Busy,busy,busy

I case some of you didn't know, as of late, I have become more active in the Set Decorator's Society of America (SDSA). Recently I became Vice-President and also Committee Chair for Special Events. So that puts me in charge of organizing or at least helping organize things like the General Membership Meeting which was just hosted on June 19th by Loft Appeal.

Skye helped sign people in. She is becoming quite helpful and so at ease with people.




Also we continue with the home school field trips. This one was in our own neighborhood over at Kenneth Hahn park. As always I ended up learning plenty myself.




The kids are getting ready to make plaster casts of duck footprints or should I say webprints.
We also saw an amazing raptor that I latter was able to identify as a Swanson's Hawk. I had never seen one like it before.

Summer is all about camps. In fact right now Skye is off to a sleep away camp. Camp Hollywoodland.(more on that latter)

But first she hit the pitch for a week with some Irish lads at Coast to Coast soccer camp.








Skye was representing Brazil for their world cup.

Any excuse to do some face painting.

Skye's Birthday Gift

It is always a challenge for me when Christmas or Skye's birthday comes around. She has too much stuff as it is and invariably she'll get a lot more things from friends and family than she can really appreciate. So this year I planted for her a "Birthday" tree. I wanted to plant one when she was one, but we didn't have a situation that would lend itself to that. But now we do. It was a pomegranate tree around her height. She can see how it grows as she does. I know this makes it all so much harder to consider selling this place, but at this point considering how much of my own personal blood, sweat and tears have been shed here, I thing we're in for the long haul.
The "Giving Tree" was always one of my favorite stories and I found the original and showed it to Skye. She really liked it. It still moves me. Give it a click




Skye and her "birthday tree".




I couldn't resist giving myself a "Father's Day" tree. I planted a beautiful fig tree. I look forward to reaping the fruits of my labor.




I had to move these pots before I had room to plant the celebratory trees. It almost killed me but I am happy with the results.




In typical 20/20 hindsight I realized that what this level was missing was some greenery. Nothing a jackhammer (or foresight) wouldn't solve.

Again, the process beat the hell out of me, but I am quite happy with the results.

Skye's Slumber Party--The Morning After

At around 6 am, I heard noise, voices. When I told this to Cindy she said that there was no possible way that they were already awake. I disagreed. I knew I heard them.

We both were right.

No one had woken up yet. However there were three girls who still hadn't gone to bed.




Micah, Paloma and Drake(playing Gameboy or something in blue sleeping bag) vying for sole survivor status.




We heard a loud bump on our bedroom door. Drake was no longer in the running.



Meanwhile the rest of the girls slumbered on. Apparently most of them were up until around 5 am. It was an overcast day so they didn't get a sunrise more like a sunglow.




By 10 am or so they were back in the pool.

Skye's Birthday Party

What a day and then night and then beyond and then beyond that.....

Skye's party started off in the pool, and then moved into the jacuzzi and back and forth it went.




While the kids frolicked below, I started getting ready for the second phase of the party--the pizza making.





Yes it's hot, real hot, like 800F + hot.




Everybody was getting into the pizza making.




Looking good River.




Meanwhile the men tended to the fire and the grill.

Later we divided them up into two teams and started a scavenger/clue kind of race/hunt.




Which would include learning the basic Rumba, after finding the clue under the rug.




Dance, dance, dance






Sculpting with clay...




Animal balloons, coming up with an impromptu play, making a house of cards and more....




Racing against time


But ultimately it ended in a tie and it was battle of wills to determine the last team standing, on one foot, actually




Who would it be?

Then it was time for the birthday cake.

Hurray!!!!!!




Happy 10th year Skye




Cindy was a little fierce with the cake, scary really.




And then for presents. And then the sleep over. Very little sleep was had but more on that later.

A great and amazing party!!!!!

The Last Few Weeks in Pictures

Wow!

When I started this blog I had no idea what a responsibility it would become. My mom called me the other day wondering where the latest blog was. And already after having just submitted one of my only picture less posts, I've received an e-mail wondering where the pics were. I had just written a quick summary of events to be followed by pictures to get something, anything out there. Granted I've often promised follow-ups that have never materialized, but this time was different.

No Really.

So here goes. The first thing I had to do on the re-shoots was to get to the Dreamworks warehouse and find some of the stuff we needed. On arrival I was faced with several flashback of property and decor that I'd used, moved, created what have you from other Dreamworks shows I've worked on. Such as these lovely paintings from the Haunting. The frames were so massive and heavy we used a forklift to hang them.




The Haunting, even though it was probably 12 years ago, almost feels like yesterday and yet it also feels like different life.





I didn't work on the Spiderwick Chronicles, but I couldn't pass up this photo -op.





Oh, along with everything else going on, a friend recently invited Cindy and I to take part in The Alpha Course, a ten part series where we meet to discuss the Bible. It has been a great opportunity to think about my own beliefs, look back at how I was raised, (Christian Science) and to discuss a topic that is often off-limits in a open and casual environment. It's been a good and thought-provoking change of pace. Quick note; I still do not consider myself a "Christian" as I don't consider myself an atheist or a Buddhist, I probably am most aligned with Taoism which plenty of people don't consider a religion, more of a philosophy.





The kids dining before the adults start talking about all that boring stuff. They by the way get to spend a few hours hanging out and playing, so the deeper our talk goes the more play time they get.



Absolutely wonderful field trip out to the Theatricum Botanicum in Topanga for a showing of Macbeth. The kids did several theater workshops prior to the performance.










The audience was packed with several public school groups and two home school groups.



A few days later we went on a field trip out in West Lake to the Chumash Indian Museum. What a lovely setting and very informative presentation. Our docent did feel a little rushed, but you could see by the big yellow school buses coming and going that the other groups weren't nearly as flexible about time as we were. One of the great pluses of home schooling.



Skye and Micah checking out their new digs.




Let the games begin. The kids got to try out a game that the Chumash played.


The girl scout season has come to a close, now Skye is no longer a newbie. Congratulations on your first year as a Girl Scout, Skye.







Speaking of Congratulations, a big one goes out to my Nephew, Adam Cohen Carr. He just graduated from UCLA.




He's finally out of school, but now unlike Skye he's a total Newbie. I'm sure he'll be fine.
Again big applause, and CONGRATS to Adam.




More congratulations go out to soon-to-be married Sondra and Max. With much, much regret we won't be able to make it to their wedding in Hawaii. But at least we made it a cocktail party celebration.



Guys come on, you're just getting started.

OK? There are a bunch of pics. The photos and tales of Skye's birthday party and sleep-over with 10 girls will be soon to follow.

Where did the last 30 days go?

After coming back from our amazing and relaxing camping trip, I knew there would be some culture shock, some catching up to do, etc.

I had no idea what I was in for.

As Chairperson on the Events Committee with the Set Decorator's Society of America, I was responsible for finding one of our business members to host our General Membership Meeting. With the pesky actors looking to cause havoc with their own strike after the writer's strike rocked our industry, there weren't many businesses willing or able to commit. So I had that duty and time was running out.

Skye's birthday was coming up, along with the slew of other summer celebrations, so the yard and pool needed to be up and running. Our latest pool man had recently disappeared. So a bunch of stuff to deal with there.

Of course, there's Skye's home schooling, along with all the field trips, park dates, extra classes, like flute and tae kwon do, not to mention Girl Scouts. And on and on.

Cindy's sister, Beth was coming into town.

And the Laker's were doing well in the play offs.

So when Cindy got called to do re-shoots on the movie she had just worked on and asked me if I would be interested, I obviously should have said, "No, I have way too much going on."

"Of course, I'll do them. It will be a piece of cake."

Two weeks later, which included 9 days straight, a 15 hour Sunday, and an 18 hour Monday, and it felt like the entire cake had been shoved down my throat.