Oxnard 2013!

We had a wonderful time this last week with our family at the beach.  This is the fourth year we have stayed at this house and our 8th year getting away for a week vacation as a whole family.  We really look forward to this trip every year and we already can't wait for next year! Here are a few of the highlights:

This was our view from the house:

We spent lots of time at the beach:

 

 

 

 

 

Flying kites:

(It took four master's degrees to put that sucker together:)

Eden enjoyed her beach yoga time...

The best part was that the house had an outdoor shower and jacuzzi, so when our Littles were cold and very very sandy, it made it really easy to rinse them off and warm them up.

We rode our bikes:

(It was Eden's first bike ride because guess who finally got her own helmet!)

 

 

Pirate Park is a favorite of ours!

 Ryder talking to his cousin Max:

We went on a Duffy boat one day and had such a great time!

 

One day we went to the Ventura County Fair:

 Ryder was so brave and did a bungee jump trampoline:

 He looks so little!

 It was pretty perfect that he was wearing his Super Man shirt.

We loved looking at the animals:

The pig race was our favorite:

One day we went to lunch at the Padaro Beach Grill in Carpenteria 

 It had a beach area and a huge lawn for the kids to play in with sand toys.  They were in heaven! And the food was so tasty too!

The best part was getting family time:

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Getting back from vacation is always tough: the laundry, the meal planning and grocery shopping, the resuming of the busy work schedules... Sheesh, vacation is a beautiful thing!

Vacation, here we come!

Today we are heading out to spend a week at the beach with our family.  It's been a lot of packing and planning and prep, but we are getting on the road and we can't wait to unplug for a week and RELAX!  See you when we get back!

a great deal

Anyone who has spent any time with Kit will know that he LOVES his BBQ.  By that I mean, he loves to cook meet using a grill, a smoker, an out door oven, open fire while camping... We have even been known to deep fry a turkey and  he loves making his own rubs, brines, sauces, and concoctions and he loves seeing other cooks tricks of the trade for even better food.  We watch BBQ competitions on The Food Network and he wishes that he could spend a weekend with Bobby Flay just cooking outside.  This is a serious hobby, in which the kids and I benefit GREATLY.  Last week, our BBQ died and it would be too expensive to try to get it fixed.  We used our BBQ probably 2-3 times a week for dinners and both Kit and I were pretty sad to not have that option for dinners.  Our smoker broke about a year ago and since that time, Kit has been dreaming of getting a ceramic grill like a Big Green Egg.  If you aren't familiar with these babies, they are ceramic ovens that grill, smoke, and cook things like pizza and bread.

They are good enough that people use them in BBQ competitions and they are really versatile.  The problem is that the egg itself is about $800.  That does not include the stand or the attachments to make it do all the things that it can do.  Going through our local BBQ store, it was estimated that with everything that you would need, it would come to at least $1,500.  That's some serious cash.

So Kit started researching other ceramic cookers.

We came across this baby:

It had really good reviews, and if anything goes wrong, the return policy at Costco is amazing.

$650 was still too much.

Then we made our weekly trip to Costco this last week and guess what:

Costco was closing them out for the summer and had marked down their price that day.

We talked about it and then decided after a year of Kit talking about these things, we decided to pull the trigger.

Eden over saw the assembly.

 Ryder organizing the nuts, washers, and bolts.  

I mean, who wouldn't want this kind of help..♥.

Kit is SO excited.  He has been researching recipes and techniques specific to these ceramic ovens and he can't wait to try them out.  Neither can we♥.