LA COSTA

The first weekend in October, we met up with Matt's practice group

for a retreat at the La Costa Resort in San Diego.

Tanner was a total party animal on Friday night. He stayed up until midnight, crawling around the Firm's "hangout suite." He found a table decoration - a styrofoam ball covered in seashells - and spent the whole night rolling it under chairs and tables, and through everybody's legs. He was quite the entertainment. Everyone was so impressed with how happy he was for being up so late . . . good thing he saved his meltdown for later, behind closed paper-thin walls and doors. We may have cleared out the Resort that night with all the screaming Tanner did. He was BEYOND tired but just would not fall asleep. After literally 2 hours of screaming, Matt finally was able to get our little party animal to fall asleep in his arms. He woke up one more time that night for another 45 minutes. It was a very long night.

Saturday was a brand new day for our sleep deprived little man. We spent the whole day at the pool. It was fabulous. Tanner was so happy and had a blast going down the slides with Dad, crawling through the water fountain area, playing in the sand, and toddling through the shallow water of the kiddie pool. He played so hard that he fell asleep in his stroller for 2 whole hours while Mom and Dad enjoyed the sun, food, and Conference talks on the iPhone.

When we were in Utah in August, Matt's older brother introduced him to the game of Melon-Ball. What is Melon-Ball you ask? It's the same thing as Watermelon Rugby . . . still confused? Yeah, it's one of those underground sports that not many people know of. Kind of like fight club. Actually, more like fight club than I care to discuss. I'm telling you, this game is DAN-GER-OUS! Basically, the only rule is for each team to get the melon from one side of the pool to the other. (And yes, you do use a real melon - usually duck-taped in order to prevent the cumbersome fruit from breaking open). So, you can basically gouge out your opponent's eyes, carve your name in their back with your nails, and rip the hair out of their armpits, and you wouldn't be breaking any rules.

Of course, Matt decided that Melon-Ball would be a fabulous game to play with all his attorney co-workers. If you think I'm joking about how dangerous this game is, let me just tell you what happened to those who dared to play: one attorney was out for 3 days with an infection caused by a cut she got on her leg (yes, despite all my warnings, a GIRL actually got into the pool to play Melon Ball), another attorney ruptured his eardrum, and another guy had Matt's nail marks all over his back and a giant rug burn down his side from the pool wall. Matt, of course, walked away uninjured.

We had so much fun with Matt's coworkers. We're very blessed that he works with such a great group of people (especially since they could have probably held Matt liable for all the injuries incurred while engaging in the ultra-hazardous game of Melon-Ball).