Whimsical portraits by Traci Pascual

The paintings finally came in! They look awesome and the girls love them! I'll frame them and put up at our cabin!

Crazy Hair Day

The girls were very excited about their Crazy Hair Day event today and both got up before 6am this morning. After they braided their hair, I installed the wire and they loved the effect!

Vivian's 1st fishing trip!

Vivian was determined to learn how to fish so I got her some fishing gear at Big 5 last week. We met Sarah Connor's family at PMC this weekend, Sarah's dad Greg is a fishing expert, he taught Vivian how to fish... Vivian casted the line by herself and caught a pretty good size Bass at the lower lake, she was so happy that she was able to catch a fish on her first fishing trip!

Westlake Hills Elementary Open House 2013

Time to show off kids' school work to the parents in the evening on Open House Day. The girls were very proud to show daddy & mommy the hard work that they have put in on their essays, drawings and many interesting projects!

Good bye Corta Bella Condo!

3 more days till the close of escrow... I took the girls to our old condo for the final visit, lots of sweet memories from that place... I bought the unit in June of 1999 when I was still single, got married 3 years later and had Erica an year after that, 17 months later we had Vivian. The girls grew up in the condo, my parents also spent a lot of time living with us in the condo. We moved to a bigger house in the same city in October of 2011 and we rented the unit out for an year before listing it for sale last month. We are very lucky to receive an offer of our full asking price 3 days after we listed property. A couple in their 30s with two girls will enjoy this beautiful home for many years to come.

Lilac Festival 2013 PMC

We missed Saturday morning's parade because we got there in the late afternoon but we went to the PMC Lilac Festival on Sunday. There were a lot of vendors, food and very loud rock music. We didn't like the event very much and we went biking after a quick lunch back in the cabin.

Whimsy portraits of the girls (Digital sketch)

Our friend Peter referred a Southern California based artist who can paint really fun & whimsy portraits for a small fee. Her name is Traci Pascual    http://www.etsy.com/shop/tracipascualdesigns
She just finished digital sketches of Vivian & Erica's portraits. We approved them and she will start painting on canvas tonight! Can't wait to receive the paintings in the mail, we will frame them and keep them in our cabin!

Garage sale

Buyer has removed all contingencies yesterday on the condo that we are selling, we are expecting to close escrow on May 24th! We need to clean up our garage and make room in the garage to park our van that's currently parked at the condo garage. The girls hosted an early 2 hour garage sale on Saturday morning, ended up making $98, the girls spitted the money.

Camarillo Springs fire

It started early Thursday morning off 101 freeway near Camarillo Springs, someone probably threw a lit cigarette butt out of car window... Record heat and dry weather condition plus strong Santa Ana wind set off the fire in Camarillo Springs community. The fire burned so quickly, it spread to the farms in Camarillo and it also reached Dos Vientos community around noon. By evening time, part of the fire were burning near Los Vientos Ave and Borchard Road intersection! I took the girls to the site and saw lines of fire engines from all over Southern California and all the news vans! The girls got very excited to see live news broadcast and was managed to put themselves in the background while the reporter of Channel 54 Telemondo news was interviewing some residents!

The fire has burned over 10,000 acres and has reached Point Mugu area this morning!

Edit: Fire was completely put out on Tuesday 5/7/13. Over 28,000 acres of land burned, cost of fire fighting: $10 million!

All District String Festival

Beginning Strings, Intermediate Strings, Colina and Los Cerritos Middle Schools and the Westlake High School Orchestra were performing at the Thousand Oaks Civic Art Center tonight. Erica was a proud beginner violin player. Today she played the French Folk Song, Reuben and Rachel, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and The Can Can.