Briefly, here are some photos from last week: (Sorry, this must be uninteresting if you don't know these other people, but it's mostly for the benefit of Dad/Ben away on the ship).

OC Fair with free admission during the Summer Book Drive: The kids' cousin T. (with "help" from J. kids) is doing one of her favorite things, a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle in the arts and crafts room:

Another cousin J. and Yoda5 check out the magnificent sand sculpture:

Huntington Beach Bonfire with Ben's "4 sister" cousins and families and Vicki's sister Nancy and daughters: By the way, Hotdog8 was the evening's photographer...These were the ones that were least blurry .

Yesterday morning, we woke up at 5am to get the kids to the La Habra Corn Parade/Festival with the cast/crew of their show, Wonka Jr. at the La Habra Depot Theatre:

Last night, on the way to the show, we stopped by at a farewell party to say goodbye to Cousin Anne and family as they depart back to Chicago. We even got to see another cousin, Cindy and kids, who live in a different part of town and we hardly get to see them (sorry, no photos from the party...I had temporarily misplaced the camera). Ben's mom, middle sister's family and their friends were able to attend the show.

Our squirrel and Oompa Loompa on the far right:

Our cast/crew won first place in the parade contest:

This morning at church we saw the kids' cousin Danny visiting from NYU. Here he is with his mom (Ben's sister), another cousin Jonathan, Ben's cousin Bae Sun, and Danny's friend Stephanie and the 4 J. kids.

And later we celebrated one of my nephew's birthday:

During the late afternoon on Friday, probably the worst day/time to be driving in Southern California, I was in a narrow parking lot, turned down an aisle just as a rough-looking guy in a monster truck was pulling out of his space. Now, I don't know the legalities of it but in hindsight I probably should have courteously waited for him and then proceeded. But, I was in a bit of a hurry and I thought he'd see me and I could get around him (in my not-so-zippy mini-van) before he backed out all the way. Fortunately, no one crashed or anything, but obviously I rattled his nerves. I was getting ready to turn right out of the parking lot and he comes next to me to make a left (we both have our windows open) and yells, "Learn to drive...or go back to Florida!" (We still have our Escambia County, Florida license plates). I was going to try to nicely comment, that maybe he should look before he backs out but these days, you never know what weapon lurks in a monster truck and it just isn't worth it and instead tried to shake the dust off my feet .  Maybe I should have said, "Yes, I'd love to go back to Florida to avoid drivers like you."

I should apologize to Florida drivers because my undesirable driving habits are giving you a bad name.

I had another unpleasant driving encounter yesterday while trying to find parking for the Corn Parade on residential side streets. It was very crowded, as expected, and I went down a cul-de-sac to try to park when a man was in his front yard doing some yardwork and he yells out to me, "This isn't a parking lot, you know!" I guess his method worked because I didn't park there. I was thinking of mentioning to him that I didn't think his home-owner boundary line extended into a public street and I was only going to be there for 1 hour, but these days, you just don't want to return to see the results of his hoe into my vehicle...

I think I just need to drive with my windows closed from now on...