of the two gorillas. I actually feel sorry for these guys and most of the animals. They seem sad in such small spaces. A zoo keeper actually told me that he thinks the gorillas and many of the other animals are bored and depressed.

My little chickadee:

Tea Fire

Here is the view from our balcony of the Tea Fire burning Santa Barbara/Montecito around 5 PM today. It started around 6 pm last night and last I heard there has been over 100 homes destroyed or damaged. The air here is filled with smoke and ash. Helicopters and emergency vehicle sirens are everywhere. We didn't take a photo last night but we sat in our front room watching the large orange glow in the dark (our power was out) and had no idea of the magnitude of the fire until this morning when the power came back on and we saw the news.

Home Stretch

We just need to complete the bathroom and kitchen and then we can move. We won't have everything done when we move in (we are shooting for beginning of December)but the rest of the remodel can be completed while we are living there.

Here are some new photos:

New Front Door (still needs to be stained)



Here is the old front door. I just put it up in the FREE section of Craigslist. Hopefully someone can use it. I mean, who wouldn't want a door with that cool diamond window??

Here is the Kitchen. The cabinets have been ordered and we have bought some of the appliances. Still working on finding the right refrigerator and sink.

Todd is covering all the floors to protect them because he is priming the interior walls

Starting to tile the bathroom wall

Samantha surprised us today by showing us that she is ready to take Lollipop on walks


Not sure how Lollipop feels about this.

The Weeble Wobble

Party Animal

We have had non-stop parties to attend for the past couple weeks.

Last Saturday we attended Maya and Serena Aparicio's birthday party at a park in Ojai: Serena turned 2 (in the floral dress) and Maya turned 7 (holding on to Samantha)

The next day we went to Ella's 1st Birthday party at Padaro Beach Grill:

Later that evening we went to the Stone's Pumpkin Carving Party:

Then on Tuesday we went to the Infant Times Halloween Party:

Samantha was very intrigued by her friend TJ dressed as Elmo

On Thursday the Halloween festivities continued at Yellow Bird:

Samantha got a lot of wear out of her lamb costume. Thank you Dancing Grandma!!!


And finally today we attended Ben's 1st birthday party at the zoo:

Ben the birthday boy, Reese, Sam, and Colin

Cute girls in their pink coats