Oh Hai!

For Leslie’s 60th birthday the gang surprised her with a long weekend at the Turtle Conservancy in Ojai. Before you ask, it was amazing. Both the celebration and the turtles. We really could have spent a week on the compound, but managed to make ourselves at home in just three short days. In fact, I now consider myself a de facto tour guide after cruising through each and every greenhouse and turtle terrarium on the property. I like turtles.

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The Day After

What did we do? That was the name given to the Sunday BBQ after Lauren and I made it official. While the question was rhetorical, it didn’t really matter as the younger generation wasn’t ready to answer morning after, about the night before. Luckily, there’s no better remedy than pulled pork and shenanigans.

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The Oregon Trail : Part Two

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A van rumbles down the Outback Scenic Byway collecting high desert dust. She flips through stations fighting static. No luck. The fellow travelers offer no distraction, their lifeless bodies slumped in sleep. It has been lonely these three hours. They’re almost there.

Lakeview, Oregon. A place of little fanfare and even less sparkling water. Gravel pops as they pull into the motel. Hot springs will have to wait.

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The 4th

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New rule. It is OK to do a late holiday post, as long as said post goes up on another holiday. The logic is sound, and I’m sticking to it. Today we flashback two months to our nation’s independence, and what has now become the traditional pooch-pool-party.

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Santa Barbara

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For a special someone’s birthday, we planned a special little surprise. Though she probably saw it coming (the six hours of airplane mode kind of gave it away), she was blindsided by our Santa Barbara getaway. I on the other hand came prepared with the Pentax 67 ready to capture the weekend with a little color, a little black and white, and a whole heap of California light (see what I did there?)

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Kiawah Island

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Continuing our “Tour America” campaign (see Tried and Died), the troupe gathered in South Carolina for a few days of R+R. When you’re part of “The Most Interesting Family In The World,”relaxing beachfront vacation seems tame compared to past forays. How would we fare? What would we do? And what the heck is a Kiawah?

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Frenchie Friday | Pool, Park, Pounce

Frenchie_Friday_FinaltitleNow that Oliver is a part of the family, naturally he’s also part of the family trips. So for Fourth of July, we slapped on the service vest and hauled him along for a journey out west. Little did the the little guy know what type activities were in store, if he did he would have asked to come sooner

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Can We Talk?

Can We Talk?Though it was a wedding that brought our clan to Oregon, I think we’d all agree that it was the time spent at Hartung Farms that defined the trip. It’s an amazing spot and welcome retreat from the concrete sprawl, full of wonderful things and even more wonderful people. Thankfully, our hosts put up with our pool intrusions, even throwing some burgs on the grill without a second thought. After all the splashing about it was hard to say goodbye, but we left the compound en route for Salem, not knowing that we had just experienced the calm before the (literal) storm…

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