It has been a long time coming, but we are finally scheduled for our first Architectural Review Board meeting for Thursday, Jan 13 2005. The last hurdle was getting the story poles put on the existing house (to show the height of the new building) during a period of serious rainstorms, at the last minute. We had been told that we had about 2 weeks or so to get them up, but then the city planner called to say they needed to be up in 3 days!

The ARB is the committee that decides if the proposed buildings fit in with the general style and character of the city of Capinteria. Our architect, Bill Araluce, is on that committee, and while he will recuse himself from the actual deliberations, I feel confident that he knows what his fellow members are looking for. The hope is that the ARB won’t find anything major to complain about and that we will move right on to the Planning Commission.

GranMille and GranDon weren’t sure they could give up Baby Weezy, and so they enjoyed every minute with her.

Our
flight was originally scheduled to leave PDX at 10:30 p. When my mom couldn’t find
the flight on the internet, we called Alaska Airlines to confirm the flight times.
Turns out the flight had been changed to leave at 8:20 p! We raced around and Toby,
Camille and Diane packed all our clothes/ presents in 20 minutes. Racing to the airport
we arrived right on time to stand in the long lines at checkin and security. We arrived
in LAX at 10:30 p (the same time our flight was originally to have departed PDX).
Poppa and Yaya picked us up and we drove home. Thank you very much to everyone
who helped out on this trip. It was a great success all around!

The trip ended with a 60th birthday party for Camille. Toby had made dinner arrangements at Il
Piatto for 20 or so of Camille and Don’s family. It was great food, great atmosphere.
I recommend it if you are in the Portland area. Toby
and Diane made a platter at 2000 degrees in Santa Barbara in June 2004. They presented
it to Camille and she thought it was the bomb.

I am catching up on blogging. Unfortunately, the cable that I brought to Oregon that connects my camera to the computer has been misplaced. So, for now, no pictures.

Jan’s
Birthday – 23 Dec 2004 Jan Maree Bernards turned 29 today. She made reservations
for dinner at Sisley restaurant at the Valencia Town Center mall. I had been mocking
her to Toby, thinking that she had misspelled the name of the restaurant (Sicily,
as in Italy). When I saw the name of the restaurant was indeed Sisley, I promptly
apologized. We (G/G Seal, Gma Jo, Poppa, Yaya, Max, Weezy, Jan, Jeff, Emily, Nathan)
were seated in a private room with a door that closed that made it ver easy to let
the kids run around. Good job on the reservations, Jan! The food was very tasty, but
my Chicken Parmesan was not hot. It was just warm. I took half of it home, and it
was great once I fried it up on the stove top. After the meal we went to Jan &
Jeff’s house to celebrate Christmas for my family. We were leaving for Portland, and
Toby’s family, at 4:00a on Christmas morning, so we had a mini christmas that night.
Highlights:

• Matt – Cordless shaver with car charger (big warnings on the car charger not to shave
  while driving. Yeah right!

  

• Toby – I painted a mug at 2000 Degrees in Santa Barbara back in October for her. The
  mug had Max’s handprint and a hand and foot print from Weezy. Toby misted up a bit.

  

• Max – A Buzz Lightyear action figure and Spiderman pajamas (he wore the pajamas on
  the flight up to Oregon

  

Happy Birthday, Jan.

PS: If anybody has a better picture of Max, please send it over.