The Most Sincere Pumpkin Patch

Scroll to the end of the post if you want to read my story.  Otherwise, just enjoy the pics!

Okay, so there was one cheesy prop at Bob's.  One.  These next pictures are from Lemos Farm, aka the insincere pumpkin patch.  

Yes, friends, the time has come to take the kiddies to the pumpkin patch!  For those of you who know what I mean when I say, "the most sincere pumpkin patch"--and it should be all of you, for who doesn't appreciate It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown?--you can imagine my disappointment with the majority of modern patches, with all of their kitschy pony rides, petting zoo's, train rides, and the worst offenders: the giant inflatable slides.  Gag.  Some friends and I took our kids to one of these.  It was crowded and tourist-y, the treatment of the ponies was questionable, the petting zoo was disgusting (although I consider that whole concept gross), the bouncy house didn't go with the whole pumpkin theme, and while the train ride was entertaining and London didn't cry, it did involve a long line.  The pumpkins themselves were there mainly for decoration rather than as an attraction in their own right.  Eager parents were snapping pictures everywhere, which is understandable--I do the same thing--yet annoying when you can't get a picture of your kid without someone else's kid/stroller/elbow/rear end in the frame.  

Thank you, Cousin Maret, for finding the most sincere pumpkin patch in Half Moon Bay.  Should the Great Pumpkin visit a patch on Halloween night, surely it would be Bob's. First of all, no slides, no rides, no animals, and not crowded.  Rather than a random parking lot full of pumpkins, this is the actual patch where the pumpkins grow!  Many were even still attached to the vine!  London had such fun picking out her very own pumpkin and one for Eden too.  We got both for $5 (they were small, but still a bargain).  And the part that made me the most happy were the pictures, of course!  The gem of this patch was an old rusted pick-up truck that I thought was a very cool prop.  I couldn't resist taking a plethora of pictures with it.  I had fun editing them too, since I just got iLife '08 from my neighbor.  I also got Photoshop, but haven't worked with that yet.  

Pick a Peck of Apples

It was a perfect day for apple picking. The sun was shining. The sky was blue. Cousin Maret joined us for a drive up to Sebastopol, the gravenstein apple capital, to fill our baskets with the best of the orchard's bounty. Alas! As we embarked on our journey, we called orchard after orchard, only to be told the apples had already been picked! The horror! Strengthened with our family's slogan, "Cardall's don't quit!" we pressed on. Finally we found one that still had some golden delicious on the trees. It turned out to be the perfect day after all.

Here's the Latest:

I've noticed that the readership, or at least the comments, have waned since we've waxed political. Is this due to the fact that our friends and family a) don't care about the issues, b) disagree with our opinions, or c) just want to see pictures of cute kids? For those of you who chose "c," fine, here you go.

New teeth: two on the bottom, one on the top, and more coming in. She looks pretty darn happy--you'd never guess she's waking up several times a night, would you?
London has finally mastered the "twirly" slide. Last week we were at the park when she announced she would go down the twirly slide all by herself. She climbed to the top, psyched herself up, and, despite my encouragement, chickened out and cried. This cycle repeated several times, until finally she took the plunge while I wasn't looking. She was so proud of herself, she went down about 30 more times!

This is London's best friend, Ella. Just about every day, when I tell London what we're going to do that day, she'll ask, "With Ella?" She'll usually bring a toy or snack and announce "I bring my (whatever it is) to share with Ella." Cute, huh? (Except in this picture, she's taking some of Ella's snack instead of sharing)


So there are your cute kid pictures. Now indulge me. This morning while I was lifting weights at the gym, I couldn't help but overhear some gentlemen discussing the stock market tank and the recent bail-out. I didn't say anything and endured the conversation until I could stand it no longer. One of them said something like, "it's these Republicans who let the free market run wild who are responsible for all this!" I put my weights down and said "That's bologna!" (I'm kind of embarrassed that I said that but not that I know how to spell it. Yes, I know need to work on my verbal debate style). I then attempted to explain what really happened and was pleased to find a couple of other dudes in the room--who were silent before--agreed with me. We just need more people who are willing to say it out loud. I think it's the same thing with Prop 8. Because of what people see in the media, they think that more people are pro-same-sex marriage than actually are. People with liberal views just tend to be louder about it. Free speech goes both ways!

For Freedom!

After Youtube took it down, the truth is back up! Click the post title to view the scandal of the century...

Dodged a Bullet

I was fortunate to watch some of the debates on CSPAN this morning. Aside from a few dissenting dems who thought the bill didn't do enough for the little guy, it was overwhelmingly a dem bill. Most dems supported it, most of GOP opposed it. The thing that fired me up was the mantra:

a) Bush caused this
b) We don't want to do this, but...
c) This is bipartisan, but the GOP really messed this up because of their "failed free market ideology"
d) 700 bln is a lot of money but this ain't over, we are going to seek more bailouts especially ones that would make it impossible to foreclose on a house
e) Wall St. is the worst

The republicans who supported it were more in the camp of, it will cost more to do this than to not, so we might as well.

I was surprised to hear a couple of things from dissenting GOP.

a) Bank examiners are going beyond their authority and requiring banks to mark-to-market loans where payments are current. The law says they don't have to be marked down if the pmts are current. This results in a decline in assets on the bank's balance sheet and forces the bank to hold more capital reserves, drying up funds to loan due to the money multiplier affect.

b) The savings and loan crisis was worse in terms of bank failures and we only spent 1.8 bln to get out of that mess which saved over 100 bln in assets.

GOP lawmakers want to take a more practical approach to resolving the issue rather than just dumping 700 bln in taxpayer dollars.

Furthermore, the first 250 bln that would be the first tranche used in the reverse auction would probably yield the worst returns for tax payers as institutions would have dumped the loans that illegals have taken out that have run back to Mexico and are completely worthless (i.e. CA inland empire) We would have taken a huge bath on the first 250 bln. The second tranche was 100 bln to be used at will by the president. Please! Talk about free money for earmarks. This whole thing was a total sham.

We dodged a huge bullet today.

Tahoe

We had such a great weekend at Lake Tahoe, where we stayed in a cabin with our friends! We took a boat out on the lake, and while I chose not to freeze my hinee off in the water, others chose to ski. London's job was to hold up the orange flag, which she took pretty seriously.











































We celebrated Jen's 29th birthday with a super-duper chocolate cake with homemade hot fudge. Unfortunately, she was the first victim of the "Tahoe bug" (24 hr. stomach flu) and couldn't enjoy it!

We took a gondola ride up the mountain at North Star ski resort and hiked around. It was fairly treacherous as we dodged several mountain bikers and swarms of bees. London got her first bee sting and took it like a banker.


We also really enjoyed King's Beach, which had super shallow water and a sandbar that was perfect for the kids.















London enjoyed flirting with the men-folk, especially Adam, as seen in this photo above.

Eden is our water
baby and had a blast splashing around. As you can see, she fills our her swimsuit better than her sister (see above photo, with London's sagging bum).

In the evenings we enjoyed playing games, laughing, and catching up. The highlight of the final night was the group talent show, which showcased two scenes from Waiting for Guffman, a puppet show of a love scene between Edward and Bella from Twilight, mental math tricks, mind-reading, song translating, broadway-style singing, and a jovial game of "Stump the Sebras." A talented group indeed!

Escaping the heat at Pacifica