Funerals = Family Reunions



Mark with Jane, and Annie in the backyard.

Grandpa Charlie passed away on the 4th of July.  We drove up the following Saturday to be there for the funeral.  All of Chris' siblings and step-siblings were able to be there and so it turned into a family reunion, as funerals often do.  We were glad to see everyone there (but wished Mark, Kaitlyn, and Maggie could have come too). 

Davis wrestles Christopher with a stuffed gorilla.




Mark and Graham



Andie, Jeff, Matt, and Karen in a candid moment.

It's fun to see the cousins...

but the viewing feels pretty long for kids.

Carson and Davis enjoyed "hanging" around together.

Kristen Gurr played at the cemetery.

Carol and children.

All the Iversons/Garners

Davis got ahold of the camera and took this patriotic view.

Laura, Carol, Caryn, Andreana

The big boys made a meal of mostly olives and cupcakes.

Younger boys had a more varied meal, but with plenty of cupcakes.

Nathaniel demonstrates how a headless person eats a cupcake.

Cleaning up after ward functions is so ingrained in mormon culture that the family cleaned up after the funeral luncheon. (But Loren made it look cool)



It's all fun and games until someone blows out an achilles.



Thanksgiving 2010

Where were you on black Friday? Up at 4am? In line with a bunch of other early shoppers suffering from over-indulgence from the previous day's feast? I was here.
So, I didn't save 40% off linens, or toys, or electronics. I think most everyone else did because it was quiet, peaceful, and oh yeah, SUNNY! I love Santa Barbara in the winter, and did I tell you it's less than an hour from my house now? (Santa Barbara hasn't moved. We did.)

Nathaniel loves it too. We were overdressed for the weather, but he loves his snow-hat, even at the beach.

He did manage to hit himself in the eye with the rapier-like stick he is swinging. But, no one else was hurt.

After proving that he could jump over a water inlet on the beach, Davis set about building a bridge with driftwood found nearby.

It was a pretty good bridge. It was even used by other beach goers who found themselves trapped by the inlet as they walked from the parking lot to the ocean. I think they said 12 adults crossed (and one selkie - a girl just transformed from a seal and came out of the ocean, or maybe she was wearing a wetsuit and just got out of a sea kayak) before it broke when a man in cowboy boots crossed while carrying his daughter on his shoulders. Oh well. Just the boots got wet.

Afterwards we had lunch at Stearns' Wharf.

We were very pleased to have visitors for Thanksgiving. Chris' folks came down for the whole weekend and feasted, hiked, and beached with us. My brother Mark and his family came over Friday to see our new place. The kids had a great time in the spa and then playing horsey in the loft. I'm surprised no one was trampled by the big teenage boy horsies. The horsies were very good sports.

Hmmm. In this picture it looks like one of the big horsies is getting a ride from his little sister. She was a really good sport.

We discovered a lovely arboretum about a mile from our place. We went there to get ideas of plants we want to put in our own yard.

It was a pretty, sunny day; just a little on the cool side (60's... Brrrrrrr). Yeah, I've lived in S. Cal. too long.

Grandparents visit for Halloween

Halloween week has been fun. It started with cub scout pack meeting featuring a traditional doughnut-on-a-string eating contest. Nathaniel has a huge smile on his face while he's trying to get his doughnut. This is one of his last pack meetings before he goes into boy scouts.Grandma and Grandpa Johansen drove down to see our new house. Nathaniel received a basketball as an early birthday present and he enjoyed learning some skills with Grandpa.

Then we decided to see something new in our area. We went to a teaching zoo at a local community college. It was small and a little sleepy, but it was OK.

There were cockroaches to hold

and condor silhouettes.

It was a very pretty day though. Pretty good for Oct 30.

This was Davis' Halloween Costume. He wore it to a Stake dance and the ward Trunk or Treat. Since Halloween was on a Sunday we didn't plan to go trick or treating, and neither of the boys seemed that keen on it. We bbq-ed with the grandparents and watched a couple movies and met a couple neighbors when they came trick or treating to our door.

We took a drive to the beach to get out of the house. We're looking for a new favorite beach - I don't think this is it, but it was OK.

The boys liked fighting with bamboo sticks they found on the beach.

The life guards aren't around this time of year to enforce the rules about bamboo stick fighting on the lifeguard towers. We'll keep looking for the perfect beach. In the mean time, ask yourself if you wouldn't rather be on a sunny beach instead of the cold state you live in right now... We have a guest room and soon we'll be done with the master closet so we don't have to store all of our clothes in the guest room closet. Come see us - there are vacancies available for the holidays!

Our Thanksgiving Week

This Thanksgiving our boys had the whole week off from school. So, I thought I'd post the fun things that we did. (Sorry, I didn't take photos of the boring (laundry, piano practice) and even painful (cleaning the room, etc) stuff that we did.

Our friends Adrian and Esteban came with us to the California Science Center. Here they are playing a virtual sports game in front of the blue screen.

After going through a few pulleys, this rope is attached to an SUV which can be lifted by the children, if they choose to pull on the rope with the greatest leveredge.

Davis was working on his golf merit badge (not nearly as fun as the citizenship in the community merit badge that the Kellers must have been working on (see Kellers' blog)). We went to the little par 3 golf course and dodged blowing leaves to complete 9 holes.

Nathaniel played his first 9 holes. Mom did better with the photos than with the golf... and the photos aren't that great.

Davis is showing some pre-teen tendencies and did not want to pose for a photo with his mom and grandparents.

Chris took this photo to show how much fun his mom and I were having making pies together for Thanksgiving. And then he sent it to his sister Caryn to rub it in. We did have fun though.

This is a plaque showing an old hotel that was built up in the mountains above Pasadena. The only way to get there was to hike, take a mule train, or a crazy funicular train called the Mt. Lowe Railroad that pulled the cars up a really steep mountain.

Chris and the boys are on the remains of the foundation of the old hotel. You can see in the previous picture there are stairs in the lower right quadrant of the hotel picture. They would be on the railing at the top of the stairs (if the railing were still there).

We hiked up up up for 2.7 miles to get to this burned-down hotel. It was a lovely day in So. Cal.

Davis hiked all the way with an ingrown toenail. OUCH!

Nathaniel is calling through an "echo phone" that was placed behind the old hotel facing a canyon. It directs your voice up a dead-end canyon across the way and comes back with about a 8-10 second delay.

This is one of the huge wheels that pulled the cables to bring the train cars up the incline railway.

This is a leftover railcar from the railway which was discontinued in 1937. There were a lot of resort camps and hotels in the mountains above Pasadena in the first few decades of the 1900's. It seems to have been very fashionable to "rough it" at these camps that provided the transport of all the baggage, meals, and entertainment like dances.

Nathaniel is at the trailhead which is a gate from an old estate.

Nathaniel loves the new sock monkey his grandmother gave him for his birthday (next week). We have all been kissed and hugged by the monkey over the last few days.

This is Thanksgiving dinner. Chris brought home the flowers Wednesday. The were so pretty with roses, lilies, carnations, and mums in autumn colors.

The day before Thanksgiving Chris suggested we go to lunch at Heirloom Bakery. What a great idea. We had a great lunch, and were so full that I didn't have to make dinner either. It was also nice because we put the boys at their own table so they could make their potions with the sugar cubes and soda without the grownups grousing at them.