Thanksgiving Pt I: Charlie and Santa Cruz

Paul and Bethany and family have moved to Santa Cruz, Cali, for what they hope is their LAST year of school: Science Communications at the granddaddy of them all.

 

Santa Cruz is widely regarded as an epicenter of hippie-ness.  This is not totally without merit.

But the campus is amazing: a student union building in the middle of a primeval forest of Redwoods, Cedars, and sasquatch habitat?

 

We had two reasons to visit at this time: Reason 1, the advent of Charlie Paul Gabrielsen, the university's newest fighting banana slug.

Charlie--or "Tarlie," as Alice says, is a bouncing baby bruiser, who came into the world at 9lbs, 10ozs.   The Oakland Raiders talent scout keeps calling for an appointment.

But he is a sweet-tempered kid who does all of the basic stuff that babies do: eat, sleep, coo, cuddle, and fill diapers.

 

 We also got to spend a quantity of quality time with Grace and Alice.

 

Grandpa got his hair done.

 While Grace was at school we had shapes practice.

 

When we had the chance, we went to the beach.

 

On a sunny day, we took Alice to see the sea lions.  She was quite captivated by them.

 

 

What does a sea lion say?  "Oort! Oooort!"

They lazed about in the sun and griped at each other a lot.  Some of them went for a swim; very large and furry banana slugs of the sea.

 

We later took Grace to see tide pools at Natural Bridges State Park

 

 

The tide was ebbing, so we got to see lots of wild life, friends, anenomes.

 Also, those rock stars of the fishy world.

 

 One night we had a sleepover at our motel.  We watched a Barbie movie, the Princess and the Pop Star!  And ate popcorn.

A watched pot may never boil, but it turns out that a watched bag of popcorn pops very satisfactorily.

There was another reason why we came to Santa Cruz, but we couldn't stay for Thanksgiving, so we had a thanksgiving meal a few days early.  I forgot to take a picture of it, but here is a very near facsimile thereof.

 We had to leave way too early, but had a fun time.  As a parting shot, here is Alice, always in motion, running in from her hair-tousling nap, saying,  "I coming!"

PS: There is a Thanksgiving Pt II: Weehawken still to come...

West Philly Throws a Halloween Street Party

Suppose you dropped from outer space into Philly on Halloween?

More specifically, suppose you dropped into the West Philly Halloween parade?  You'd see a thousand or more people, lurching from house to house, lugging buckets o' candy.

You'd see little dragons,

littler dragons,

and big dragons.

You'd see all kinds of animals:  dog, meet dog.

Oh, Big Bird, is this the last time we'll see you?

Tigers: "I know there is candy in that house.  I can smell it."

Spider twins,

Peacocks,

Mice,

Turtles,

And a genuine honey badger, who don't care.

There were Pixies,

And wizards--Gandalf, to be exact.

And a really brilliant idea to be a calliope.  

Start saving your mailing tubes for next year, Caleb Spjute!

There were historical characters including Groucho:  

"Folks, I've had a really great time.  But this wasn't it."

And a young Bob Dylan.  Or Mick Jagger.  It was hard to tell.

In the end, even the sugar high couldn't overcome mother nature.

Nah, if you dropped into Philly on Halloween, 

it really wouldn't look that different from every day!

Hope you have a fun Halloween.

Summer-y Summary

Temperatures dropped into the 30s and 40s this week, 

so we removed the A/C units from windows and vacuumed the furnace filters.

Only a few cuss words were required.

It was an occasion to reflect on a great summer.

It was busy. 

It started with a couple of graduations.

Followed by a summer camp:

a dozen scouts, 

an idyllic setting in the Poconos, 

fun activities,

 

and a stream to swim in.

Then there was Youth Conference:

150  young men and women, 

buses,

another idyllic setting, 

a pool to swim in, 

and a massive production seemingly just for us.

There was lots of swimming 

by lots of boys. Thanks, Uncle Dick, for the use of your pool!

 

There were family reunions, and boating on Bear Lake.

 

 

There was boating on the Susquehanna River.

 

There were random touristy things.

a quick trip for Gabe to San Juan, Puerto Rico,

a long work trip to El Paso, Texas (Gabe shown here sporting the fashionable and functional "snake gaiters"), 

It was a little hot and humid at times.

But if you sat down to create a fun and memorable summer, you probably would have made this one.