Early Morning

Just a quick post. Changed my hours at work for now in the winter so I go in at 8:30 and get off at 5. McKayla likes to stay a bit later in the afternoon to play with her friends. Anyways, decided to start getting up early to maybe work out someday, and have been hitting the beach for an hour or so before work. Been calm the last couple mornings, small surf and no wind. Been looking to get a halibut from the surf, but no go. Did manage this nice barred surfperch. Not bad considering they average between 5-7 inches. This one went about 11.5 inches. Caught a few small ones this morning, nothing big. Been nice seeing the sunrise at the beach and wetting a line...Not too cold...





Might go see the Newport Harbor Parade of lights (Christmas Boat Parade) on Friday... It's rated one of the top 10 Christmas light thingys in the country by some magazine or newspaper...

Hope everyone is doing well. We miss everyone...

Brandon and the Fam

McKayla at Gymnastics

Yesterday was McKayla's last class for this session of gymnastics. So being the last class parents are allowed to come watch. I must say that I was so excited to see how much McKayla has learned since our mommy and me gymnastic days. She has come so far in her "tricks" as Ms. Melissa calls them. She is already on the bars trying to pull herself up and flip over. Scary in my mind, but she seems to be getting the hang of it. We filmed her with our video camera and hopefully someday soon I will learn how to get the videos off of the camera and onto the computer. For now we took some still pictures and a video off my phone which I hope will work.

Here she is in her gymnastics stance and doing her stretches on the floor




McKayla being a butterfly~ flying all around!

Build-A-Bear

This past weekend was pretty exciting for McKayla. She is going to be the flower girl in Justin (Brandon's old college roommate) and Amy's wedding in March, so she got to model some beautiful dresses for us on Sunday. Sorry no pics of that~ Bad parents didn't bring the camera. We will get pics of her for sure when she is actually in the wedding and post them. I am sure you can all imagine how beautiful she was in the dresses anyways. For her gift Justin and Amy took her to a Build-A-Bear workshop in Fashion Island for her to create her very own friend. We have never been to a build-a-bear before so this was an exciting adventure for all of us. When we walked into the store we were bombarded with so many different animals, teddy bears, dinosaurs and even reindeers (for the holiday season) to pick from as step 1. McKayla took her time and checked out each and every one of the options but as soon as she saw the green dinosaur (a triceratops to be exact) she was sold. Next we take it to the sound station where McKayla got to pick out what noise she wanted in her dinosaur. She decided on a "Roaring" sound although she claims it is not a scary dinosaur but it is a good fit. Next we take it to the stuffing station where they stuff it a little bit and then they have the kids pick out a heart, rub it in between thier hands, pat it and put it in the animal. Here are some pics of McKayla watching her dinosaur get stuffed.. (Thanks Justin for the pictures)



After that Mackie got to pick out clothes for the dinosaur. They had more options for clothes there than I would have ever thought possible. She decided on a blue fairy princess dress and some high heels to match. Here are some pics of Mackie and daddy dressing the dinosaur.


So after all this you would think we were done. WRONG! Now it is time to get a birth certificate and name the dinosaur. McKayla picked out the name Sella for her dinosaur. The Birth Certificate is printed out and waiting at the cash register for you, but also near the register are tons of accessories for the "bears". McKayla being the girlie girl she is could not resist in getting Sella a purse. I am sure she would have gone all out with accessories if we would have let her. McKayla had so much fun picking out her new friend and we have a new member of the family that joins us everywhere we go. She even goes to work with mommy~ (mommy lets her keep an eye on the car to make sure no one breaks in~ just don't tell Mackie) Here is McKayla with Sella

Thank you Justin and Amy again for Sella~ McKayla loves her new best friend!

Halloween and NM Vacation

Here I go already slacking on keeping things up to date on our blog. Well a lot has been going on since we last posted. We of course had Halloween and McKayla (I mean Sleeping Beauty) was of course just gorgeous. We had dressed her and Uncle Fisher up the Sunday before Halloween and took them out to the pumpkin patch for some pictures and then we went trick-or-treating to some friends and family around here that we knew we wouldn't get to Halloween night. So here is a picture of the Beauty herself



The day after Halloween we took off to visit NM! We had a great time but like always the trip was a short one (I would probably still say that if we were there a whole month). We got to go to an Aggie Football game.. GO AGGIES... Unfortunately they lost~ Oh well it was still fun. Here is a pic of the gang at the Aggie game.



Anthea and McKayla got to go to the Renaissance Faire, Brandon and McKayla took a trip up to Ruidoso and the rest of the time was spent just hanging with the families.

Here is a picture of all the cousins hanging out at Papa's house

Anthea's Grandma celebrating her b-day at Grandma Cristy's house

Us with Grandma Karla, Uncle Trappy, Granny B and Grandpa

McKayla with a long long long time friend of mommy's~ Beck

Fires

Well no photos this time. This weekend was good, Friday we went out to Macaroni Grill for a late dinner for Anthea's birthday so the rest of the family could celebrate with her. Saturday I had our SWBA finale called the "Nightmare on Wall Street" tourney. It was the top 10 (actually 12) teams from the year and we fished only the Long Beach Breakwall. Partner and I did well and took 2nd Place so that was cool. Fishing was a little slow all around though. Sunday the three of us went out to a big RV show in Pomona to get familiar with RVs since I am starting a side venture publication on RVing with a friend of mine.

The fires are the big news out here. There is one here south of us in Irvine, a bunch in San Diego, and some up by Malibu. I'm sure you have heard something about them or you've been living under a rock the last week. The sky is nasty and brown and the sun is blotted out much of the time today. The Santa Ana winds haven't let up yet and keep making things worse. We are safe as we live close to the harbor and away from major hills and such. Talked to my friend Marco who is living down in San Diego and he said it is really bad outside with the air quality and that he and his girlfriend are doing fine, but if the fire(s) get close to them they might have to head up here to hang with us. He said the 5 fwy heading north is already grid-locked...Praying that things get better for everyone. Feel bad for those that lost their homes and are displaced...

Miss everyone, hope everyone reading this is doing well..

Brandon and the fam

Condor 2-day trip

Well I went on a 2-day trip on the Condor "for work" on 10.7 - 10.9 and the fishing was rather poor. The weather was pretty killer, but the boat had 30 or so people on it and I think we only got around 20 fish. I managed to get one 10-lb. or so dorado.



Dad went on this trip too, but he didn't manage to get anything. But he was also shooting pics half the time and plus the fishing was rather slow for a 2-day.. Anyways, Anthea's Mom and Danny and her sister Sonia and the kids are here. They all went up to the Getty Center in LA today and I'm stuck working. Anthea's birthday is this weekend so it should be fun. Miss everyone...

Brandon

Sand Castles

Yesterday we went down to Corona Del Mar beach for thier yearly sand castle contest. It had been a little cool the last couple of days so we figured being down by the water it would be a good idea to dress a little warmer. Boy were we wrong. The weather was absolutely gorgeous! A beautiful day to hang out at the beach all day. Too bad we were not dressed for the occassion. Being fully dressed never stops McKayla from getting in the water though. Forget about the sand castles she wanted to get her feet wet.

We did get to see the different sand creations and here are some of our favorites

This one is called "Mt. Lushmore" Carved into it is supposed to be Brittany Spears, Paris Hilton, Nicole Richie and Lindsay Lohan~ Not really one of our favorites but kind of funny!

Poor Nemo! They turned him into a fish taco!

This octopus was McKayla's favorite!

"The King has Two Thrones" I loved this one~ The king is walking from his castle to the outhouse! So clever!

Hi guys,

Well, things have been going well. McKayla has been doing awesome in school and is in the 4-year-old pre-K class and the teacher says she is doing excellent. We're still getting adjusted to her not taking naps anymore, but we're getting there. Penn and Tina had their baby boy a few weeks ago so they are enjoying him and taking some time off. Dad and Alison's little boy Fisher (my little brother) might have to have surgery on his head because of the way the skull is fusing together as he grows. It isn't life threatening, but is a cosmetic thing that might need to be done.

I don't have any recent photos other than a shot of the girls from the Angel game a couple weeks ago and then a shot of me and a 5-lb. sand bass.





I went fishing with my buddy Eric and we had a pretty decent evening of fishing at the Oil Islands, which are man made oil paltforms off Long Beach in the Long Beach Harbor. They are really pretty at night and host a ton of fish around them.. I really like this type of fishing... I have the 5th tournament of the SWBA, which is a saltwater bass fishing series out here that I cover (and fish) for the paper, on Saturday. Hope we do good...

Well, talk to everyone soon. Miss everybody...

Brandon

Welcome

Hi all,

I was trying to think of a way to keep everyone updated with our lives. As long as I can get my butt to update this thing often I hope this will do the trick. I can put pictures up on the posts so I am going to try and steal the camera back from Brandon and start taking some more. McKayla seems to change so much and we are the worst at getting recent pictures to everyone. So keep checking on this and feel free to comment!

We Love and Miss all of you,

The Cotton Clan

So since I don't have any recent pics right here I will sign off with one of my favorites