It has been a long time coming, but we are finally scheduled for our first Architectural Review Board meeting for Thursday, Jan 13 2005. The last hurdle was getting the story poles put on the existing house (to show the height of the new building) during a period of serious rainstorms, at the last minute. We had been told that we had about 2 weeks or so to get them up, but then the city planner called to say they needed to be up in 3 days!

The ARB is the committee that decides if the proposed buildings fit in with the general style and character of the city of Capinteria. Our architect, Bill Araluce, is on that committee, and while he will recuse himself from the actual deliberations, I feel confident that he knows what his fellow members are looking for. The hope is that the ARB won’t find anything major to complain about and that we will move right on to the Planning Commission.

GranMille and GranDon weren’t sure they could give up Baby Weezy, and so they enjoyed every minute with her.

Our
flight was originally scheduled to leave PDX at 10:30 p. When my mom couldn’t find
the flight on the internet, we called Alaska Airlines to confirm the flight times.
Turns out the flight had been changed to leave at 8:20 p! We raced around and Toby,
Camille and Diane packed all our clothes/ presents in 20 minutes. Racing to the airport
we arrived right on time to stand in the long lines at checkin and security. We arrived
in LAX at 10:30 p (the same time our flight was originally to have departed PDX).
Poppa and Yaya picked us up and we drove home. Thank you very much to everyone
who helped out on this trip. It was a great success all around!

The trip ended with a 60th birthday party for Camille. Toby had made dinner arrangements at Il
Piatto for 20 or so of Camille and Don’s family. It was great food, great atmosphere.
I recommend it if you are in the Portland area. Toby
and Diane made a platter at 2000 degrees in Santa Barbara in June 2004. They presented
it to Camille and she thought it was the bomb.