Category 1

Like Hurricane Gustov, the hurricane of activity that has swirled around Santa Barbara since Thursday is gradually being downgraded. Over at Nancy's house, the last of the Bay Area contingent left early this morning, leaving only Meghan to return to Boston and the bride and groom to leave on their honeymoon (they will be spending 3 days at Big Sur).

Here on this side of town, the Sykes/Baur family was also fading away, with two headed back to the Bay area and four headed down to Long Beach.

This was the real date of Walt's mother's birthday, so her family all met at Maravilla to have one last breakfast with her.

After a half hour "Hour Baur" Walt and I finally made our way out of Maravilla and over to Phil's mom's house (or the one she is renting)

(this photo doesn't BEGIN to do it justice!)

We found everyone lounging by the pool and I was regretting not having packed a bathing suit with us. The water looked so inviting and I seriously considered jumping in, clothes and all.

Instead, I sat inside with Nancy and Cathy, had some lunch (someone is going to be eating tri-tip roast for the next week, methinks!), read through the wedding guest book(s), and eventually played that rematch game of pool with Cathy (I won...ahem). I have to admit that I was rather proud of myself that several of my shots actually went where I intended them to.

Tom had called and suggested we stop by around 3. We had to return his mixer, with which I had made all those cakes, bring him a gift that my mother's friend had forgotten to give him at the wedding, deliver all the old kids' books that I had unearthed for Bri, and, of course, to have one last visit with our granddaughter.

This was not a good day for Bri. Daddy uses some interesting moves to calm her down. It doesn't last long.

In addition to all the activity over the past couple of days, she is teething and she hasn't been sleeping much at all over the past many days. Consequently her parents haven't been sleeping well over the past several days either.

It's also been pretty warm and their air conditioner doesn't cool down the whole house. I know how she feels...I don't handle hot and sweaty all that well either. They finally decided to pack her up and head down to the beach, where it would be cooler.

We didn't join them on the beach trip because we had to get back over to Maravilla to meet Alice Nan for dinner with their Mom. The birthday girl wore her birthday crown to the dining room and waved at people with a move that would do Queen Elizabeth proud. When time for dessert rolled around, the wait staff all stood around her and sang "Happy Birthday" to her as they delivered a piece of cake to her.

As we were returning to her room, Jeri called to say she and Phil had forgotten to take Ned and Marta's camp stove with them, and asking if we could go back to Nancy's to pick it up, which we did.

We will be off early tomorrow and headed for home. We to get the yard ready for the fence builders, who arrive on Wednesday and get the dogs to the kennel so they don't drive everyone crazy when the jackhammers start breaking up the concrete.

Gosh, this has been a fun weekend. It's going to take awhile to come down from this! But Thursday is Cousins Day, and that will help!