Someday...

Since many of you seemed to enjoy my post about the OC Great Park balloon, I want to let you in on a little gem I found out about by reading an in-flight travel magazine on the plane to Wisconsin.
It turns out that during one week every October, the city of Albuquerque, New Mexico hosts a festival called Balloon Fiesta. This festival has been happening in early October for over 20 years, and has come to involve over 700 balloons, all floating together over the Rio Grande.
How cool is that?!



Sigh.
This is the stuff my dreams are made of.


(Balloon-ride tickets start around $150 per person, so....someday. !!)

Dave is in the house

Some of you may remember my post from November, when Jordan and a couple of our friends went and saw Dave Bazan play a solo show at Fuller in Pasadena. Well, he's currently on a tour playing house shows, and Jordan and I were lucky enough to be one of the 30 or so people to score tickets to the Irvine show.
It was kind of interesting driving into residential Irvine, parking on a street of houses, and giving our names to a smiling, twenty-something guy who had proudly offered his parents house up for Bazan's show.

Stranger still was sitting in this guy's living room, making awkward small talk with other Bazan show-goers, waiting for the show to begin.

(Jordan's a big fan)


Dave's solo album is set for release in August 2009. You can give him a listen here.
He sure can belt it out,


His daughter called at one point, so he answered and said goodnight to her.

Then he apologized and explained that he tries not to miss calls from her, hoping it might make it feel like he's not so far away. I'm pretty sure everyone was ok with that.
If you look back at the post from my last Bazan show, I included a photo of him receiving a text (or was it blocking a call?) during the show. He's a pretty easy going guy.

As awkward as it may have been at first, to go into a stranger's house, sit down on the couch and engage in pithy small talk, by the end of the show, I felt a rare sense of community. It felt so cool to be able to gather in such an informal (and untraditional) location and listen to a musician we all admire. It says a bit about Dave too, that he'd come up with (or at least agree to) the idea. We all just kind of hung out, mostly listening, but also talking with him, asking questions, and shaking his hand on the way out. It was an awesome experience, overall.

Today's Fash-intrigue

Grace Kelly

Throwing Boys

I decided to take a video of one of the many times Sam and Oliver felt like being thrown (by me) onto the couch.
Three solid minutes of me throwing them on the couch, complete with my grunts and "hiya"s- Enjoy!

The OC Great Park Balloon!

On Friday, Jordan and I meandered over to take a ride on the orange balloon we've been seeing for months now, floating near the 5 freeway. Around July, The Orange County Great Park developers put in an orange observatatory balloon. Since it's a life goal of mine to go on a hot air balloon, I was immediately intrigued. THEN, when I found out that rides on this little beauty were free, I was one eager beaver.
I wish I could say the same for my friends. Sigh. Jordan wasn't alone in feeling that the balloon looked "sketchy;" it seemed that all my friends felt similarly. So I had no one to go ballooning with me.
Well, after being gone for about 5 weeks, I determined that I absolutely must go on this balloon, even if I went alone. Conveniently enough, being away from me for so long has made Jordan want to spend every possible moment with me, even if it means joining me on board a 'sketchy' balloon ride. Eureka! I was good to go!
Here are some pics to walk you through the splendid occasion:

In case you can't tell, the balloon is 'that way,'
the boarding pass,


Jordan (with his sweet new 'do) got to hang out with an eagle,
the boarding pass,
(anticipation)

the view once aboard

straight down,
!!!
I was too excited to look cute in a picture....





and after: conquered.
I also went on a completely unrelated bike ride:

I created a YouTube account

For whatever reason, I had been a little intimidated about it, but it was super easy to make an account and upload this video on You Tube.

Still more Jasper pics

I like to think that in this one, Oliver is contemplating the weight of being an older brother for the second time,

melts my heart,
those little lips!






Life is rough when you're an infant,



Sweet (not-so-)little family with their four boys. !!
p.s. I didn't mean to leave Sam out of this post....I didn't seem to have any new pictures of him with Jasper..

Sam's Solar system-mobile

I have a few more posts coming up to catch up on my last few days at the Baughn house in Wisconsin. I'm home now, and it's been surprisingly quick/easy to transition back to my normal routine. Sometimes it feels like I never even left. That's kind of nice from a transitory perspective, but it makes me a little sad, because it makes my month in Wisconsin feel more and more like a dream- and it was less than a week ago that I was there, welcoming Jasper into the world!
Well, here are some pictures from last week, on a quiet afternoon at home when Sam and I decided to make a space mobile. Space, along with animals, dinosaurs, and magnets, is one of Sam's favorite-ist things.


After we made all the planets (including newbies since I was a kid- Ceres and Eris!?), Sam wanted to make a bunch of comets. So we did.


The final presentation,


I miss these boys, so much. !!

(more to come)