Kimbo turns 41 on Labor Day!

9-2-07 While SoCal has been hit with a heat wave this past week (as well as high humidity), what better way to escape the triple digit weather by going to the beach? That's what we ended up doing with a bunch of friends.

Today was also Kimbo's 41st b-day, so most of the pictures will reflect that. You'll see she rec'd a b-day she won't soon forget. I wonder who's idea it was to rally all these kids to do these diabolical things to her??? Hmmmm...;-)

Our youngest sister, Lesley (aka Leng-bong), Robbie, and their first-born, Sydney, escape the record-setting heat wave in Arizona and come West to the coast as well. I believe it was Sydney's first visit to the beach and the Pacific. I'm sure you can see more pictures of her at the beach on her blog (see link in the side bar).
Thanks to all the umbrellas and EZ Ups that families hauled down to the beach so we could have plenty of shade, though some of us barely spent any time under it (except for lunchtime).
Oh oh, what are these kids up to, hauling away Auntie Kim like that?
Oh no, they buried her alive! And she was all nice and clean, too!
Posing with the buried b-day girl, complete with strategically placed seaweed.
Kim decided to rinse off...so the kids decided to help her! (Were they goaded into it? Naaaahhhh!)
Kim's eldest son, Josh, needed no goading in helping his mom rinse off.
Of all the kids, he was the most relentless...and accurate!
Kim decided to fight fire with fire...or in this case, water with water! Alas, it was to no avail.
The horde of kids were just too great and she had to run for her life.
Hey, Kara is caught here red-handed violating the Geneva code of warefare--you are NOT to attack the photographers!
As you can see by Kimbo's slumped shoulders, she finally gives up fleeing and gives in to her pursuers.
The kids get one last good dousing in before letting her alone.
The rest of the day was spent throwing frisbees, footballs (Diane and Holly had excellent spirals!), and of course, boogie boarding. I unfortunately didn't get too many pictures of those activities because I was busy doing all of the above! Keri, Summer, and I did boogie boarding for the first time and loved it (even though the waves were huge and were pounding us sometimes). We're now going to get our own wetsuits and boards.

Afterwards, we all headed to Kim's favorite restaurant, Maggiano's. Here's our long banquet table. Had to use a cell phone to talk to the others at the other end of the table!
Some of the younger ones, like Carly, were plumb tuckered out...but this nap re-charged her batteries because she was good to go later that evening!
Some, on the otherhand, were wide-awake the whole time, like Malia here.
Javan seems to be beyond naps as well.
Rasheed is happy to receive his butter, specially delivered by the Indian catering service, Punjabi himself!
Afterwards, I took the kids out to play some games with them. Thx to Kevin for helping keep them on the sidewalk (though there's Javan breaking the rule! LOL!)
After the parents came out, all the kids surrounded Auntie Kimbo to sing her Happy B-day.
Then they did a massive group hug with her (spared giving her 41 spankings--I'm getting soft in my old age! Can you imagine what I could've unleashed on her???).
One last group picture with the b-day girl.

And so ends our b-day celebration and part of our Labor Day holiday. Hope you had a cool, fun, and safe one, too!