AracHELLNOphobia

Dude, seriously, there are SO MANY freakin' spiders in our neighborhood right now, I'm in a constant state of heebie jeebie! Like I mentioned on Facebook recently, my last run (for a long time, seriously, I think this was the universe telling me that running is somehow inherently evil) was so traumatizing. Picture, if you will, me on my leisurely morning run in the fog - all zen'd out and enjoying my dance music on my ipod for about 2 minutes....which quickly turned into me shrieking like a banshee while frantically brushing spider webs off my arms and face. I was literally shrieking and flailing the entire run...all while keeping up a good groove, if I do say so myself. It was horrible.

Anyhoo - we've had a bunch of the suckers hanging out in the trees around our house which makes for a VERY cautious exit from our front door - as we flail preemptively in anticipation of the inevitable onslaught of facial web invasions. For some reason today I had the bright idea I'd do a little "flooding" therapy to myself to force me to get over the heebie and the jeebie by taking up close pics of some of the spidies. And apparently, I'm going to force you to face your fears right along with me. Enjoy...

I call this one: dinner by moonlight:
And for the uber creepiest one that'll send you straight to therapy? Check out this dude's fur! Yup, that dude is right outside our front door. Not in the Amazonian rain forest, not in some crazy island jungle but outside our.front.door.

And on a non-gross note...check out these cool pics of a praying mantis Rob saw in our backyard....cool, eh?

I feel like he's saying "put up yer dukes" here. He probably knows he pissed the wife off somehow and she's about to rip his head off.
Oh, and a random cool moon shot from tonight to finish the whole hodge-podge off and (hopefully) cure you of the heebies you caught from me.

Friends, meet family. Family, meet our friends. Mix, rinse and repeat.

We had a little BBQ so Steve and Pam could meet some of our friends, and it ended up being such a fun night - we didn't wind down until 1am!

Here's our newest member of the Bob Club - there a super secret handshake and everything. Ok, not really, but we we are damn exclusive, though.

Those crazy Texans "freezing" to death in our 70 degree weather.
I love this pic of the guys with Zoe! Notice several of them have wet shoulders - she was on quite a barfing terror that night...but still smiling! Way to rally, girlfriend!
Shots at midnight in the kitchen sounded like a brilliant idea at the time...not so much the next morning, eh?


The next day we were worthless (see: shots at midnight above) and just lounged around and watched football all day. Clearly Galileo was a fan.
That night we sent off Steve and Pam with a bang - sushi and Pinkberry - yes please!

Too damn tall to join the Navy

Rob's brother and sister in law Steve and Pam came to visit us last weekend and it was so nice to have them out! They wanted to check out the Midway Aircraft Carrier and it was one of those fun perfect days of playing tourist in your own town...we had a great time together. They had these audio tour thingies and it was actually super informative. I think I have a very selective type of ADHD - I swear real life tours, following an umbrella-carrying boring tour guide who drones on and on loses my attention right away. But clearly, we enjoy the audio tour.Interesting tidbit learned? The #1 injury the on-board medical team treats are head lacerations since so many people end up bonking their heads! #2 is treating "overindulgence" on port-calls. Hmmmmmm. I could totally see how the head wound thing is feasible - I came close to knocking myself out several times. Clearly, there's a good reason I didn't join the navy :) That, and being wedged up next to somebody else's tushie in those tight bunks would make me super peevish. Although Pam and Rob don't seem phased: Pam and I met all sorts of nice guys on the boat...although they really did lack in conversation skills. And none of them were willing to recreate the shirtless Top Gun volleyball scene.The brig was super interesting...especially the shower.After freeing ourselves from jail, we got briefed on our next mission.
And I practiced my best ejection seat tinkle hold.Finally, we tooled around up on the flight deck and even got to test drive a jet! Ok, not really on the last part, but wouldn't you have been super impressed if we really did?

Another visitor! (we're either popular or we live in a killer place, you decide).

In what is clearly turning out to be a theme this week, we also had a dear friend Heather come into town for a visit. We got together with the old Scripps buddies for a fancy-pants dinner out at Oceanaire downtown (if you haven't been, seriously you have to go. Now, preferably.) Rob was the token male with the 5 chics and it brought him a lot of comments and attention all night "hey, what did you do to get all these lovely ladies to go out on a date with you?", and "Hey man, you're pimp!" and the ultimate: a serenade by some sketchy dude out on the sidewalk who was apparently inspired by Rob's luck with the ladies. He's so incredibly patient and put up with the constant gossip, discussion of all things gynecological (hey, they are postpartum and labor and delivery nurses, after all) and an overabundance of estrogen. Good times, good times. Love you Heather, thanks for coming to see us!

And, love you babe, thanks for being so pimp!

Attack of the bestie!

Ok, wasn't really an attack but more of a drive-by. My dear old friend Nicole was here earlier this week for a conference (not that she's old, I just mean we've known each other forever because let's face it, if she's old then that means I'm old and I'm frankly just not ok with that possibility...in fact, I'm downright against it. boo.) She was in Long Beach for a conference so I drove up and we met halfway in Newport beach for a FABULOUS day. I know this will come as a shock to anyone that knows me, and especially anyone who knows me and Nicole together but we literally talked nonstop All.Day.Long. I'm sure we sounded like a bunch of cackling hens, but don't judge. It was heaven!

First stop: pedicures
followed by a lovely day of lunch, window shopping in Laguna Beach and then hanging on the beach solving all the world's problems.
I love you Nicole - you are so precious to me!!!!

BBB's DAY OF FUN!!!!

We took our little buddy Bennett out for the 3 B's (Bennett, Booter and Beth, don'tcha know) day of fun....we were WAY overdue taking him out for his birthday. Which was in May. Hey, nobody ever said we're good at math and luckily, the dude is 3 and didn't seem too bothered by our lateness. We'll be better next year, I promise.Anyhoo, we took him to the park to play for a few hours and we had a blast - that kiddo was nonstop!
B loved everything about the park....except his arch nemesis, the evil jumpy. Home boy was so focused on it, he really did keep his eye on the jumpy at all times while he was on his bike, lest the jumpy sneak up behind us or something. So, I taught him to tell the jumpy "Go away Mr. Jumpy" in our meanest voice...and he seemed to take that advice to heart.

Playing Superbooter and Superbennett:

Pirates: Monkeys: Whale surfers:
And the best ending to a great special day? McDonalds of course! Nothing better than chocolate milk, french fries and more playing!