Sometime during the Summer...

We went to the Huntington Library to visit the art galleries. Caroline was at Grandma Pickle's house for a visit. The rest of us packed up our gear (Lauren actually did all the packing) and headed out for a day of masterworks. You judge the results:

Liffy had a birthday tucked into all that too:

Liffy had a Max and Ruby themed birthday party. Every one had a role to play. Liffy was Ruby, Lauren was Bunny Scout Leader, Caroline was Louise, James was Max, I was Mrs. Huffington and Steve, of course, was Mr. Huffington. Being Mr. Huffington came with the very special privilege of participating in the "Mr. Huffington" game. What is the Mr. Huffington game you ask? Well, I did, too. Lauren told me that at the school carnival Mr. Huffington wore his swimming suit and they would throw a ball and Mr. Huffington would splash into the water. A Dunk Tank! I told Lauren that if she could figure out how to make it work then they could certainly play. If you look at the bottom row second picture from the left you can see what they rigged up. The bucket went on the top of the ladder, we had to throw a beach ball at a knot on the swing rope (harder than it seems, by the way) and then the person at the top of the ladder would dump the bucket on the person standing below.

As you can imagine Steve was no longer willing to be Mr. Huffington. He does not like to have water dumped on his head. Not to be deterred, Lauren graciously agreed to be Mr. Huffington. BUT, he had to be Bunny Scout Leader, and he had to wear a skirt. As you can see from the photo on the top left, Steve would rather wear a skirt than have water dumped on his head. The game was a huge success--lots of laughter and fun. I love handing the party planning over to Lauren. She has a great imagination! I'm in charge of the cake baking, though, so we had cupcakes with pink frosting and yellow buttercream roses.

All in all between birthdays, outings, cousin camp, a San Diego vacation, and just hanging out at home we had a terrific summer.