welcome to summer overload 2011

summer has been good to us! we have had so much fun & been busy busy. So here it is...

in june the kids & i drove up to utah (or as lo calls it "tuna") to see my enormously talented friend aimee in the play "the scarlet pimpernel". aimee & i were the best of friends through high school & have managed to remain super close even though we haven't lived in the same state for 10 years. i'd forgotten how wonderful it is to have someone know you so well they know your next thought. our friendship is a special one.

the play was incredible with amazing talent!

since we were 10 hours closer to st.louis my family thought it would be a good time for them to take a trip to utah too. So we got to spend time with my parents, my sister melanie & my nieces mattie, torrie & alyssa.

aimee's little guy christian thought taj's name was 'tattoo' lotus got to meet her great grandma ecuador or as she calls her, "brown grandma"

we met up with our friends from hawaii, amy & dustin & met their cute little crew of 3

long beach has a great aquarium & we finally bit the bullet & got a family pass. this is a big deal for us... we've never been a pass family. that's how good this aquarium is. If you visit soon we may still have some of our free guest passes. 1st come, 1st serve.

and have i mentioned we are obsessed with uncle paulie?? we've been lucky enough to have him twice in the last month & may have convinced him to move here.

on to july and our mini family reunion. what was planned to be a large reunion ended up being just 2 of ben's siblings & 1 cousin. hell no that didn't hold us back. we had a great time with julie, paul, jane, chris & alyssa in house

yum "arrested development" frozen banana stand

and in case anyone forgot, july is birthday month for ben. i had no intention of doing anything since i assumed i was still exempt from my stand up party last year, but apparently that wasn't the case. friends insisted I had to do something. so i kindly informed them they were welcome to do whatever they wanted at my house, but I would still be relishing in the glory from last year. and they did.

while on this topic i must say that we have been incredibly blessed with the most ridiculous friends here. we miss our loved ones in st.louis daily, but we have had made some incredible new ones. they have really taken us under their wings & loved us as their own. not a day goes by when we don't hear from them with some unique activity they have planned.

last weekend we took a break down to san diego to visit our newly relocated friends mary & tommy. let me just say "i get it." yup, i understand why the world is obsessed with that place.

Sad day when we attempt to call my daughter "lolo" (her nickname from birth) and she says, "that's not me. I'm lotus."

and in between all this craziness we've been doing daily fun things.

chilling at the park & beach, baby olympics, roller derby, walking to monday frozen yogurt, story time at the coffee shop, breakfast at emmy's kitchen, concerts in the park, relocating friends' to new houses, flea invasions, sailing, girls' nights out, morning skates, killing 3" cockroaches (should clean that up now), skyping sessions, baby showers, pool parties, movies on the beach, library reading groups... yeah, that's why i haven't blogged.