Today a friend of mine came to see us in Santa Barbara. They are Houstonians as well renting a house in LA for the month. I have had the pleasure of photographing her on many momentous occasions (maternity, labor and delivery and newborn sessions). I hadn't seen her baby Jake in a while and I hardly recognized him. This is a favorite thing that happens to me a lot. I see babies when they are tiny and new and then get surprised months later when they come back changed! I love it. So we ran around to the zoo, had lunch and played at the park.

Dylan and Sayer got to feed giraffes. The look on their face when they saw that huge tongue coming their way was awesome. Afterwards, the zoo lady suggested that we use some hand sanitizer. I don't know about Dylan but Sayer rarely wants to wash his hands. They can be filthy and he'll say he doesn't need them washed. This time he didn't argue at all.

Lunch was fun. I took them to the Beach Grille at Padaro (I posted about it before). This time the train came and it was really loud and long. This was directly next to our table. You can see Sayer in the background of the picture of Dylan holding his ears too.

Jake is so cute.

We asked Dylan to kiss him. It never fails...you ask a toddler to kiss a baby or another kid and they kiss them so hard! They'll grab them and mash their face into theirs. I guess they really never do anything half way.

I found the coolest playground here. It's all wood and has these towers and tunnels. There are slides, ropes, ladders and bridges everywhere. It's also designed in different sizes so you get the same features in various sizes for different ages. There are cool paintings throughout. It's like a big maze and even I find it kind of challenging to remember where the way in or out was. There are all these tiny spaces that they crawl into as well. It's awesome.

Happy playground face-

and sad playground face-

some time for swinging of course-

One of the things that I love about California are the flowers. The climate is so temperate that everything just grows so abundantly. These daisies were just outside of a business here. Two huge banks of them just exploding with flowers. Daisies are one of those flowers that just seem so perfect, sweet and simple. I want this all around my house!

So that's it for us today. The kids were crashed out by 8:30 (love that) and I'm just sitting upstairs, listening to John Mayer (my fantasy boyfriend) on my headphones, drinking a beer and looking out at the big full moon. We head back home in 5 days (sniff sniff). I have a storm of work waiting for me and a pile of boxes and mail so big that I was told it was being put in a separate room in my studio. The busiest time of year begins in August so it'll be January before I come back up for air. It seems like it is always feast or famine so I am thankful for a good feast.