Sunday, January 6, 2013

Happy New Year! It WAS a "Moving Experience"



Okay, I'm really not "fine and dandy" with Kiely and Matt going back to school early in the morning with all the other "Utites." (Actually, that's better than what I used to call people that lived in Utah.)

I love to visit, my children even in the snow. However, give me cold weather and gray too long, I wimp-out and want home in California. It seems a whole lot of slippery and mud for way too long. The "missing-of-the-one" just starts me missing all my three babies that are away from me, and their families It's just too far to Laramie and Oklahoma City and they have worse weather. I'm not going to ponder this anymore.

We did have a party last night. Not so much for ushering in the New Year, but a chance to play together as a family. My Steve and my Dustin already signed-up for Station Duty at the Fire Department. Both are captains, but one "rules" the East-Side, and the other, my son, "rules" the West Side. It's New Year's Eve madness, again. Both, like the busy nights running calls, not all the gunfire at midnight and that's where first responders go is under the freeway over-passes. This year is a bit different because of all the work at home and helping with a move and then cleaning the ranch all spiffy-- both of my captains would've rather slept the whole night to rest-up.

 I learned a new game. "Apples To Apples" is an amazingly fun game. I would say eating and goofing around is pretty fun, too. It was Kiely and Matt's last night here and playing games and having fun was wonderful.

Just for reference in my former post I mentioned an "intestinal sink" and the photo was purely an optical illusion. The sink is kinda' cute, except it's for the wine-rack just above it. I suppose we Mormon's have got to be helpful and fill it with bottled grape juice, cranberry juice, and the fizzy apple juice. I've decided that's going to be my house-warming gift.



Photo Bomb with "The Dad" Right There




 Kiely and Matt spent a lot of time on the computer here doing the work they needed for their jobs, scholarships, and classes. So glad we had lots of ink for their paperwork and access to their dear aunt's  fax machine.
Today we the helped Dawn move to the beach community of Pierpont. She's the super-secret girlfriend where we had our party last night. Yep, it was at her new "Mediterranean Palace" on the waterfront. My family's all busy packing furniture and all the neighbors are watching. Everyone else around town is just ripping the decorations down and tossing Christmas trees. It's windy and how come no one's watching the parade or football games?

My Dear Mother-in-Law Loving The Harbor
The Beautiful Sunset Dawn's First Evening At The Beach House

Over By The Marina with My Camera/Phone
Where did Christmas and all go? I didn't eat one bite of candy! It's 2:00 pm and and I'm thinking I need a little, just a little bit of? Oh, I don't care.. a PB and J sandwich?
This is a post of a lot of questions and day-dreaming what direction our lives will be headed. Not resolutions for me or for us but changing course just a bit will lead us in a whole new and better place by next New Year. Hahahah..not dying yet, but hoping to do a whole lot more going to the Temple. I discovered Kiely and Matt left me a whole new covered box with hundreds of names.I suppose it was sent home because the names weren't in their Temple District.

It's such a beautiful, puffy cloud day!




We were off to buy Walnettos for my mother for her birthday. Glad I planned well in advance. Somis "Nut House" was almost out of my mom's favorite candy, ever.

The wind it did come with a grand force. Cowboys and cowgirls put out "Sonny Stallion" in a new, nice, big, clean pen. Honestly, no one in their right mind tries this on the first hard "East Winds" of the year. Only one casualty, I mashed Marnie's finger in a thick horse panel. I think Sonny ❤'d the attention. Moving even a sweet curly stallion "takes a village" Dr. Mike G., the vet, calls him a cutie-pie and he is just that. He definitely was calm. He just walked in the trailer and we could've moved him. He's so mellow. Kiely and Matt already moved Banner, Sonny's Dam. She's a piece-of-cake to take out. Honestly the kids could play with her all day.

I love this Photo so much-I "cartooned" Sonny with My Photo App


Banner, Our Other Bashkir Curly Mare. Love her!
The Kiely and Matt and my Steve cleaned corrals and I checked the sheep. It looks like we have one ewe that has a big belly-full of lambies. She had so many last year, I need to have some replacer on-hand with the extra lambs and also keep a close-eye on her in just a couple of weeks. Our Little Annie gets so upset having her lambs, she steps on the ones that have already been born. Yes, that is an awful problem!

I became so chilled outside. I really was sick with the flu a bit and wondered about the horrible chills, so I went in the house to get warmer. It wasn't exactly cold outside but I was shaking. I'm glad I heard about my son having it also and it wasn't a reaction to my medication, it was a virus and super fast moving. Both of us recovered in just about 12 hours. Kiely and Matt got off on a little vacation and sightseeing later in the day and really enjoyed the beach



Steve and I had a 5 day together (and that's super rare) and did all those needed trips to the market and errands that Christmas had stopped and then took a couple breaks at the beach, in Ojai Valley at the "pink moment" and yesterday evening visiting with my daughter and admiring the most beautiful Palm Tree sunset from their home. I had to get my cowgirl coat for the coming rain expected today. I call a 30 second rain shower-no rain, but it is chilly. We're having another bit of wind, just enough to make our sky so amazingly clear.


Chief Peak Above Ojai Just Before "The Pink Moment"


Chief Peak

Ojai and The Topa Topas
We started this week moving dear Dawn over to her new house. I was trying to think about moving better in the right direction in my life, we moved our stallion and thought it was going to be crazyland around here and it wasn't. It seemed we all worried for no reason. Sonny does need some exercise! My family cleaned and worked around the ranch and I shivered and moved a lot trying to "shake a bug". We did lots of errands this week. The normal things that we had procrastinated during the holidays and picked-up and delivered all the little things we had spread from Ventura, Thousand Oaks, and to Fillmore. Our propane dryer is fixed. I'm excited and Friday we moved the dryer back-up the stairs and it made us feel either really strong again or we'll never recover.

Coming Down "The Conejo Grade"
 I sent this to Kiely because she said that the
 lights were always her "treasure chest" when she was
 little. The view from the top of the grade
 looking down is spectacular!

I have to say it doesn't look all that different around here. My Kiely and Matt left back to school and as their car moved away from us, we cried again. I think Kiely and I cried a really long time. I watched her online clear-out to Victorville. They needed to get back to school early so all the "move-ins" to the Dorms for this Spring Session of school would have Resident Dorm leaders (Kiely and Matt) to help them. Our Sonny's covered and no problems with mud and our dryer is back in service. Dawn's household is almost all moved over to her seaside home and we are all so happy it was done. We come home and all looks just the same. But for us, it was a "moving experience" the whole week and one that will stand-out as ... what we did the first big week of the 2013 year. It doesn't seem possible.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I LOVE that pic of Dune. :)

Susan said...

Thank you Heather! Steve used our Canon for that. She sure loves the ocean and the brightness of the day helped her see so much. Really a fun afternoon!

Susan said...

Thank you Heather! Steve used our Canon for that. She sure loves the ocean and the brightness of the day helped her see so much. Really a fun afternoon!