It's Official...

...it's Summer! 

(and Bennett is 4 months old)One of the first signs of summer is when the Organ Concerts begin! 

Adam and I love to go down to Balboa Park on Monday nights during the summer and listen to the organ concerts. It is such a great time to just enjoy the park, enjoy friends and listen to world class musicians that fly in from all over the world!  

We didn't want Bennett to get cold once the sun went down so we put him in his little bear suit (although he looks more like an ewok)

Here's Bennett "enjoying" the first song of the night:

About 3/4 of the way through the night the person playing the organ said that he was going to play a song from a man that had connections in the Scandinavian contemporary music scene. Then he said that "You don't have to like it, you just have to hear it at least once". That made us kind of nervous, and rightfully so, here's a portion of it:

 

It was a great night and it was so nice to visit with our friends that met us down there! 

YAY for summer being here!

If you are interested, click here to see the schedule for the rest of the summer, it is such a good time!

Bennett and Adam

In honor of Father's Day yesterday I wanted to post a few pictures of Adam and Bennett.

Father's Day was fun - Bennett got his dad "Dan in Real Life". Adam and Bennett both wore sweater vests to church yesterday and we had lunch with Grandpa at the fire station and then dinner with Papa Roger at our house.

The other day I went to run some errands and left Adam with some milk to feed Bennett in case he woke up - well of course he woke up but Adam didn't have to "give" Bennett the bottle, he wanted to hold it on his own! This is what I saw when I walked in the door:

And lastly, here is the all time cutest picture in the history of Father-Son moments:

Can you even stand it?

Breakfast Casserole?

I give this 4 out of 5 stars. Very good but lacks a "wow" factor. Maybe it needs another ingredient? Onions? Mushrooms? Chopped Spinach? Cilantro? Salsa? Jalapenos?

See what ya'll can come up with...

Recipe For Breakfast Casserole

8 oz of Ciabatta Bread, cut into 1"cubes

1 lb of chicken breakfast sausage

1/2 cup chopped green onions

1 1/4 Cup Milk (We used rice milk)

1 Cup of Cheddar Cheese, Grated

6 Large eggs or

2 Large eggs and a carton of egg beaters (8oz)

2 Tbl Chopped Parsley

The Night Before:

Heat oven to 400. Arrange bread cubes in single layer on a baking sheet and bake for about 8 Minutes until bread is toasty. In a medium skillet cook sausage until brown, stirring to crumble. Combine sausage, bread & onions in a large bowl. In another bowl combine milk, cheese and eggs and whisk. Pour egg/milk/cheese mixture over bread and stir to coat. Spoon into 2 quart glass baking dish, pouring excess liquid over the top. Press down with a spoon. Cover and refrigerate over night.

The next morning:

Heat oven to 350, uncover casserole, and bake for 50 minutes. Slice into pieces, sprinkle with parsley and eat it hot! Serves 6-8

People all over the world...

While living in Russia two of my good friends there were Cam and Sonja.

(Deb, Sonja, Cam celebrating Cinco De Mayo in St. Petersburg, Russia)

(Sonja and I at the Red Lion - and "English" pub in St. Petersburg - on Ladies Night! Hence all the cups on cheep champagne they kept bringing that we were not drinking!)

Cam and Sonja fell in love and got married! YAY!

However, Cam is from Australia (not that Sonja lived super close either, she is from the Seattle area) and they are currently living in the land of Oz. Due to visa renewal guidelines Sonja had to come back to the states for a few weeks and then on her way back "down under" she ended up with an 8 hour layover at LAX! Seeing how it is summer and all and we haven't seen Sonja since their wedding we were more than happy to jump in the car and make the drive out to see her.

After a quick stop at LAX to feed Bennett (he slept the whole way but woke up about 30 min out, and he was starving!) we headed to Santa Monica to enjoy the PERFECT weather! We walked the Pier and wondered through 3rd street and just talked about life. It was such a great day!

Sonja and I were having so much fun trying on all the head bands at Anthropologie! We must have tried on 5 to 10 each! These were the last two that we tried on - you can see from the "seriousness" of these pictures the amount of fun we were having with these amazing head bands. These were for sure not the cutest ones we tried on, if you want to see the others click here - we also found the most amazing chair!

We had a great dinner at CPK and Bennett and Sonja really enjoyed playing with one another!
Sonja loved her cuddle time with Bennett! He was fading fast as we were heading back to the car. We changed him and put him in PJ's and he slept the whole way home! (This was Bennett's longest car trip so far and he did really well!)

It was such a fun day! I'm so glad that it worked out for us to meet up! Sonja, so good to see you, come back to California soon and bring Cam next time too!

Bennett's First Trip to PF Changs

Seems like he had a pretty good time!

Visitors from the East and the South!

This last week has been full of visiting relatives! Two of Adam's Aunts came to town this week (Sally and Kathy) and my brother Aaron can to town as well.

Monday night we went up to Adam's parent's place in Canyon Lake to see our visitors from the East! Here's some pictures of Bennett with his great Aunt Sally, he wanted her to see how he could fit his whole fist in his mouth!

On Wednesday, Aunts came to our house and we took a walk around where we live and took a few pictures.

Here are three of the 5 sisters: Sally, Mary Beth and Kathy with Bennett Boy

Here's a fabulous picture of those of us who live in CA: Mary Beth, Me, Baby B and Adam

Oh and here is Adam showing his Aunts the first road he ever designed, it's not on the property we live on but you can see it from where we live.

After having lunch we went to White Lime to show them a good "California Dessert" and they very much enjoyed it! We also happened upon a cute new book store over by White Lime and had a great time looking at books and sitting on fun furniture! Bennett loved it!

That brings us to our visitor from the South - as in Mexico. Aaron is home for just a few days before he takes off again for a trip to northern CA and Wyoming. Here's a quick shot we took of him and his nephew when he stopped by our place.

Oh and this has nothing to do with visitors but look how cute my boy is when he pulls the bears on his bouncy seat onto himself!

He was asleep like normal when I got in the shower...

... but apparently he felt the need to move around a bit!

(Look at his little "Snuggle-saurus" foot sticking through!)

Mr. Talks-A-Lot

So Bennett has been talking a ton lately and this morning before we left the house he has some serious business to go over with Mr. Bear before we left. I captured the last half of the "conversation"

also the other night he was wrestling with the blanket on our bed - pretty cute!

Looking at the horses

3 months old!

Adam's Birthday Weekend

We had a weekend of celebrating Adam! 

Shortly after posting his blog, Bennett went to visit his dad at work! As seen below, Bennett wore a shirt that we have been waiting to see him in for a long time now!  Last September Adam and I bought 'the baby' this shirt (the first thing we ever purchased for the baby) and Bennett finally wore it for his dad! Pretty cute huh?!

Here's the Elwer men trying to take a picture together but they both just kept looking at each other! (You can tell they like each other a lot)

After Adam got home from work Bennett went to his Grammy's house to hang out for a while and Adam and I went on a date! We played two rounds of miniature golf (36 holes, Adam had two hole in one's and I had one!) and rode the go karts once. We had so much fun just playing! Then we went to our favorite sushi restaurant in Temecula, Gin Sushi. Oh what a yummy dinner! After dinner we went back to our house for a little cake. As you can see Adam was being a little silly!
Saturday morning the Selton family came over for Brunch because they were unable to come the night before. Here's Adam and Mike with their boys! We are hoping they will be great friends too and who knows, maybe they will be each other's best man, just like their dads!
After brunch, we all went out to 'Prior Park' to enjoy the lovely afternoon and play on the fun toys!
This next picture isn't really part of the celebration, but it made me laugh, so I will include it. Saturday afternoon, Adam decided he would help Bennett work on his crawling skills - it was pretty funny!
Then Saturday night Adam and I (thanks to the lovely Crystal-Lee) went to see his school's play, Wizard of OZ.  The students all did a really great job and it was fun to see!
Then Sunday after church, we had another family celebration at Adam's parent's house which included grilled chicken salads on the patio and watching one of Adam's presents, 'Get Smart'.
So, all in all it was a busy weekend, but a really, really fun weekend! It's great to celebrate Adam!