GIA graduation

At the beginning of the month my family all met up in California for my sister Caitlin's graduation from the Gemological Institute of America in Carlsbad. She is now a real live certified jeweler and has two sets of letters after her name. We are all impressed that she has turned her love of all things sparkly into a viable career.

Oh and when I said my family met up in California I was literally referring to almost all of my fun mixed-up family together at the same time. Here is a picture of "The Clan" (listed from the bottom left and moving up and around the table) when we went out to lunch. We have: My sister Shoshana, her boyfriend Casey, my mom, my mom's mom, my dad's current wife Kathy, my dad, My dad's second wife's mom Joanie, Family friend's the Jimenez (Joyce, Ron, Steven, and Nicki), my sister Emily, My sister Caitlin and her boyfriend Tom, myself and Bella. The Blue Prince is taking the picture and missing is my dad's second wife Ishi, who unfortunately had to go home the day before to support my littlest sister in taking her SATs. Needless to say it was quite a group. The term herding cats comes to mind but everyone got along well and it was fantastic to see everyone.


As you can tell from the picture, Bella is the only small person in the family so needless to say she got lots of love and attention. She held up well under all the adoration but by the end seemed to get a bit clingy with mom and dad. It is tough work being so overly loved all the time.

We stayed in Carlsbad and decided to spend Saturday afternoon on the beach. It was somewhat chilly and so we all decided to walk and wade a little bit on the beach instead of swimming.


Of course Bella didn't quite grasp the whole wading instead of swimming part and ended up more that a little soaked. The waves were quite rough so she wasn't the only one. All of us ended up with wetter than expected pant legs.


Bella had fun playing with Papi being lifted out of the way of the incoming water.


Shoshana and Casey decided to bury my husband in the sand, reminiscent of the sand necktie episode of Mythbusters. They didn't make it much farther that this, but it is a good view of what he would look like as a dwarf.



Caitlin and her boyfriend Tom were being all shmoopy and cute on the beach (and everywhere else). We liked to tease them about inadvertently matching. (I mean seriously, from the brown pants all the way up to the red hair). It was the first time that Tom met "The Clan" and bless his heart he had the initiation by fire of meeting us all at once. Well I guess we can't say that he got to meet everyone. The Big Brother and his Russian Bride were not present which probably made things a little easier as he likes to play his big brother protector role to the hilt on the few occasions he gets the chance. It's hard work having 5 younger sisters.

I didn't notice when I took this picture of the cute couples starring off into the sea, that Emily was sitting in the middle of them playing in the sand. Unfortunately I made the mistake of mentioning the juxtaposition of it to her, leading to a comment of "gee thanks, I didn't feel like a third wheel till you pointed it out". Emily understandably got a bit tired of all the coupledom by the end of the trip.
Always in search of a good family picture, this is the closest we got on this trip. Which is kind of sad considering the blurriness and scowl on Bella's face. All in all it was a lovely trip and a nice break from the cold Autumn weather in these parts.

James's Wedding

So last weekend we took the trek down to Las Vegas for my older brother's wedding. It was an eclectic bunch. My brother's new wife is Russian and that was the predominant theme in the food and beverages (Vodka anyone). Our family is conservative LDS and my brother and his friends are a Bohemian conglomeration of people he has met while living in Washington, Las Vegas and Chicago. His Best Man was dressed as a pirate. All went well everyone got along swimmingly. Here are some lovely pictures of the event. Enjoy!!

James, The Pirate Best man Jinks, and even odder my Dad without a Beard!! I was doing double takes all weekend.

The Beautiful Bride Nelly and her dad Nikolay. He is an incredible artist.

It was very cold and snowy for part of the day. Hence the blankets being passed about for the ceremony. My dad says no more May weddings at Mt. Charleston, but it was Memorial day weekend for heaven sakes. This is a picture of my mom's friend Danielle and a friend of my mom's from High School, Ann. (She wins the award for the most random person to show up considering she traveled from Utah just for the wedding. She hasn't even seen James for over 10 years. Maybe she just wanted to have an excuse to go to Vegas. The more the merrier).

Blue Prince, Myself, Bella, Emily, James (the dashing groom), Caitlin, Grandma Simper and my mom.

Me and my sibs, just missing Sho who decided to ditch us for a study abroad opportunity in Prague. Looser (just kidding sissy, we love you). I love that James is doing a Jig.

Our Beautiful little family. Bella was a hit and did well though we had to take a little brake in the middle as she was getting a bit overwhelmed by all the love. She was the only little person in attendance. Oh the pain of being the first grandchild.

Visiting Bubie Ishi

This weekend we decided to take the long car trek to Las Vegas to visit family, primarily my second mom Ishi and sisters Ariana and Shoshana (who flew in special for the weekend). Considering that it is a 6 hour drive there and back, Bella did great in her new front facing car seat.

Ishi generally spoiled us rotten and took us to the new Springs Preserve which was awesome. It is a group of museums, gardens and children's play areas that focus on the history and landscape of the area around Las Vegas. Considering that we were a group made up of 5 adults, a 16 year-old and a 1 year old and that we all had a fantastic time playing with the displays shows how well this place was thought out. Anyway, enjoy the pictures.

Aunt Shoshana showing off her excellent hand excavator skills.

The blue prince digging for fossils. Was overheard to be saying "Grandpa, Grandpa, where are you?"

Aunt Ariana teaching Bella how to play video games.

Bella riding Tita the Turtle

Me and the Blue Prince playing with the turtle shells.

"I know the Indian hut is cool but are you done taking pictures yet?"

Living the dream of being garbage men.

Casey and Blue Prince having scaled the mighty mastodon skeleton.

Water and Sand play, what could be better

Waiting for the flash flood.

This is the only picture I got of Ishi and I had to take it when she wasn't looking.