A close encouter with the Dorsal kind

Its White shark season around here and there have been several credible sightings lately, one 13-15' even got photographed, so the boys have a healthy respect for there fellow ocean inhabitants. There had even been a credible sighting over the weekend at there favorite surf spot so... Monday they headed out at 6 am cause its late start and they're "hard core surfers" "yea mom". The swell had been really big over the weekend and they'd been out I don't know how many times and where excited to get out again before the big swell was gone. Briant was out waiting to catch a wave when not 6" off the tip of his board a large dorsal fin appears, needless to say his heart left his chest and his bladder emptied. It turned out to be a pod of dolphins, 3 more shot underneath him and one more fallowed the first one surfacing right next to his board. He was still pretty wired about it when he got home, but by the time school let out he was good enough to go out again "before the big swell was gone".

We are so blessed to live in this amazingly beautiful place! Surfing with Dolphins on a Monday morning.

NYC & cottage II

Some of the doors on our street, WOW!!!!

More of FAO Schwartz

Here are some shots of the kids being silly while we waited for the concert in the park. They were really excited with there $5 glasses purchased from a street vendor.

I Modonnari

We had I modonnari this weekend. It's a very fun event and the girls and I have been participating for the last few years. This year we got a 7 x 7 square. We did a violin but it turned out to be a life size base. Harvey even got in on the act this year.


Anne's group did the boy with his beagle puppy. She diffinitly raised the bar this year.

I also had about a dozen students there who did an amazing job!!!!!!!!!!

Summer Holiday part I

We did another Home swap this past summer. I love home swapping!!!! It opens up so many possibilities for us to travel and makes it much more comfortable.
This year we swapped with a family in Brooklyn and their sister's family in Seattle. We stayed in Brooklyn in a wonderful loft/flat of one sister's, and then her sister from Seattle stayed in our home.(A little different then your standard home swap but it worked for all of us so...) We also had one of our previous home swapping families return for a second stay here. We actually overlapped trips with this family, got to meet them in person this time and share a family dinner with them. I can't say enough positive things about the great people we meet.

So on to the trip. As many of you have heard already we lost/deleted the first 4 days of images of our trip in NYC, BUMMER! (If you know of anyone who is pro at retrieving data off a memory card that has been over written PLEASE let me know)
We did Top of the Rock, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, sampled as much NY pizza as possible, went to the Statue of Liberty and got to visit the crown which has been newly reopened to 30 luck people every hour, Elise Island, Wall St, Ground Zero including a train through the actually work site, Grand Central terminal, China town with Chinese dinner, Central Park with Chess games, Natural History Museum, MET, Time Square, Macy's, Several Churches/Cathedrals, Columbia University, The NY temple, NY philharmonic in the park one night. And a ton of other stuff.....

I'm going to start uploading photos in no particular order....enjoy!!!

Chess in Central Park

Grace with her Carousel pony in Central Park

The Temple

Saint Something ( I can't remember right now) anyway it is the largest Gothic Cathedral in the World

One of my favorite images at the MET

The street we lived on, notice impromptu thrift store.

The famous piano at FAO Swartz

Yes those are Lego's my dear Briant

First day of School

Some love these words and re joyous when they are uttered and others groan, moan and roll there eyes with dread.
Below you find one of each.


We have two distinct shifts this year, the early morning seminary group, notice it is dark when they leave and yes those are the cloths they picked out 3 days before in anticipation. I only hope that they spent just a tad more time with there t-shirt choice for school photos.
The first group who had actually planned there wardrobe countless times during the previous week.
I'm still trying to decided which one I prefer.

Light house walk with Armance & Girls

We hosted another exchange student this past summer for most of Aug. Her name is Armance, we fell in love with her, really enjoyed having her in our home and learned more about France.


At the beginning of Aug we had the opportunity to hike out to one of the local Lighthouses. It was a typical summer foggy day which made for wonderful hiking, it was weired though because the ocean was completely flat, it was almost eiry.


There was this giant swing in the trees over looking the coastline that all the girls had a great time playing in

Girl's camp

Audra's first year at girls camp was amazing! We had another great year! The big change this year was a real hike for these ladies and it was wonderful. 5 1/2 miles round trip with a beautiful waterfall and pool at the end. She was very excited to get to go since she wasn't queit of the correct age...but it was close enough. We had the biggest family showing with 4 cousins and 2 Aunties.