Playing Catch-up

It would be overwhelming to post pictures of the year I've missed on the blog. So I am just going to ignore the fact that 12 months have gone missing (we'll blame it on user error--my inability to juggle too many things at once).
Here are a few pictures from the last month or so.

Norah at Kindergarten Promotion!

Toby played a month of post-season little league!

#18. He played every position, but pitching. He liked catcher best.

Toby got baptized on June 8th!

Carmel River State Beach--I had just dropped Toby off for a day at summer camp when I snapped this picture. I was a little jealous of his 2 weeks at summer camp!

Norah at open house, where we went on a tour of her classroom. She worked so hard this year!

My One Year Anniversary

One year ago, on June 29th 2012, our family drove into this little town for the first time. We barely knew a soul within 1000 miles, outside of professional contacts and acquaintances.
We have invested our time and energy reaching out to the community, the schools, and the businesses (well, to be totally honest, the wineries), in order to settle in and make this new and strange place feel like home.
In the midst of work and school and holidays and exploratory day trips we coined a new catch phrase that we now find ourselves saying often, as a means of capturing just how much we've fallen in love with this area: We live here.
Last night we watched the sun settle over the Pacific on the anniversary of our arrival here, surrounded by dozens of locals--both friends and strangers. We are so glad to be in a position to say "we live here" and we look forward to the memories that will be made here for us and our family in the future.

My Sweet Sunset

In honor of The Philosopher's birthday we went to the Carmel Sweet Shop for some toffee and fudge and then traveled down to the beach to watch the sunset. Toby and Daddy got distracted trying to rescue a kite while Norah and I watched the surfers.
Our new family motto was coined over this spring break:

We Live Here.

We are loving it.

My Weekend Should Always Start with a Beach Day

We had such a busy weekend! The Philosopher was philosophizing at a conference and we booked ourselves solid for the whole weekend.

On Friday we went straight from school to the beach. It was such a gorgeous afternoon. We found a little spot in a cove that blocked the wind and we hung out for hours. The kids dug holes (we really need some good shovels) and played in the trees and the moms just chatted. 

Then we came home and "enjoyed" some homemade pizza. I am working on my 2013 goal to eat pizza as often as possible, but I am on a mission to find a good dough recipe. I used a no-knead recipe and one from my Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. They both turned out really dry. I'll have to keep experimenting. Just because the dough was dry doesn't mean we didn't eat almost all of the pizza, though!

Saturday was completely booked. We made crepes, then ran errands in the morning (Toby needed cleats for baseball as well as uniform stuff and a batting helmet), which led into a birthday party for his classmate in the afternoon. The kids had so much fun!! The birthday girl's family booked out the entire Carmel Youth Center and so the kids could play games, do crafts, and even watch a movie in a mini-theater!

Once the kids were loaded on popcorn, soda, and cupcakes we went home for a brief rest before going to another friend's house for a really neat house concert. Some (newly) local musicians played folk-Americana music for a few hours, and there was even a babysitter for the kids.

On the way home from the concert Toby said, "I am so tired I just want to brush my teeth, get in my pajamas, and go straight to bed!" He heard no complaint from me!

Sunday was full of relaxation and chores-catch-up in the morning and baseball practice in the afternoon.

Some weekends are so busy that we (almost) look forward to a slow and easy weekday routine!

My New Year's Eve

We went to the children's museum in the morning and counted down to noon. Then we went home and bummed around waiting for plans to come together. A spontaneous call from a friend came in at 3:30: "It's low tide from now until sunset. Let's go to the beach." Toby donned his new wetsuit, we grabbed some buckets, lots of towels, blankets, and layers, and some hot dogs. And this is how we spent New Year's Eve. (Well, we stayed until 7, then came home, showered and the kids fell asleep on the couch at 8. My philosopher and I rang in the new year with a bit of champagne.)

About 5 minutes after this lovely moment Toby  was yelling "My hands and feet are so NIMB!"
while we attempted to peel him out of the wetsuit and our friend built a fire.

My First Nutcracker Ballet

Toby, Norah, and I got to experience our first Nutcracker Ballet last night. (Apparently the philosopher grew up seeing the Nutcracker every year at, like, the National Ballet or something fancy like that. Not really, but he has seen it before.)

We all dressed up and took in the performance on opening night. They did a great job! Norah got a new holiday outfit, and Toby got a new pair of pants (not jeans or scooby pants!!) and we went out and painted the town red. Kind of. We were all tuckered out after the performance so we came home and went straight to bed, but it was really fun to go out and see the locals. Both Toby and Norah had classmates in the performance. It's definitely something we'd do again next year! And if anyone's out here visiting the weekend of the Nutcracker we'll be sure to take you along!

My Pacific Sunset

It gets dark before 5:00 here these days, as it does everywhere else, I know. But there's something magical about watching the sun dip below the ocean's horizon in the evening. Something that a picture can't capture, but I still try sometimes.
:o)

(November)
From Mission Ranch, looking over Toby's school's garden

(November)
From Carmel Beach

(November)
From Nepenthe restaurant in Big Sur

(October)
From Carmel Beach
(Everyone else was out to watch the 10-minute sunset,
 and then we all got in our cars and drove off to where ever we were headed.)

(July)
One of our first sunsets from Carmel Beach

My Big Sur guided adventure

Drive south down Highway 1 from our house and you'll see some of the most beautiful scenery.
We took an afternoon to drive to Big Sur and caught the sunset over dinner at Nepenthe.
It was just georgeous!
(Small side note: I hate heights, so I wouldn't go near the edge. They were looking at Bixby Bridge.) 

My kite-flying and hole-digging kids enjoy the beach

These pictures were taken over a month ago, at Carmel beach. My mom came out for a week and we spent one whole afternoon at the beach. It was windy, and the waves were huge, but the kids don't seem to care. They had a ton of fun. We arrived at the beach around 2 and stayed through sunset. There was a deep hole by the water, so we decided to stay there and Toby got right to work digging some more. He spent about 2 hours in there. He also met a dog that would try to catch the sand that Toby threw out of the hole. It was very entertaining.

Toby found a friend who liked to chase the wet sand Toby threw.

Norah flew her kite for a long while. My mom helped her out (Can you believe my mom has never flown a kite by herself before? We fixed that.). The funniest thing about this video, and these pictures, is that my mom and I are fully clothed and still cold, and Norah is running around like a crazy person in her swim suit.

My Castles in the Sand



Norah looking west, with the sand castles behind her.

We stuck close to home this weekend in order to participate in the annual Carmel Beach Sand Castle Building Contest. Up for grabs was the coveted golden shovel. The Dads' Group at Toby's school put together a pretty impressive turn out and Norah and I arrived on scene with just enough time to see the awards handed out.
While Toby and the other students and their dads didn't win the golden shovel (rumor had it other castle-builders were bribing the judges with wine and cheese--but I'm not entirely sure about that), they did win a plaque for "Judges Favorite." They made an otter (the school mascot), a VW LuvBug (according to this year's theme), and a few random castles. Toby helped dig the moat around the drip-tree castle.
Enjoy the pictures. We enjoyed the (windy) sunny day very much.

This is how many of the pro sculptors start out. Then they carve out their creations from the big pile of wet sand.

I think this was an octopus eating a book, but it might have been something totally different from the opposite side.

A partitioned-off area for "River Dads" group to work (the otter is on the right).

The sand castle Toby and BJ worked on.

My Western View

What a beautiful sunset we saw tonight!