So, Jared and Jacob’s hair is getting a little bit long and Tristan already has a stylin’ doo… The natural solution of course is to trim Dad & Jacob to match the little guy! Bring out the kitchen chair and a set of hair clippers and we can get down to business. Dad trims Jacob’s head, Jacob trims Dad’s head (with mom’s help), and Tristan just sits there and looks cute!
Punxsutawney has Phil the Groundhog, Yarmouth has Steamy the Clam, Quingdao has Chin the Beer Pig, and Avalon has Gill the Flying Fish! Gill is the mascot of the Catalina Flying Fish Festival, a four day non-stop barrel of fun and games, culminating in a Flying Fish Parade down front street and discounted evening trips out to view the flying fish themselves.
Gill, the Amazing Flying Fish
Well, OK. Maybe it wasn’t all that exciting, but it was a good excuse for some festivities. The festival began on Friday with the “Taste around Avalon” where local restaurants and bars opened up to compete with each other for best drink and entree, continued through Saturday with a merchant street fair and then Sunday’s Flying Fish Parade. Mixed in between were sandcastle scuptures, fishing tournaments, nature displays, bands & performers, and so on. Jacob’s pre-school had the honor of heading up the parade. Jacob was in top form, riding astride Dad’s shoulders waving like a champion parade veteran!
No, Really… He WAS excited, I promise! We just didn’t take a picture at the right moment!
“Hey Dad! That’s the plant that we use when we have an owie!”
“Really? What do you do with it?”
“You break it off and then you squeeze it up and then you put it on a cut.”
“Who told you that?”
“Nobody… I just know.”
“What kind of plant is it?”
“It’s an Aloe Beara plant. (laughs) Silly Dad!”
— Jacob, pointing at an Aloe Vera growing on a hillside while we are hiking through the woods.
…Jacob was this little?
I was getting ready to put up a new post on the blog when I ran across some pictures off my old camera phone from mid 2006. Here are a couple of fun ones…
OK, so I am finally getting around to it! 
We had an awesome Halloween. It was really fun to have the old-fashioned neighborhood Halloween experience again. With all of the “Trunk-or-Treat” events that people are using lately instead of traditional “Trick-or-Treating” I have really missed seeing kids running around en-masse with friends and family, socializing and making a neighborhood a neighborhood. Avalon is one of those all too rare communities where urban fear has not yet gotten a foothold.
We started out of course by getting and carving our pumpkins. Jacob’s school sponsored a “Pumpkin Patch” where the kids could pick out their own pumpkins instead of going to the super market. Jacob chose a trio of good ones and we set to work making them look great. Jacob designed and helped cut his into a “Silly face.”
Jacob took a while and had several different ideas on what to be for Halloween before settling on cowboy. On Halloween evening, the city had a costume parade down Crescent street with all of the school kids participating. The community TV station filmed the parade and Jacob made the broadcast.
Jacob was a little unnerved by Dad’s costume and realistic looking scars and asked him to take the wig off. After the parade, we went over to Luau Larry’s for the traditional Wednesday $2 cheeseburgers and then hit the streets to gather loot.
By the end of the evening Jacob had filled his pumpkin basket to beyond capacity and Mom & Dad had met several new neighbors. Jacob did not want to stop but eventually we had to call it quits and head back home in time for bed.
Jacob with his friend Cory