random post of the last week or so

i feel like my blogging has been all over the place since we moved, so here is a bit of a catch-up. did i mention we arrived in california on christmas day? flying/moving on christmas made for an interesting holiday, not sure if i would recommend the whole moving on christmas day thing, but it was nice to get off the plane and come home to a christmas feast.  here luke is so kindly shooting me with all of our luggage behind him, notice that crazy "i'm shooting my wife" look in his eye, which i fortunatly don't see very often.

velzy and ivy scored, again, in the gift department:

velzy's new wheels.she is stoked and wants to ride all the time.  although, she is a little on the cautious side and gets off her bike to go down the little hills at the trabuco mesa park, which annoys me to death.  but i am sure she will be reckless in no time.  she loves going over the speed bumps at our new place.
ivy's new wheels.she loves em. her favorite thing is to have someone take her to the top of a steep driveway and let her fly down it, a little different than her sister, it's so funny to watch.  too bad there are no driveways in an apartment complex.
what else did we do? i would love to say we surfed a whole lot, but that would be a lie.  it was pretty flat and really really cold. me no likey having my hands and feel hurt while i surf.  thank you jack o'neil for inventing wetsuits.  that is all i have to say.

went for an afternoon trip to prentice park- not necessarily worth the admissions fee if you are looking to see cool animals, but the 2 minute elephant ride was pretty bitchen.
meet becky.  she likes carrots and when she has to poop she makes a funny noise and backs up so that the guy with her can catch her poop in a trash can.  it's gross/funny.  i think i will keep the picture of that to myself though. 
while waiting for our car to get into port we had a rental car.  it's sort of a family tradition to take rental cars to "the canyon" and do a little off-roading (if you can call it that in a 2 wheel drive no clearance vehicle).  the girls loved all the "bump-bumps" and i had fun cracking the grill and almost not making it through the worlds biggest boulder bottom puddle.  probably not my greatest idea last year, but it was fun. the mazda 5 mini-mini van was a trooper. for new years we went to helium's house in huntington. she had the great idea to put the girls to bed and let them watch a movie, planing on them falling asleep and leaving the adults to have fun playing some plant and harvest your beans game.
the peaceful sweetness lasted at least 3 minutes....

velz and ivy were both bouncing off the walls at midnight.

oh, and we got to hang out with these characters:
which is always a highlight.

so, it was a good break. we had some fun and all got sick, which was not fun.  we relaxed for a week then moved into our cottage ( love calling it that) sunday afternoon and have been getting settled since then. so far so good, i think we are going to like it here. although some home depot worker told me that i was crazy to move here from hawaii and go back. hmmm....