Our friends, Dan & Myndi, invited us to spend the day down in Santa Barbara with them in November. We spent the morning at the zoo, which is just minutes from the beach. The animals have a beautiful view!

I was especially impressed with the interesting plants at the zoo.

Dan works with Dwayne at Vandenberg and their boys are about the same ages as ours, so we've all become great friends.

We went down to the beach afterwards to fly a kite.

Stuart really liked the tail.



We were honored to host Scott and Shannon and their children here in Santa Maria for Thanksgiving. Simon was thrilled to have his cousins around. Daily trips to the park with the dads gave me and Shannon time to get everything ready for the dinner.

Everything turned out well and tasted yummy.

The kids were all so excited one night to realize they each had what they called, "puffy jammies."