Starstruck

When Dave first dragged me out (ahem) to Southern California, one of my demands was that he  expose me to a certain amount of "glamour" once I got out here. So for the first few years, every Friday night when we would go out to dinner at our dive-y neighborhood Mexican restaurant, our running joke would be, "Is this the glamour?"

Now it's becoming clear that I was more than a bit wrong-headed in my expectations. People, you cannot ask others to bring you glamour. You have to go out and get it on your own.

(How's that for a thought that manages to be both shallow and profound?)

Tonight, through my blogging connections, the boys and I were invited to a schmancy kids' Halloween party put on by Hub TV Network (formerly Discovery Kids). The party was held in an enormous old L.A. mansion and the organizers somehow created a setting that was simultaneously glamorous, creepy, and kid-friendly. The boys were overwhelmed by the kid-friendly bar (chocolate milk, apple cider, juice boxes, old-timey soda bottles), the candy, the bite-sized cupcake display, the skull decorations, and the swag. In fact, they were so caught up in the whole thing that they both insisted on trying the pumpkin soup "shooters" from the buffet line.

For this party, both Luke and Zach experimented with costumes that they are not planning to wear for "actual" Halloween. Luke had his spy costume on tonight (he's planning on being the "Scream" ghost for Halloween) and Zach came as a chef (he wants to be Batman Cat for Halloween). As it turned out, it was a good look for both of them.

Zach enjoyed himself most (where else?) at the art table. But Luke was most excited when his friend Sawyer showed up. Sawyer is the kid whose mom I know through blogging, and he and Luke became instant best friends a few months ago when they met at an event. Sawyer's family lives 50 miles away, so playdates are unlikely, but as soon as they saw each other, they were like old pals. It's kind of like having an in-state cousin.

After they had games and a scavenger hunt, they showed two movies from the current Hub TV lineup: one kid-friendly cartoon and one scary new show for tweens (which of course Luke and Sawyer wanted to see).

Following the movie, Luke and Sawyer were buzzing about the fact that the kid who starred in the scary movie was right there at the party and they wanted a picture with him. It was, in fact, Frankie Jonas, the kid brother of the Jonas Brothers, also know as the "Bonus Jonas." But to two seven-year-olds, he was a big-kid hero.

Next thing you know, the boys will be asking to go to movie premieres and red-carpet events. "We want glamour, Mom!"

Portrait of the Artist as a Young Ham

Zach likes art, and I think he's pretty good at it. But who cares what I think; I'm his mom. It's when other people start noticing it that I think we might have something going on here.

Example: He made a Halloween picture the other day in school and the teachers were so excited about it I overheard them telling some other kids' parents, "You have GOT to see this Halloween picture that Zach drew." Clockwise from top right: A giant vampire bat, a haunted house, a jack-o-lantern, a bag filled with candy, a witch with a pointy hat, and a ghost. When the picture came home I thought Luke had drawn it.

Then on Friday I got us all ready for pumpkin carving: I took our two biggest pumpkins and set them outside with two magic markers, with the idea that each boy would draw a face on one pumpkin for me to carve out. What happened next says just as much about Luke as it does about Zach. Apparently Zach picked up the markers and drew faces on both of the pumpkins. Was Luke mad? No! He was so impressed with Zach's jack-o-lantern faces that he was practically electrified. He came rushing inside: "Mom! You have GOT to see the faces Zach made on the pumpkins! They're incredible!" And it's true - they were perfectly proportioned and placed, and they had just the right comic edge to look like great jack-o-lanterns.

Speaking of pumpkins and jack-o-lanterns: Didja know that Luke can spell "pumpkin" and "jack-o-lantern"? Also "autumn" and "Halloween" and "manufactured" and "libraries," among other words. Each week the 2nd-graders get a choice of three spelling tests (easy, medium, or hard) and he always chooses - and aces - the most challenging test. My kinda kid.

Picture This

When is a hot dog not a hot dog? When it's covered with kimchi from the Kogi BBQ truck at yesterday's South Bay Food Festival. Oh, and when I'm taking pictures of it with my *new camera* [crowd roars with approval]. No more sloppy, out-of-focus, dim pictures. Well, maybe just fewer sloppy, out-of-focus, dim pictures. But willya look at the definition on that cabbage!

The irony is that I got this camera just hours after I really could have used it. On Friday I was invited to cover a swanky luncheon for our local CBS news online edition (why, thank you for asking - it was lunch at MB Post for the Los Angeles Food and Wine Festival) and I was supposed to take pictures. So I brought my sad little point-and-shoot camera and I brought back some sad little point-and-shoot photos. But just wait to see what I can come up with next time.

So I haven't really read the manual yet and I've just been fiddling around with the camera. But it seems pretty intuitive. Within moments of picking it up for the first time, I was able to take this kind of cool/sad portrait of Luke at karate.

Here's a Luke story to counter this seemingly forlorn picture: Luke and I were at the store, and when he got distracted by looking at something (soda, no doubt), he and I were momentarily separated. When he came back and found me, he said, "Mom, when I turned around and didn't see you, I had, like, three exclamation points over my head."

I hope to take photos of Zach too, but for the moment, he is doing the main work of creating pictures at our house. Here I present his newest masterwork, "Vegetable Family" (a potato, a carrot, a tomato, and a green onion). Now that's what I call a picture.

Finding a Niche

Zach's soccer game was a thrill to watch on Saturday. For one thing, he played in it. For another thing, he had a very clearly defined sense of mission. In the first half, he seemed to view himself as some sort of self-appointed paramedic. He would hang around on the outside of the mob of kids, and then whenever someone fell down, he would rush over and help the kid get up off the ground.

In the second half, there was one brief moment when he seemed to have some real clarity about the point of the soccer game. He was hanging back, and then the ball was open, and Dave said to him, "There's the ball, Zach! Go get it!" and Zach really went after the ball, and charged down the field with it toward the goal. Then other kids got in the mix and he never quite made it into the goal (he was a little sad) but we were all elated to see him with such a sense of purpose.

He hung back again for a while, and then the ball came close another time with only one kid from the other team on it. Dave said to him, "The ball's right there, Zach! Go get him!" Here the key difference is the word "him" because Zach went ahead and charged the kid and body-slammed him into the ground. Er, right idea, sort of. But a little too literal. Give it a few more weeks, and some more specific directions, and we may be on to something.

Luke and Zach have a new activity that involves heavy pillow fighting and tossing socks at each other. It drives Dave nuts, and I try to respect his preferences, but deep down inside I'm just so happy to see them doing something together voluntarily and enthusiastically. That's what brothers do, right? Yeah, somebody invariably gets hurt, but it's different when it's a choice. I don't have a picture of that but I do have a picture of them (literally) climbing the walls together. They have to keep themselves entertained, you know?

Tonight I had a Mad Men/1960s-themed blogger party, and I knew I had to get my hair just right, so I went to my hairdresser and got all curled and teased and poofed.  I had to get my hair done early in the morning (hairdresser's timing on her day off) so I went through the whole day with this enormous helmet on my head.

How did people live like this? (Luke saw me and wanted to know, "How long is your hair going to stay like that?") And more importantly, how did people use this much hairspray AND smoke cigarettes? All I know is that I was feeling simultaneously glamorous and flammable all day long. Please keep me away from candles and fireworks until I can get all of this stuff out of my hair.

Night on the Town

Luke is out, enjoying a slumber party with his best friends. He's undoubtedly having a great time, watching movies, playing video games, drinking soda (!), and staying up late. And that's fine with us, because when Luke is away, the rest of us can play. And by play I mean, "go out for a normal dinner." No kids' menus or dumbed-down food for us.

Dave, Zach, and I went to yet another Thai restaurant tonight and ordered ourselves a smorgasbord (there has got to be a better word than that for this situation) of food - from silver noodle soup to fried tofu with cardamom dipping sauce. But the crowning entree was Zach's crab-fried rice - a heaping plate of fried rice, topped with a lightly battered soft-shell crab. Did he dig in? Yes. Yes, he did. (Apologies to any family members who are currently fasting.)

I am thinking that when Julie gets back from Thailand she is going to have to share some of the tricks and tips that she learned in her cooking class. And we're going to have to send Luke away on a lot of sleepovers. 

Why bother?

Last Friday we bundled up the whole family in the car (Luke had off but we took Zach out of school and Dave took off the day from work), drove 100 miles to the nearest apple-picking glen, and spent a few hours doing farm stuff (our second farm trip in a week). We picked pumpkins, pears, strawberries, and raspberries - and we even picked some rogue mulberries (shhh!) from a tree near the parking lot. After a farm-friendly lunch and some apple pie and apple cider donuts, we turned around and drove (through Friday afternoon traffic for more than two hours) back home.

Why? Why do we do stuff like this? Why do we drive 200 miles and spend a whole day to pick some pumpkins and pears that are readily available at the supermarket three blocks away from us? Why do we coach soccer, volunteer at school, write blogs without getting paid, and make jam and applesauce instead of buying it? Why do we do stuff that takes so much time and doesn't seem to have any immediate payback?

I guess the answer is that we're doing things that we love. And if we don't do them, what is the alternative? Sitting at home and...not doing things?

Last week I had a bad cold - so bad that on Friday morning I could barely open my eyes at 7am. The prospects of me running a 10K on Saturday looked fairly poor. But on Saturday morning, I woke up and thought: What am I going to do instead? Stay at home and feel like a lump? So I ran it, and at the finish line I said to Dave, "Remind me next year to run this race. Because even though I always think I'm not going to be able to do it, it's always fun."

And...I've been home with a sick kid and haven't done a lick of exercise since then. So there you go. But still, my philosophy remains: Doing stuff is always better than not doing stuff.

Dave has been in Portland since Monday. On Monday night, when I tucked Zach into bed, Zach told me, "Mom, when Daddy is home, you can sleep in your bed. But when Daddy is in another dimension, you should sleep in my bed."

Also Zach wrote a long string of words (several groupings of all of the letters he knows) on a piece of paper, and announced that it was his Christmas list. "Great!" I said. "Will you read it to me?"

And so he proceeded to read: "Spy gear. Hot Wheels. Freight trains. Pretend dates - like from a palm tree. Plastic weeds. Styrofoam peanuts."

Now THERE's a list that I can fulfill. And just in case anyone thinks Zach is weirder than he already is, we just watched the movie "Bolt" and styrofoam peanuts figure prominently in the plot line. The plastic weeds I can't really explain.

Luke is in search of teenagers to hang out with. Last night he asked me if he only had six cousins and if there were any more he didn't know about - preferably teenagers. So we ran through the list of second cousins, but the ones who are teenagers live in Chicago and New York. "Are you sure I don't have any other cousins that I haven't met yet?" he wanted to know. Uh...yeah...I think so (?).

"You know," I reminded him, "Daddy doesn't have any cousins." This set Luke off into a new spiral of outrage. "Was he just mad about that...all the time?" Uh...no...I don't think so (?).

Fresh Picked

Tonight, I pickled some beets.

Ha! I bet there's no way you could have expected that's what I was going to say. But it's true; I did. (And I've never uttered that sentence before in my life, so it's sort of a first for me too.)

By telling you about the beets, it's kind of like I'm giving away the end of the story - a story that begins with a trip to a farm, and insanely happy boys, and picking, picking, picking until we literally couldn't even carry any more in our very large wagon. But I mentioned the pickled beets first because I'm hoping that they will allow us to keep the memory of this unbelievably fun day for a long time.

So we drove out to the picking farm first thing in the morning yesterday. (Did we need to motivate the boys to get out the door? Of course not. They were dressed and raring to go as soon as they heard the words "farm" and "picking.")

At the farm, you have never seen such big grins on the boys' faces during the tractor ride. And then...there was row upon row of great stuff waiting to be picked. Tomatoes like you wouldn't believe; beets, fennel, cilantro, carrots, raspberries, blackberries, fava beans, squash, and every imaginable kind of pepper. Technically you're not supposed to eat as you pick; you have to weigh and pay for your produce. But how can you pick fresh raspberries or tomatoes and not pop one or two (OK, nine or ten) into your mouth? I'm afraid to say I want a little above my tasting allotment.

Note #1: It was right around the time I took this picture that Luke declared, "This is the best day ever!!!"

Note #2: Here's what the candy cane beets looked like after being peeled and sliced. They were so beautiful it's a pity that the color and delineation fades when they are roasted.

By the end of the morning, I think the boys went a little overboard on just about everything, especially the peppers. How many pounds altogether? When it came time to weigh it all, I couldn't bear to look. Safe to call it just "a lot."

And then today, the cooking began. Here's a list of what I made today: Gluten-free breakfast pizza (part of a Jolly Tomato project), homemade tomato sauce, roasted mixed vegetables (beets, fennel, carrots, onions), and pickled beets. Can you imagine the sheer amount of dish-washing that was involved? That's partly why I had to call it quits. I'm saving the peppers (pictured here, AFTER we already gave a bunch away) and my pepper project for another day.

Pie Town

I entered a pie contest today (KCRW pie contest at LACMA; the "Pies Inspired by Tim Burton" category). Had a great time. Saw a bunch of cooking/blogging friends. Walked in an apron fashion show and posed for the apron paparazzi. Saw hundreds of pies and thousands of people lining up to sample said pies. Got into the whole competitive pie spirit. And it really was just the coolest pie - a definite crowd-pleaser. But I didn't win a ribbon. So I was kinda sad about that for a few seconds. Then I got home and what was waiting for me? A bunch of proud boys and a blue ribbon that they made for me. You can't beat that.

Here, Mom, Will You Hold This Grass For Me?

King Dave the Tolerant

I know I've used this space before to extol Dave's many virtues, but have I ever mentioned just how agreeable he is? Let me give you some real-life examples from the past few months:

Me: "I'd like to leave for San Diego early on Friday morning because I'm going to dance in a flash mob."
Dave: "Cool!"

Me: "I just bid in an auction and won a year's supply of endive."
Dave: "Great!"

Me: "I'm going to miss the baseball game on Sunday because I decided to enter KCRW's pie contest in the 'Pies inspired by Tim Burton' category"
Dave: "Awesome!"

Me: "I've just made a commitment to try to eat on only $4.72 per day for the next week as part of a hunger/food stamp awareness project."
Dave: "Wow!"

Me: "I bought some shares in an ostrich farm and we're going to be getting twice-monthly deliveries of ostrich meat."
Dave: "Amazing!"

OK, I totally made that last one up, but the point is, you believed it for just a moment, didn't you? And it sounded like something Dave would agree to, didn't it? Didn't it?

Anyway, reason #6,482 why I love Dave: He will support literally anything I want to do, one hundred percent. Here is a picture he took of me on the night we got home from glamping. We were all exhausted and filthy but we had just bought an entire flat of beautiful fresh-picked strawberries and I didn't want them to go to waste, so I stayed up late to make jam, and he was all for it. Of course if I had just decided to forget it, I think he would have been OK with that too.

To Glamp or Not To Glamp

Is that really the question? Because I think just about anyone who could, probably would. You're not pretending you're being more rustic than you really are. You're just giving yourself the opportunity to enjoy outdoor life without being too...rustic.

So that means tents with beds and lovely linens, free wi-fi, clean and modern bathrooms, and daily housekeeping service. All you have to do is get out there and enjoy the nature. Which we did. We saw llamas, goats, and partridges in the canyon; we skipped stones in the creek; we hiked down to the beach and looked for shells and rocks.

On Saturday night our whole crew (three families) participated in the campground-sponsored barbecue and concert; on Sunday night we grilled just outside our tents. Both nights we followed up the dinner with plenty of s'mores and glowsticks and kids running around.

In fact, it's hard to say which kid was happiest. Luke loved the freedom of being able to run over to his friends' tents whenever he wanted; he could have played next to the creek all day if we had let him. Zach loved the playground, the pool, finding shells at the beach, and picking up small nuts and acorns.

When bedtime rolled around each night, everyone was tired from a full day.  We all fell gratefully on our soft sheets and pillows, and drifted off to sleep, lulled by the gentle sounds of nature. Kidding! We put on the white noise machine. I mean, come on.

Foodie postscript: We completed the trip by returning to La Super Rica in Santa Barbara on our way home. Fave dishes included a chicken and cheese thingie and some sort of green pepper thingie. Who knows; it was all good.

Billy Joe McGuffrey

Here's Luke with his very enthusiastic and super-cool teachers on the first day of second grade. Tomorrow he'll have his oral surgery, and we'll be singing this song: 

Now Billy Joe McGuffrey was a pretty crazy kid/
On the second day of second grade I'll tell you what he did/
Got some sugar in his tooth, turned into a hole.../
Dentist saw the big infection, said, "We have to pull!"/
On the second day, of the second grade/
On the second day, of the second grade/
On the second day, of the second grade/
You could buy a house with all the doctor's bills we've paid!

Whale of a Tale

Can you name these two heads of hair? Hint: They are related, but they're not brother and sister, despite what everyone who sees them thinks.

The kids and I are in Seattle right now. When I fly alone with them, I feel sort of like a superhero. Look at me - Power Mom! - I can travel with two kids and remain unflappable. So just to continue the theme of the summer (i.e. taking me down a few notches), here's what happened after we got on the plane. 1) Luke said, "Hey Mom, look at this thing in my mouth!" Right above the tooth that he's been complaining about for a few weeks was an enormous abscess. Uh...do you think we could have seen this and dealt with this before flying out of state? 2) Zach complained of being cold, then fell asleep. This was followed by him burning with fever by the time we got to Julie and Eric's house.

So this morning I spent on the phone with the dentist's office, getting them to fax an Rx for antibiotics up here for Luke until the dentist could see him on Monday; then consoling Zach who was a total basket of limp whimpering. What makes me sad is how much Zach would have loved this day if he felt better: lakeside beach romp, playground, children's garden...Of course we still did all of those things, we just did them with me carrying around an extremely hot 40-pound lump. Ah, memories.

Anyway, here's Luke and Antonia and Helena enjoying themselves on the whale's tale at the children's garden. (We had mercy and spared Zach from picture-taking.) Zach is determined to get better by Saturday because that's the day we're going to look for creatures at the rocky beach. Oh, and Luke seems totally fine, regardless of what's going on in his mouth. Go, antibodies, go! Fight! Win!

High/Low

We are all still trying to get adjusted to life with just the four of us the house, and I'm still wiping away my tears after reading Joe's post. And I'm enjoying our slow mornings so much, it's killing me to think about the school year starting again. What we need is just one more vacation...somewhere cool, like...Seattle. Yeah.

Zach is good. I don't want to say too much because he sees the infectious disease doc tomorrow, and who knows what he will find. But he seems happy, which is just a nice adjustment. I can't imagine what it must have been like for him over the past year or so with who-knows-what in his ears. I've been suffering with an ear infection for the past two weeks and that's put me in a bad mood, so who knows what a year would have been like.

Small Zach interlude: He was playing with a little girl at the playground the other day, and when she fell off some climbing bars, he ran over to her to ask, "Are you OK? Are you OK?" After he got close to her, he turned his head back toward me and shouted, "Hey, Mom - She smells a little bit like Brensan!"

(Brensan being his best friend from school, for anyone who doesn't get this.)

Luke and I started a conversation at the beginning of the summer about diseases, and now he's obsessed. We've covered everything from dengue fever to bubonic plague, and his current fascination is leprosy. Oh, and we also looked at pictures of the lady who had a successful face transplant. Don't ask how we get started on these topics. Anyway, I thought we needed to lighten things up a bit, so he and I sat up late last night looking at Awkward Family Photos. He thought it was moderately giggle-worthy until he got to this picture - and then it was full-on LukeLaughing (TM) for the next 20 minutes. The neighbors (rightfully so) probably think we're insane.

Yesterday my mom asked me a good question: "Why are you starting another blog?" to which I didn't really have an articulate answer at the time. I pondered it for most of the day and now the best I can say is that I think it's just the kind of busy I want to be. I know having kids can keep anyone occupied for most of the day, but at a certain point there just has to be something else with which you fill your time and your brain space. I don't know if this blog or this endeavor will be a life-long commitment, but I do know that I had a squee-licious time this weekend doing my little mall-sponsored shopping spree and getting the photo shoot all set up for the blog piece I'm doing about it (these pics are some of the outtakes). Hey - if you can get people to pay you for doing something that you love to do, where's the crime?

Moving pictures

Head....spinning...too much...going on...

It was an amazing two weeks with Mom and Dad, followed immediately by an incredible four days with Joe, Sara, Sam, and Lily. The Jolly Tomato has been lively as I struggle to keep up with all of my post-BlogHer connections. And no one will believe this, but I decided to add on to my workload by starting another new blog (more on that in a moment).

Can you believe it's been five years since Joe & company visited? To put that into perspective, it was before I was even pregnant with Zach. But of course from the moment they got here it was just like old times. We went straight to the beach, and then to Wahoo's. We had an amazing day on Thursday at the rocky beach, where the kids were mesmerized by the creatures in the tide pools. We got a babysitter on Friday night and Joe and Sara and Dave and I had our first adult night out together in more than eight years. And on Saturday we hosted a fiesta along with Suzi and Bill, Vir (Andrew) and Ehren. Highlights included a massive pinata and a glow stick dance party in the garage.

I suppose I could spend hours detailing every minute of this visit, but I'm sure it's boring to read "First we did this. Then we did that." So I'll try to sum it up in just six words: Beach. Happy kids. Great food. Joy.

Here at our home beach (a.k.a. "the sandy beach," as opposed to "the rocky beach") the kids had a great time splashing in the water and collecting little sand crabs.

Zach didn't want to get too close to the waves, but when the older cousins started bringing crabs for him, he was just as excited as anyone.

Our new house seems to have held up pretty well with a house full of people. We solved the sleeping dilemma by having Luke and Sam sleep out in the garage and they were thrilled to be out there (and they actually got sleep, so no one was complaining). And of course the garage is still the #1 destination for kids' glow stick dance parties.

Even with all of the activity going on, Lily and Sara and I found an hour for "girl time" and we walked downtown and got pedicures. There aren't many other people in my house who want pedicures on a regular basis, so this was as much a treat for me as anyone.

And of course the kids got along like old friends. This picture is on the way home from the rocky beach when Sam actually fell asleep on Luke's shoulder, so Luke put a tissue box on his shoulder to make a "pillow" for Sam's head.

A more poignant activity for me this weekend was making a chocolate peanut butter pie as part of the Pie for Mikey project. (Short version: The husband of a popular food blogger died suddenly; she asked people to honor him by making his favorite pie; soon hundreds of people around the country were making chocolate peanut butter pies and blogging about it; it even made CNN). I realized that I was just so happy - and lucky - to have so many loved ones around that I wanted to make a pie to reflect how grateful I was for everyone who was there. Before I knew it, it had turned into a family project with everyone contributing (here are the kids crushing the graham crackers for the crust). So that meant a lot to me - and I hope it added to some small feeling of comfort for those grieving Mikey's death this week. Oh, and the pie was spectacular.

So, last but not least - I've been getting offers from various companies or local businesses to review products or restaurants, and it's not really what I had hoped to do with the Jolly Tomato. However, there are some really cool opportunities out there and I had been looking for a way to take advantage of some of them. So I started a new blog called South Bay Sparkle ("Finding the jewels of the South Bay") about food, attractions, and activities in the South Bay. I have no idea when I'm going to find time to write it, but I think it will be fun and it should take me down some interesting paths. What more could you want?

Swag Diego

I knew San Diego was going to be good, but I didn't know it was going to be THIS good. From the moment I stepped off the train, it was a squee-inducing weekend. Old friends, new friends, flash mob euphoria, parties, pool, a movie premiere, and a blissful weekend in a hotel that gave me just the break that I needed.

I don't want to gloss over the flash mob - it was truly a once-in-a-lifetime experience - but it happened so fast, in the context of so many other things, that it was just one part of a great, busy weekend. However, it did give me a chance to say something to my lunch companions that I've never said before: "If you'll excuse me, I need to get up because I'm actually part of this flash mob." Video to come.

Another highlight? Coming back to my hotel room on Friday night, exhausted but exhilarated from a full day and three parties...and hearing a thump-thump-thump coming from what seemed like inside my room. Turned out I had gotten in just in time for a big fireworks show on the water that I could enjoy right from my balcony.

Then there was the swag. I brought home at least 10 shopping bags, 5 t-shirts, 5 pairs of sunglasses, 4 pairs of flip-flops, 2 necklaces, and an insane amount of food including granola bars, candy bars, cookies, chips, popcorn, yogurt, tuna, bread, and 2 pounds of flax meal (cue Dave cheering in the background).

When it was time to check out, all six of us packed every single bag to the breaking point and we dragged our heavy load down to the lobby. There we ran into the head of a wine company who had hosted one of the parties on Friday, and he gave me a bottle of wine to take home. I mean, what's an extra bottle of wine when you're already overloaded? And more importantly, what would I have done without the extra five people to help me carry stuff? Somehow we made it to the top level of the train without tearing open Dave's hernia again.

Now that I've unpacked (I am fanatical about unpacking as soon as I get home), I have to take the time for BlogHer due diligence: follow-up with the people and the brands who made it all possible. So there's lots of work ahead but it was sure fun to get there!

Aside from the conference itself, the very best part of the San Diego weekend was the fact that Dave and the kids and my parents were there too. On Saturday night, the hotel was showing Toy Story 3 down at the pool so we suited up after dinner and went down for movie/pool time. And at 9:30, just as they did on Friday night, there was a cool fireworks show over the harbor that you could see from the pool. (This is just a phone shot that I took looking down at the pool from our hotel room. The three micro-spots in the far pool are Dave, Luke, and Zach watching the movie.)

On Sunday morning we took a train out to Old Town and even though we had only a short time to walk around, the sights made a big impression on the boys. They're standing outside the jail, which was pretty cool but I thought they would enjoy it more than they did. Luke was distracted by the  general store selling tall glass bottles of soda. And Zach's favorite part was the old-timey-looking wooden barrels everywhere - they were actually trash cans -- that had him fascinated.

All in all, it was an unbelievably great weekend. I had hesitated about going to BlogHer because my parents would be here and I didn't want to miss time with them, but in a way their being here made it possible for me to go. It was exhausting but definitely one for the memory books. I think Zach pretty much summed it up on the train trip home when he looked around at all of us with glazed over eyes, curled up on Dave's lap, and fell sound asleep.