Lompoc Flower Festival 2007

Sarah, Benjamin, and Matt drove up to Lompoc Saturday to attend the Lompoc Flower festival. It's a big event for the small town which starts with a parade on Saturday morning. They watched from the old Downtown area which gave the parade a bit of a nostalgic feel. They were able to walk through several of the local mom & pop type business before and after the parade.


The queen's float was one of the largest, but some of the others were interesting as well.


Many of the local scouts were in the parade. For the most part, they were just marching as a pack holding a large sign for a local business, but this group had a float as well.


Betsy Ross, Abe Lincoln and the statue of liberty.


The pirate ship was impressive. Though, Matt wasn't sure what group put it together.



Many of the local clubs and buisness had entries. The parade definately had a small town feel to it.


One of the local politicians was driving a tractor. For some reason, this seemed a odd, but oh well. It all mixed well with the tone of the parade.


After the parade, they went to Ryon Park for the craft faire and concession stands.


One exhibt had a lot of elaborately decorated pedal cars.

Records, Scouts, and a Rattlesnake!

Matt recently acquired a large collection of phonograph records and have been enjoying sorting through them. With over 1200 of them, they were taking up a lot of room in the guest bedroom. So, Matt decided to build a bookshelf to hold them all. Here's Ben helping him put the finishing touches on the finish.


Sarah and Ben helped Matt move all the records upstairs and fill the bookshelf. He have the turntable next to the computer so he can convert the records easily to MP3.


Both Sarah and Ben transitioned to new levels in scouts recently. Ben went from Tiger Scout to Wolf Scout and Sarah went from Brownies to Juniors. Here's Ben in his Tiger Scout uniform.


And here he is in his Wolf Scout duds after the bridging ceremony.


Sarah's bridging meeting was held at the daytime. Here she is with her Brownie troop. The girls all have a green sash on their uniform to show that they have transitioned to Juniors. They get the green uniform later.


We had a bit of excitement with a snake in the backyard recently. Our cats regularly catch lizards, birds and large bugs. They bring them up to the patio or in the house to play with. This time, they were playing with a snake. Matt went closer to investigate and realized it was a baby rattler. The rattle had been removed and the snake was pretty docile. It was clearly beyond the point of recovery. Matt thinks the cats found the snake somewhere and brought it home, but hard to say for sure.


It was just a baby at a mere 16 inches long. The snake died soon afterwards. Matt was able to take a few pictures.


Close up of the fangs.

Yo Ho, Yo Ho!

They had a "lot event" at Matt's work to celebrate the release of the latest Pirate's movie. It's basically like a large outdoor party with booths from different company departments showing how they are supporting the movie. Shannon brought Emily and Brandon in to have lunch at the studio and enjoy the event. Here's Emily having lunch with a visit from Goofy.


We caught a picture with Jack Sparrow. Hmmm... wonder how this would look in the living room along side the power ranger....


They also had the large model ships that were used in filming.


The Black Pearl!


The detail on the ships is amazing!



The Intercepter!

Emily with her Pirate eye patch.