June Snapshots

Summer Goals

Ben: To be a little bit lazy every single day of summer.

Clara: To have a good day every day of summer.

Two kids and two jobs meant for creative planning so that we all had a good summer. Santa Barbara has incredible camps for kids so we created a plan of camp every other week, the best babysitter ever (we love you, Lauren!), and Leah working some days from home.

June also began with a “bucket list” of adventures big and small we wanted to have over the summer. Match all of that with a constant stream of friends and family coming through the best city in California (in our humble, but pretty spot on opinion) we became expert jugglers—and admittedly, sometimes one of those balls in the air took the shape of a cold Corona. Hey, it’s summer.

Birthday celebration for Fuzzy.

Releasing balloons for Grace’s birthday.

Celebrating our favorite Dad.

Pop Pop comes to town!

Westmont Sports Camp, a new generation of Warriors! Ben wants to go to Westmont, Clara might want to be in New York, San Francisco or Paris— she's still deciding.

Checking out the floats for the Solstice Parade.

On the night of the super moon we concocted a plan to do a surprise wake-up of the kids at about 10:00 pm and take them down to the beach to see this natural wonder. When we went to get the kids, they thought we were crazy and weren’t happy campers.

Leah had made fresh chocolate chip cookies, hoping to ease the pain with some warm, gooey goodness. By the time we were down at the beach (it was incredible- the bright moon reflecting in the wild waves)  with cookies in hand, Clara came around, but Ben was our grumpy old man, “Can you please just take me back to my bed?” In the morning all was forgiven and all admitted it was a magical memory.

Another fun Concert in the Park with Carrie & Co.

Cousin time! We finally got to meet sweet Katie— the girls instantly bonded.

We hope you’re making some magical memories, being a little lazy every day, having fun and popping a couple cold ones (sippy cup, sweet tea, beer or margarita...it's your choice).

Sliding Into Summer

The last month of the school year turned into a marathon at sprint speed of parties, activities, assessments times two. Can we tell you how excited we are for the kids to be at the same school, on the same schedule in the fall?

Clara “graduated” from her preschool class (Green Bears) at All Saints By the Sea. We ended the year with the mom and kids campout at El Capitan Canyon. Clara had her ups and downs this year, she is our shy, tomboy, perfectionist— it can take her awhile to find her groove. It was amazing to watch her in the thick of it with all her (adorable) classmates living it up in the wilderness…well, wilderness Santa Barbara style. To see all the ways our baby girl has grown in confidence, kindness and friendship this year was incredible. Here’s to kindergarten!

Ben loved his first year at Montecito Union and he ended the year reading and writing (short stories, non-fiction, poetry) like a champ. His favorite activities were basketball games at recess, technology class and science. He won two silver medals in chess and is now teaching Clara how to play. We are so thankful for all the opportunities to learn and grow with great kids— it makes our rent/square footage ratio worth it. (This is his self-portrait at the start of the year and at the end). 

The kids played their first season of T-Ball on the A’s. It was kind of the rag-tag team of the league. But all the kids had such a sweet spirit that they just had fun playing. All of Ben’s buddies from school were on another team (the best in the league) and it was a season of learning about sticking with your team, loyalty and sportsmanship. In the end, all Ben and Clara really wanted was the trophy— which left us wondering if we could have just ordered them off Amazon and slept in all those Saturdays.

This is the only couple picture ever taken with Mark wearing no glasses (Leah just wanted to see what it would look like-it looks weird, right?).

Love from all of us!