dancin' with pops

This is identical to the last post, but I had to figure out the privacy settings on vimeo first, sorry about that if you came to visit but couldn't view the video.... here it is again:

dancin' with pops from Claudia Boot on Vimeo.

We are on the tail end of the move and life will be returning to normal (?) soon.

Jesusita Fire

Holy cow. There have been a lot of 'firsts' for Axel in the last couple of weeks, not the least of which is his first CA wildfire. If you've been following the news you know Santa Barbara was on fire. Again. Except this time it was a little closer and a little scarier. At the moment we're doing just fine and the worst seems over.

Here's a nice map of the burn area. I tried to add our address as a bullet point, but couldn't figure it out... so if you'd like to see our location relative to the fire put in our address: 622 W Pedregosa St. Not too close, but here's was the view from our patio when Rich decided to hightail it outta there:
Unfortunately we were supposed to sign a lease on a new house that day... but it was in the mandatory evacuation area. We postponed because the leasing agent called to say she could see a wall of flames from where she was going to meet us and thought we should maybe reschedule. Good idea. We did end up signing the lease (yahoo!) and will be moving in a couple of weeks (more on that later).

Another bummer has been the heat. It's tough to convince a baby to take a nap when it's 94 oF in the house, very uncharacteristic for Santa Barbara and a major contributor to the fire situation.
Luckily we have some good friends in Goleta, just north of us that hosted us for two nights. We had dinner out one night eating on the patio of the Hollister Brewing Co where we could see the flames spreading in the hills above us. I think Lucy had the right idea.
Things are calming down a bit now which is a relief and Rich has set about cleaning up the ash that is covering all the outside surfaces of Santa Barbara.


This post was originally going to be about Axel's 3 mo. birthday but the fire has been a bit of a distraction. Luckily we have Grammy daycare for the coming week so we'll be getting caught up with some photos of the little guy, he's getting so much bigger... here's a cute one:

Chapagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams...

Hey, It's April 24th... Let's celebrate.
Why? because a shipment came from Peter that contained a nice sized potion of premium caviar. For all those concerned about the sustainablity, it was American farm raised sturgeon caviar.

We started with some amazing olive oil, hand made in the Santa Ynez Valley, selected on our recent wine and olive tasting trip with Kim, and a fresh baked baguette with a couple of glasses or New Zealand Savignon Blanc, mmmmmmm


Then, nicely packed on crushed ice with a dollop of creme fraiche and some red onion (none of which was needed), a whole bunch of little sturgeon eggs.

Ring, Ring....
- Hello...
- This is your taste buds calling, WTF mate,
where has this stuff been for the last couple of years?


And what tasty beverage do you pair with caviar?
A nice big bottle of Grey Goose vodka, chilled over ice.

We followed this up with a nice broiled farm raised trout, boiled red potatoes and a watercress/pickled celery salad.

You might be thinking... Isn't this Axel's blog?
Where was he during all this merriment?
Answer:
Sleeping

Thanks Dad (Peter) for the birthday gift it was greatly appreciated and enjoyed.
And thanks to Axel for....
well...
sleeping.

Birthdays, Anniversary and First Family Vacation!

March and April are a big time for celebration in the Boot household. We had my birthday at the end of March and a visit from Peter and Marianne, whom Axel took quite a liking to...

Then we celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary with some crab legs and champagne and our little Napoleonic friend was quite cooperative in sleeping through most of if. Baby handling and crab legs aren't a great combo but it was totally worth it.






Then we celebrated Rich's birthday on April 12th with a Taco Bell edition of fast food at home with crunch wrap supremes created by our good friends Jason and Susan. Rich has a long standing love/hate affair with fast food that I'm sure he would expand on if you really want more info. These tasty treats were nothing short of delicious.

Here's Axel in bed with Dad on his B-day morning:
And some more cuteness:


This past few days we took our first family vacation to Mammoth Lakes where we met up with the LA Boots (Tim, Brook, Alex and Colin) as well as Vivien and Ian. This involved a lot of time in the car for the little guy ~ 8 hrs. each way and he took it like a champ sleeping most of the time. It also involved dressing him up in ridiculously cute warm outfits courtesy of Lucy Margolin....


Snow BOB just as rad as off-road BOB. It was also the first time I've done any serious physical activity since Axel was born, but making turns on some fresh snow was a pretty good way to start. It wasn't exactly spring conditions, in fact we had a couple of fresh inches to work with that were soft and fluffy courtesy of the cold weather. Rich, Tim and I made it for perhaps the shortest (beginning at 1:30!) and best half day of skiing ever. I couldn't have made another turn and am still sore, and happy, today.

Home Office

Technology really is a wonderful thing. Setting up a good home office can allow you to work remotely a few days a week (otherwise called telecommuting). I have put together a nice schematic of a well thought out home office.

1. Your wife's PHD - just to remind you that she is smarter than you
2. The Hawaiian Winner God - because anything helps at this point
3. Printer - so you can print things
4. 24" extra monitor - just because a big monitor makes you feel successful and important
   
5. Your laptop - so you can bring all the important work home with you
6. Sleeping Axel - makes you smile and is good for continuing your blood lines (you may choose to insert an offspring of your own creation)
   
7. Cup of tea - it keeps you awake and tastes good (coffee works as well)
8. A scented candle - atmosphere is key (sometimes #6 is not so fresh)

Enjoy your new space and enjoy being productive.

Surf, Smiles and Sanity

Axel has been providing us with lots of fun lately:

Checking the surf at Rincon with Dad while Mom took a nap on the beach...
Giving us some of his first smiles...Encouraging Mom to have a mini-martini...
And wine tasting with Auntie Kim...Sanity is slowly returning to our lives and parenting is infinitely easier than it was in those first weeks. Rich has been super busy with work but will be spending this afternoon with the little guy while I get out to my local field site to gather some soil cores. I'm going to ease the transition back to work over the next month and spending some time outdoors seems like the perfect way to start that process. Overall we're having heaps of fun watching how much Axel has grown (he's 7 weeks today and weighed in at 9 lbs 12 oz at the pediatrician yesterday!) and I think we still can't quite believe he's ours. How did we make such a cutie?

Yay for more grandmas! Jill came out to pinch hit for Rich while he was in Boston for the International SeaFood Show. We had a great time and Jill was a laundry, cleaning, cooking and bouncing machine. We even managed to spend some time at the beach.

Axel under cover at the beach. We didn't want the paprazzi to know we were there.