Last Friday I had to pick Melody up early from daycare, so i took advantage of the time together and we had a Mommy Daughter Date.  I took her down to the Huntington Pier since it was a sunny afternoon, though a bit windy.  I hoped the kites would be flying and that would be a great treat for her.  As you can see in this video, Melody had a terrific time.  She chased pigeons with some other children, tried to join a volleyball game (or at least play with the ball), we stopped for pictures on the pier in the wind, bought a kite, saw a California Brown Pelican, ate dinner at Ruby's where Mom put together the 2nd most difficult kids-menu-vehicle ever, avoided some creepy pan handlers on the way back to the car, and then Melody danced in her car seat to some funky Irish music I had on the iPod.  It was a very fun evening and I can't wait to do it again!

Our little family get together blossomed into a 20 guest shin dig!  We had soooo much fun!  There isn't much to say except that at first, Melody did not want to be in the bounce house by herself and would not bounce unless someone was holding both her hands.  By 5:30, she was bouncing by herself and we had to insist that the bounce house was tired and had to go to sleep in order to get her out of it, lol.  We had a ridiculous amount of fun with family, friends and neighbors.  Thank you one and all who came over to help Melody celebrate her birthday!

Click the picture to see more jumping goodness!

UPDATE: a few more pictures added to the gallery

I've seen a few sites that do "Skywatch Friday" which is, post a picture of the sky on a Friday.  I usually get horrible pictures so I never figured I'd have a Skywatch Friday post, but today...today was a great day for pictures of the sky.  We'll call this Skywatch Thursday.  This morning when we walked out of the house, there were light clouds dusting across the sky, the neighbor's tree was covered by white flowers, and Melody said "that's pretty."  So, I took a picture with my iPhone.

About 90 minutes later, I was sitting at a stoplight in Newport Beach, just about 20 miles south of home and much closer to the coast.  Banks of clouds were rolling in, alternately revealing and obscuring the sun.  I looked up, and there framed in my window was a beautiful image.  So, out came the iPhone and another photo taken.

I ran these through an iPhone app called Camera Bag and applied the Lolo filter.  The results please me.  I'm not much of a photographer.  Once in a while I get a good snapshot, and recently I've been getting some artsy-fartsy images, such as at Disneyland in December.  For the most part, I like to take pictures that are sometimes really just average at best.  So, I'm pleased to share these pictures which pleased me.

I posted a few new pictures in the gallery from Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and New Year's Eve. Hope you enjoy them!

I'm happy to report that after only two days of being on my diet, I feel better already! While I certainly enjoyed all the great food and drink of the holidays, there is only so much wine, so many cookies, so much cinnamon pull apart bread one can eat. Auntie Tara calls this bread "Monkey Bread" which I had never heard, but as soon as she told me about it, I remembered getting a loaf up at Schatt's Bakery in Bishop, CA when we were on camping trips. Oh yes, I love me some pull apart bread! Thanks for the recipe, T! If anyone wants it just let me know and I will pass it on. Although my bread looked a little weird, it tasted fantastic!!!!!

Not a lot has been going on at chez Gibbons lately. I posted the pictures from Halloween and some other silly pictures. Some are from an application called CameraBag that Dad found for the iPhone and Mom had to get it too. It has filters that make regular pictures look different, i.e. black and white, 1970s, things like that.

Mom has been slightly laid up the past few days after undergoing a procedure to hopefully heal her torn Achilles tendon. I'm in a "cam walker" which is one of those soft cast thingies. It's hot and uncomfortable but better than a hard fiberglass cast and surgery, so wish us luck with this! Yes, it's considered "off label" so we had to pay for it on our own. Donations accepted... Melody tells the people at daycare that Mama has a "big boot" and I'm ever so thankful she stops at "boot" and doesn't put a "y" on the end, lol.

That's about it for now, sorry there isn't much new!