Heading home

From our house to downtown there is a nice bikepath that goes down a small road and then through a tunnel under the freeway, past daddo's work and then down a few blocks to the main downtown area. On the way home we typically find ourselves meandering along the dirt bike paths that go along the beach from downtown over to the Bluffs park. The views are incredible on clear days and it's a good way to "check the waves" as Braedyn now calls it (so daddy doesn't have to). On this day we were on our way home from church and a little beach time.

 
 

Surfing

The waves were pretty good over the last week and even though Daddo got out a few times at lunch during the week he still managed to talk Mom and Braedyn into a Sunday afternoon at the beach while he surfed for a while.

 
 

Outside Church

The Avocado festival invited our church (Reality Carpinteria) to hold service on the main stage at the festival on Sunday morning so we rode our bikes downtown for outside church. Braedyn practiced his air guitar renditions during the music. Afterwards we checked out some more of the avo festival that we hadn't seen yet and then headed to the beach. Note to self: remember to bring beach clothes wherever we go in this town!

CrushCakes

There have been a lot of special treats this week what with Braedyn doing so well with his potty training. On Saturday on our way home from a store in Santa Barbara we stopped off at a locally famous spot called Crushcakes Cupcakery for none other than cupcakes. These cupcakes were certainly worth getting lost for, even though we we're parked about 100 yds from it before getting lost!

California Avocado Festival

The rage of Carpinteria this weekend was the California Avocado Festival. It is 3 days of celebrating the avocado with a bunch of bands, questionable, expensive food, interesting vendors, and a lot of people from out of town. We went Friday night after swimming for "locals night" and caught some of our favorite local bands including Dominic Balli who is also the music leader at our church here in Carp. It was quite a bit of fun, and the guacamole was really good!

Swimming

We've settled on the pool at the YMCA in Montecito for our weekly swimming excursions and so we are back in the routine of working on learning to swim with Braedyn. The pool here is pretty nice, it's nice and warm and is outside. It's typically pretty empty so we have a little more space than the Pro Club in Redmond. The outside air makes it a little bit cool overall for Braedyn so we got him a little wetsuit to help him stay a little warmer. He's getting pretty good at kicking and using his arms, but still doesn't want to go away from Daddy at all.

Commuting

It's a little exasperating, my commute time has doubled. When we first moved to Carpinteria, I had a rental car to drive, but now-a-days I am back to full time bicycle commuting. My commute time went from a respectable 3 minutes to an almost unbareble 6 minute time. Then there are the days that I decide to take the long way in to work and ride along the beach, that takes me upwards of 10 minutes sometimes. It gets even worse if I stop in town for coffee. Of course I have the option to telecommute, but I've just been forcing myself to deal with the traffic along the bike path or beach for the time being. At least I have my new Electra Super Deluxe beach cruiser to keep me company on the way in.

More House Pics

We're getting more and more settled into our home here (it takes a little while longer with the beach so close). Here's a panorama of the view as you walk in our front door.

Potty Party

Well we bit the bullet this weekend and stayed at home (mostly) and worked on training Braedyn how to use the potty. We've been reading up on it and watched a DVD for Potty Training in 1 day. We weren't totally sold on the theory but we thought we'd give it a try. That first day was pretty exhausting on mom and dad and seemed like we didn't make any progress. I (Talisha) was ready to burn the book in the back yard! Braedyn, however, thought the whole day was a party because he got tons of juice and sweet treats and mom and dad's total attention, minus lots of pee pee clean up. He even thought the practice runs were a fun game and came running for the potty all smiles and giggles. At least we managed to keep the accidents contained in the kitchen and other hardwood floors. We continued on the second day and only had two accidents but still no self initiation, just good timing. Monday (day three) arrived and Braedyn was magically trained. He started telling us when he needed to go, and going to the potty on his own, pulling down his pants and going! Amazing I know and I'm sure there are still a few more accidents coming our way but the difference from day 1 and day 3 is mind blowing! We are on day 7 now and only a few accidents since and he is staying dry for most naps and nights. Also amazing since he used to wake up with one soggy diaper. Anyway we are so proud of all his progress so quickly and hope it continues. Go Braedyn. You rock kid!

Our House

We're getting pretty well settled into our house in Carpinteria. I took some outside shots of it and stiched them into panoramas. If you want to have some fun, I also created a Synth of all of the outside photos and got some decent results from it. Check that out here (You may have to install Microsoft Silverlight if you haven't already). Photosynth is a really cool product that came out of Microsoft labs, it creates a 3D world out of 2D images. Many of us at MS have just been waiting to be able to use it to create our own synths. Check out some of the better synths that have been created like the Taj Mahal, Stonehenge, or the Roman Coliseum.

Visiting Nicole

Talisha and Braedyn headed out to the desert to visit her long time friend, Nicole, from college days. Who has twins babies and almost twin dogs. Braedyn seemed to prefer playing with the dogs over the babies but the babies were pretty cool too. He will have a lot more fun with the twin babies once they are up and running around too (which isn't very far off). The difference between nearly one and approaching 3 is huge at this age but in a few more years I'm sure you'll hardly notice the difference in age. It was great seeing Nicole and her very cute babies and very BIG dogs as Braedyn dubbed them. Remeber we have a 5 lbs. dog so any dog over 20 lbs. is a very BIG dog!

Reality Carpinteria

We've been attending a local church here called Reality! It is just a short bike ride from our home in Carpinteria. This particular Sunday was the 5 year anniversary of the church so they had church outside, down at the Carpinteria State Beach Park. Braedyn has been talking about Outside Church ever since, luckily they are having another outside service for the Avacado festival in a couple weeks. This was a great service with good music, message, and a BBQ with bouncy castles afterwards.

 
 

Zoo-B-Q

The Santa Barbara zoo held the annual Zoo-B-Q and so we headed back to the zoo for an evening of checking out the animals, eating some other grilled animals, and then listening to Hot Lava (Rock Music for Kids). Hot Lava does quite the reved up version of Wheels on the Bus and Green Eggs and Ham but Braedyn loves it. He usually comes home and rocks out on his little drum set for about 30 minuts, VERY LOUDLY!! It was a nice second visit to the zoo. There were lots of animal characters walking around, some bouncy castles, and some little mini plays happening on stage. But the music was the highlight for Braedyn who had lots of other kids dancing with him tonight!

 

San Ysidro Trail

We went for a hike on Saturday up San Ysidro trail in Montecito. It supposedly headed up to a waterfall, but we didn't get that far, or went the wrong way or something... But it was fune none the less and was a very pretty hike with a nice stream along side, and lots of mountain and ocean views. We stopped for lunch at a nice little spot with a small waterfall and threw some rocks in.