Our family gathered in Ojai this weekend to see Liz, Ron, and little Ethan, who is now 3 1/2 weeks old. Rachael was there for part of the time along with Sarah, Gregorio, and their kids, Luna, Nico, and Lyla. Sarah brought all sorts of appetizers, and Ron smoked spicy chicken thighs and also baked several persimmon pies (a neighbor offered him as many persimmons from her tree as he wanted.) Everything was delicious.

Lyla and I crawled up on the trampoline together and bounced for a while. This was followed by Luna and Nico joining Lyla and Grandma climbing down to supervise from a nearby chair. We all spent much of the day in various occupations related to Ethan from holding him, changing his diaper, burping him, cuddling with him, and then repeating all of those actions. He was good-natured about the variety of people who wanted to hold him. He slept most of the time except when eating or having multiple diaper changes.

The weather was grey-skied and cool. The air was very fresh from the recent rain and the fields surrounding the grove were bright green. Our orange, lemon, and lime trees were washed clean and the fruit was bright orange, yellow and green.

We had a lovely day together. Ray and I spent the night and heard the pitter-patter of rain during the night. We awoke to rain this morning but the skies had cleared by 9 am. Tonight is supposed to be the beginning of the next big wave of storms. Ojai is expecting 5 inches of rain over the next few days.

We are back in LA now. We expect rain here too though I’m not sure about how much. Whatever the case, we’ll be drier here than up in Ojai. Though I will miss seeing Ethan over the next few days.

We are so unaccustomed to this much rain, it’s hard to believe that we’ll get more. But the meteorologists sound quite certain we’re in for another big blast. We have been battening down the hatches.

Here are a few photos from the weekend.

Auntie Sarah and Ethan

Ethan

Nico, Luna, and Lyla on Trampoline

Grandpa and Ethan having a bonding moment