I always love seeing how Lauren has changed over the years! Now we have Brody in there and we’ll have more fun changes to watch.

The ever popular compilation of all the years:

2009:

This page is the official family newsletter for 2008. Why have it on our site? Partly because we’re lazy, but mostly because we can keep it here forever. In 10 years, we’ll all be able to go back through the newsletters and see what happened during each year. Sort of like our little annual scrapbook.

First, we’ll cover all of the important events of 2008, and below all of that will be a slide show of photos taken around the holiday season.

• Of course, the highest on our list is the birth of Brody! He joined us on 6/7/08 and has been keeping us busy ever since. 
• Lauren turned 12 in April and started 7th grade in the fall. She’s doing very well in school and enjoys Drama and Science as a few of her favorite subjects. Seeming to grow taller every day, she now matches Melanie in height… and they can wear the same shoes and some jeans, too.
• Melanie turned the big three oh in May, and Neil turned 38 in July. (we’re old)
• Lauren enjoyed her final soccer season. She’s claiming to officially retire from the sport (for now). Volleyball has her interest and she hopes to persue it more next year.
• In October, Lauren got braces put on. She loves to switch the colors of the bands now and then. Currently, she is sporting seasonal green and red.
• Back in March, while very pregnant, Melanie flew with her friend Rene to Loveland, Colorado. They surprised their friend Stacy for her birthday. Stacy knew all along that Rene would be there, but was bummed that Melanie wasn’t going… until they landed and Melanie was with Rene!
• Neil’s work travels were much less than they were in 2007, with only a few trips to Portland, Seattle and New Orleans (and he met bass player Jimi Jazz of Special Sauce on his flight to New Orleans).
• Melanie and Neil enjoyed just a couple of concerts in ’08. Jack Johnson in August (Neil’s birthday gift) and G. Love & Special Sauce in February (pregnant Melanie was a trooper for that show).
• In July… Neil’s brother came down to visit in July with his wife and son Colton. Brody’s other cousin, Jake was also there. We all had fun watching the 3 boy cousins. They were all born within 7 months.
• In August, we all went to the Orange County Fair and did our annual photo booth shots. This was Brody’s first time in the booth, and it’s getting crowded. Up on the header of the site, you can see a shot from each year we’ve done it, starting in 2001 on the left.
• Neil is enjoying his side work doing photography, and hopes to have more work soon.
• Melanie and Neil started doing baby signs with Brody. Hopefully in a few months he will be able to communicate with us. (a little at least)
• Early December, Brody cut his first teeth… two on the bottom. Read all about it here.

We parked across the street, and walked over to the field. Out of acres and acres of wheat, I would estimate that there was less than 5% of the crop left. And it had been left there as if it were waiting for me to get the shoot I was thinking of. We walking along the waist high wheat, using the part of the cut-down wheat where the tractors drove. Once we got far enough into the field, I smashed down some of the wheat to make a small area for them to stand in while I shot.

The photos came out very nice. And I’m definitely glad I got the chance to get out there before it was all chopped down. Check out the choice ones from the shoot.

On Tuesday morning, the first morning we were there, Lauren went on a bike ride with Allie, Jake, Rene, Dale and Rhonda. I stayed back at the camp to take a cat nap. Rhonda woke me up and said that Lauren had taken a bad spill on her bike and her knee was cut pretty badly.I jumped up and drove down to where they were. The cut on her knee was pretty bad, along with a nice scrape on her elbow and some road rash on the side of her thigh. Dale said that she didn’t even cry, and that she was a tough girl. I drove her down to the ranger station which had first aid service. They cleaned the wounds out and dressed them up with blue and green wrap… she got a kick out of that.

I was bummed that she couldn’t go into the water since I wanted to give her some surfing lessons. We still managed to have a good time playing on the beach.That night, we wanted to go out to eat and went to a place that was recommended to Dale. I’ll post separately on that incident since it deserves it’s own. Stay tuned for that one.

On Wednesday morning, I went for a surf. After about 30 minutes, I wanted to walk south as the slight current had taken me north a few hundred yards from where I paddled out. As I walked, I noticed a large dead seal on the beach. It looked as if it was washed ashore overnight during high tide. I looked up the bluffs and noticed our campsite was directly above. Once I inspected it for any shark bites, I paddled back out for another 30 minutes… the whole time keeping my eyes peeled for anything swimming near me.

Upon returning to our campsite I told everyone about the dead animal… and, of course, the kids all needed to climb up on the fence to see it. [better from way up on the bluff than up close like I did] When lunch-time rolled around, the stench of the rotting seal began to waft through our campsite every so often. It was not something you want to smell every 5 minutes or so. A park ranger was at the restroom area and I stopped and asked him what the procedure was for removing the carcass. He explained that the life guards take care of such things… but they have their hands full with an abandonded sailboat that was almost washed ashore. — We watched in amazement as a life guard swam out about 100 yards, hooked up a line to the front of a 20 ft sailboat and towed it out past 1000 yards… backstroking… by himself. Not sure why the boat was abandoned, they towed it away later. — We packed up our beach gear and headed down to the beach for the rest of the day.

Just after getting down to the beach, Allie was wading through the knee-deep water… and got several stings from a Jellyfish. It was painful stinging for about an hour, but a bag of ice helped the hurt and she was back to normal in no time.

The next morning the “disposal” company had arrived to remove the dead seal. Now that would be a nasty job… putting a dead seal into a 50 gallon barrell and trucking it away. We were moving to a different site anyway since we wanted to stay an extra night. Unfortunately, we couldn’t keep that site as it was already booked by someone else.

Quite an eventful camping trip… we certainly have not had such drama in previous years.

Melanie and I went to her soccer game on Friday evening. It was her team’s (Purple Reign) second official game (two have been re-scheduled so far), and I got some pretty cool photos of her in action, and at rest also. Her team was doing great through the game, keeping the score even until the last few minutes. Their opponents scored a goal and kept the score 4-3. This makes Purple Reign’s record 0-1-1 (wins, losses, ties). Her team did great and it was fun watching them. After the game we went with her to a local pizza place for her to celebrate a teammate’s birthday.

On Saturday, we spend some time with my parents doing some shopping. Then on Sunday, Melanie and I took her to Libby Lu for a make-over. She chose a cool package that included a hair-do, some make-up… and she got to mix her own lotion and shampoo. We could tell that she had a lot of fun so I thank Melanie for finding Libby Lu! Because I would never have found sometime like that myself.

The kids come out to the field with all others in their class and jog, walk, trot… some even all out sprint around this track that’s about 1/4 the distance of a normal track. They all start out with a “warm up” lap of walking. Then it’s every kid for themself.

5 laps down, they’re all running… 10 laps down, some walking but most are still running… 15 laps down, more than half have given up running for the slower (and much easier on the legs) version of transportation known as ‘strolling’. But, there are some that won’t give up. Lauren was running just about all the way through. From what I saw, she maybe walked about a total of 5 laps.

Afterwards, they all got a much deserved popsicle for the hard work that was done so early in the morning.

See all Jog-a-thon photos here…

Once Lauren was done finishing her missed classwork from the previous Monday, we started painting the styrofoam balls black. After the painting was done, we had to let them dry… overnight was the best idea since we didn’t want to get black paint all over the place (see Lauren’s hands here).

In the morning, we put together the small ball and the medium ball with two toothpicks (sturdier than just one). We had just enough pipe cleaners to make legs for four spiders if we cut them in half. Lauren did a great job at placing each leg in just the right spot, and bending them just the right way to make them look great!

Our stairwell is now covered in spiders and their webs.

See all of the photos here.

After dinner we were treated to a live comedy show put on by Ally and Lauren… with Jake assisting. The announcement came from the top of the stairs (Jake yelling on some toy microphone system)…. “The Ally & Lauren Show will be starting in 10 minutes… please purchase your tickets from Jake in the living room”. After rumaging Melanie’s purse for the 10 cents to cover our 2 tickets, We purchased our tickets from Jake “The Doorman” who was sitting at the entrance of the living room. The show consisted of Ally and Lauren doing some comedy bits that seemed somewhat incomprehensible… which was not helped by the wine that we had consumed up to this point. I remember something about a commercial for Hill Billy Deodorant, an old lady that kept asking for help crossing the street and then refusing help, and Lauren doing the knock-knock joke about the banana and the orange (the knock-knock link has the joke if you’ve never heard it). Every few minutes, Jake walked by selling bananas for 2 cents.

Several minutes later we’ve been moved outside to the backyard. This is where Ally and Lauren perform the highlight of the night… Ally says “I’m coffee”, Lauren says “and I’m creeeeeam”… Ally says “and together…. ” … I forget what she said because I’m already laughing so hard at their body language and delivery of the coffee and cream lines. Our laughter is fueled even further by both of them going into the “robot” dance, almost in synch. The both end it with their forearms dangling from their raised elbows.

Not to be outdone, Jake is sitting just inside of the kitchen with his microphone and speaker…. and goes into his own routine. He finished off with his own rendition of the banana/orange knock-knock joke… which went like this:

Jake: knock knock
Us: Who’s there?
Jake: Orange
Us: Orange who?
Jake: …. (long pause) … Banana!!!!

All adults present were on the verge of peeing our pants. This was so worth the 5 cent admission price!

We’re at the beach and Lauren just started playing with these other kids. Made me think about when I was her age… I don’t remember being this outgoing… I think I was way too shy to just strike up a temporary friendship and play like this.

It’s comforting to know that she’s more outgoing than I was at that age.