18 Months Old Today !!!

It's official, they are growing like weeds. Today they are 1.5 years old and they hardly seem like babies but rather little people. They are talking (babbling) all the time and seem to be full of ideas. They are always thinking of new ways to keep me on my toes.

Here's Sahara and Tata (grandma) walking down the driveway. Isn't this so sweet.

Got milk ? Here's Maya enjoying some milk for breakfast. Notice her bling around her neck.

Here's Sahara riding a dinosaur.

Here's a few monkeys hanging on sweet Maya.

Quail Gardens

We have discovered a new place to play, Quail Botanical Gardens in Encinitas. We did not know what to expect and we were pleasantly surprised.

They had a little house fully stocked with a kitchen, fake food, table and tons of books.

The little house also had a courtyard in the back which was complete with fountains.

They also had a water pump that let out into a tough full of toys. Of course Sahara was all over this. She fished out just about every toy and lined them up on a nearby wall. Needless to say she was soaked afterwards.

The place had an enchanted forest feeling full of plants, trees and magical animals. Here's a picture of Sahara making contact with the turtle.

Luckily the girls were soaking wet before they started to play in the sand/dirt. There were a lot of dinosaurs so it was irresistible and pretty adorable.

And here are a few random pictures that were too cute to not include. Here's Maya sporting all of her beads. She has lots of 'bling'.

Not sure if this is a good thing, but here's Maya drinking milk out of her art project.

And for the grand finale, here's sweet Maya in the bath. Eat your heart out Grandpa !!!

Fallbrook on Fire

We are happy to report that the Khoury family is fine and well. We were evacuated from Fallbrook on Monday and remained refugees until Friday, when we were allowed to return to our home. Needless to say seeing our home for the first time after the evacuation was a relief. The fires came within a mile from our home. That's too close for comfort.

As we were evacuating I snapped this photo of the smoke and fire coming towards us. When we got the evacuation call it was blue skys over the house and smoke to the north. By the time we got a few things in the car and drove away it was raining ash at the property.

Here's Nader and Bella pulling away from our house. You can't even see the sky it's so full of smoke. It was eerie how dark it suddenly became.

Here we are driving North on the 5 freeway. This was taken around Camp Pendleton area and as you can see the sunset was shrouded with smoke. This was the first day of this fire, I am sure it got much worst.

Here is a Google earth map showing our house relative to the fires. Nader figured out how to import the fire hotspot location from the US Forest Service. The Rice Canyon fire started on Sunday on the East side of the 15 and moved into Rainbow and Fallbrook, on a direct path to us. This is what it looked like on Tuesday. The yellow spots are the location of the fire on Monday night, about a mile away. The red and orange spots are the location of the fire on Tuesday. Lucky for us it started to head north into Deluz and Camp Pendalton. Not totally luck, The fire department made their last stand at Gird. If it would have crossed that street, a lot of us would have been in trouble.

Even though we were glued to the television for any type of news regarding the fires, we made the most of our time. We stayed the first night at the Stephen's, our friends in San Clemente and the remaining days and nights with Nader's brother, Brian, and his family in Murrieta. Here's a shot of both sets of twins playing in a lion tent.

Here's Sahara and Maya trying to pour water over their cousin Dominic.

We killed some time at the Temecula Mall which was just about the only place we could go outside the house and not choke on smoke.

Close up of Sahara.

Close up of sweet Maya.

Pinery Pumpkin Patch

The whole family went to the Pinery Pumpkin Patch this past weekend. Here are a ton of pictures from our day...

Group shot on a hay ride.

Here's a shot of the hay ride. The Pinery Pumpkin Patch is a working farm so the hay ride toured the farm.

We got lost in a corn maze.

Here's Maya checking out the pumpkin patch.

Sahara is picking out her pumpkin.

This was Maya's pumpkin choice.

Here's a picture of the girls posing with their new pumpkins for Halloween. They chose the two in the front.

Here's Maya posing as a chicken.

Sahara posing as a farmer.

And finally the petting coral that included goats and sheep.

Monkey Eating a Banana

Check out Sahara eating a banana.

Halloween at Lego Land

It has been a while since the last time we visited Lego Land and it was a real treat to go again.

Check out Maya and Sahara next to the pumpkin made of legos.

Here's the choo choo train we rode a couple of times.

Here are the girls in their train car.

Sahara is driving the tractor and Maya is climbing on board.

Here's Sahara getting a kick splashing the water.

Sweet Maya is collecting Legos and putting them into the water.

Here's a shot of Sahara still dry.

Central Park, Huntington Beach

Yesterday I took the girls to Central Park in HB. We had a picnic in the park and visited the awesome children's library that is conveniently located at the park.

Here's Maya enjoying her lunch of kidney beans, carrots, cheese raviolis and grapes. Yum !

Sweet Maya. She thought it was so funny to run around with the bag of raviolis.

Sahara decided to do some yoga in the park. Nice downward dog.


Here are the girls abusing the books at the library. They decided to sit in the book bin, shame.



They decided to read the books they were sitting on.


Maya found the computer and started typing away. Kind of nerdy...she must get that from daddy the engineer.

Later that night the girls put on their Halloween pj's.

Here's Sahara putting baby toothpaste on her toothbrush.