The Year in Pictures: October 2007

October is the beginning of birthday season for us. Well, September is actually, if you include Audrey's, but somehow the boys' birthdays somehow warrant more attention than our own. Tony opted out of a conventional party this year in exchange for a family day trip to North County San Diego and Legoland. This proved to be a refreshing change of pace for all of us, and the fact that we could conclude the day with a dinner at Pizza Port Carlsbad certainly gets me on board with the idea. We did manage to also hold a small cupcake celebration at home on Tony's big day itself. Despite a momentary flare-up, he was able to extinguish all eight of his candles just fine.



October also brings what is fast becoming one our favorite weekend events of the year: a block party of sort at Burton Chace Park in Marina del Rey. Tony's cub scout pack passes out free hot dogs, which are always welcome, and there are fire trucks and other cool equipment on display, but the real highlight is the extensive collection of blow-up "bouncers". For the second year in a row, the boys' favorite was the giant red slide, and it proved to be a great spot for action shots.



The cub scouts also organized a return trip to Tanaka Farms in Irvine, this time for pumpkin picking (what else?). While most agreed that May's strawberry trip was better, the pumpkin patch did at least help get us in the Halloween spirit. And we managed to get in and out of Irvine just ahead of the horrific wildfires that engulfed much of interior highlands of Orange County and the rest of Southern California for the following weeks.

Strawberry Field Trip

The bounty awaits
Originally uploaded by petemorris.

Another week, more family fun, and more photos. Saturday was the usual busy spring fare, with T-ball and music class for Everett and ice skating for Tony--as well as the always popular tree-mulching party down in El Segundo. Then it was an afternoon of chores around the house, with Audrey especially working hard to get all the silent auction items for Tony's school entered into the computer catalog. Today offered something new, with a trip down the 405 to Irvine and the Tanaka strawberry farm. Organized through Tony's cub scout pack, the trip included a tractor-pulled tour through the Tanaka produce fields, with samples of peas, carrots, and other fruits and vegetables along the way. The highlight, of course, was a 15-minute free-for-all picking and eating all the field-fresh strawberries we wanted. Then, back at the start, both boys received packed containers of even more strawberries: quite the bounty. Since nothing goes with strawberries quite so well as beer, we concluded the day with an early dinner down the road at the Steelhead Brewing Company, which is across the street from UCI. The beer, quite frankly, was mediocre at best, but the pizzas were quite good and so was the boys' root beer. A good day all around, and we are eager to return this summer for the watermelon tour! As always, there are plenty more pictures at our Flickr site. And I just can't resist adding another action sequence below: