80's baby!!

Our good friend and neighbor Jay turned 40 this year and his wife Melissa was amazing in planning a surprise party 2 months after his actual birthday. She was awesome keeping it a secret the whole time and made it a 80's party.  You know we love us an 80's party, so of course we set out trying to figure out the perfect costumes. We've already done the neon and popped collar thing for my party and tacky 80's prom couple for the Sparks' party, so this time we mixed it up and went as....

Milli Vanilli.  You know:

Epic!  So proud of us, we even had their "awesome" dance moves and we lip synced and spoke in thick german accents all night.  The Warrenskis don't do anything halfway.

Everyone else brought their A games as well - it was so fun to see what people came up with.  Such a great party!!

Birdie mamas!!

Clearly it's spring because there's birdie mamas everywhere!!  We've already had one bird family launch right outside of Rob's office, and now we have a love-dove nest outside of our garage and a hummingbird mama who has taken up in the same nest as last year! I'm not saying it's the same mama (though wouldn't THAT be amazing?)  but it's pretty cool she has used the same nest. We read online you're supposed to leave them after the babies fly the coop and sure thing, it's being reused! Hummingbirds are a resourceful bunch.  Or, lazy.  You pick.

Anyway, you know what a total weirdo I am, and I've been so excited checking on the progress every day.  Stay tuned.  Or not.  Your choice.

Boil those mudbugs!

Earlier this month we drove out to Scottsdale for Rob's cousins' annual crawfish boil and...just like last year...had an absolute blast.  This time was even more fun because we had met their friends/neighbors the year before, so this year they were our buds! We got to catch up with Rob's Aunt and Uncle, ate a TON of spicy crawfish and fixings and laughed our butts off.

Please to enjoy the highlights:

Padres Game, woot!

Our first game of the season was with Rob's coworker from Jersey, Colleen, and she is hilarious. We had a great time cracking up with her and our friend Kevin, and an added bonus? We won! I think the Warrens can take credit for that.  :)

HILARIOUS

Check out this gem my Grandma unearthed that teaches young ladies how to avoid getting into "sticky" situations with boys.  The advice is so antiquated and is just pure awesomeness.  "moonlight, my eye".

Colorado Bday visit!

Well, I guess it's a good sign when we go to Colorado and I only take a handful of pics because we're having so much fun.  On my birthday weekend, we flew home for a quickie fly-by (our specialty, apparently) to celebrate my aunt Meg's 50th bday and threw in some visits with other fam/friends as a bonus.

Enjoy!!

Fire update 2.0

Waking up to fog/marine layer the last two mornings has been absolutely incredible - such a weight off our shoulders!!! The fires are all contained now and most of the evacuation orders have been lifted.  The air quality is much better and we were able to open up our windows over Sunday finally. The temps have broken and it's down into the 70's and 80's.  WHEW.  We're so profoundly grateful to the hardworking firefighters and everything that they've done. We don't know anyone who lost their homes this time and for that we are grateful too, and of course we're thinking of the poor people who have to start over.

Thanks again for all of your prayers, thoughts and texts/calls/emails.  Warrenskis are all good!  Totes.  Totes good.  Totes MaGotes.

Other March (yup, March) fun

Yah, I'm behind on my blog.  What's it to you? I'm trying to keep myself distracted from all the fires so I'm catching up on organizing my photos and I realized I'm behind back to March.  Here's a couple pics from a fun night out with our neighbors for our friend Swati's birthday down at URBN and meeting my sweet friend Sara's new baby boy Cole - he's precious!!

Fire update

I really want to thank everyone for all of their texts, emails and calls - this has been incredibly scary and so reminiscent of the two other major wildfires in San Diego.

I just quickly want to update you that we're absolutely fine. We did have to evacuate on Tuesday and the fires came within about 1.5 miles of our house to the south and west. Unfortunately I wasn't home so Rob was such a champ packing up the house by himself. Luckily (or unluckily) we've done this 2 other times so our safety deposit box has most of the important paperwork and the rest is just icing.  He was great at grabbing Galileo and other important stuff and getting out quickly.  Here's a shot he took as he left our street, it gives you an idea of how close it came to us:

It was chilling, and the acreage burned is devastating. On my drive to work yesterday, I took a few shots about 1.5 miles from our house - all the beautiful canyons are absolutely charred.  It looks like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie set, and it's such a miracle no homes were lost in our neighborhoods! Thank God for those hardworking firefighters - we're profoundly grateful.

On Tuesday we evacuated to our friends' house in Carlsbad - they were so kind to open up their house to us and they were out of town. We had several offers and were lucky we could choose depending on location and what was (at the time) the furthest distance from the fires.  Ironically, after the evacuation order was lifted and we returned home, on Wednesday new fires broke out around the county and Carlsbad was one of the worst affected. Rob was so brave and went back through the worst of it when our same friends' home was evacuated and he rescued their kitty!  We now have a new refugee living with us, introducing: Chairman Meow aka Nutmeg.  She's so very sweet, and even though the initial Operation Kitty Grab was quite traumatizing on her, she's so happy and snuggly now.  Purr factory.

Thankfully, our friends' house has been saved. It's been so amazing to watch the coordinated efforts of all of the firefighters, the military and even some DC-10's to do fire drops!

Mute this because the language is atrocious, but this video was taken a few blocks from their house as some people were fleeing. Frightening, and gives you the scope of how this is right through neighborhoods.

Our thoughts and prayers have been with my other close friend whose Dad passed away Wednesday, and while she was visiting him in Arizona, she learned her home was also being evacuated in Carlsbad. Too much stress for one person to endure, though I'm so grateful her home has been spared as well. My sweet friend...

Our fire is mostly contained, the Carlsbad fire is under control and the other various fires around the county are mostly under control though not contained.  For those of you who do not live here, to give some perspective and reassure you, the other fires around the county are not near us other than just one.  Right now we're keeping a close eye on the San Marcos, or "Cocos" fire which is about 5 miles north of us as the crow flies.  Here's a shot of the smoke from that from our bedroom window last night and this morning and it's still quite catastrophic and unpredictable.  No (re)evacuation orders have come our way, but we are fully ready to go and have a finely tuned list of everything we need to take, including now one miss Nutmeg!

Prayers for the firefighters, all the displaced and stressed people and for those who have lost their homes. Love to you all!  Beth and Rob (and Galileo and Nutmeg!)