Life With Ella

It’s so hard to believe it’s May already!  Seems like time has flown by.  Ella had her Musical Theatre Works production of Willy Wonka last week.  It was very sweet. Ella did a great job.  There is video at the end of this post of the main songs and Ella saying her 2 lines.  It’s the kind of video that family and close friends will love so I’m sure you will all enjoy it.  We have been to a baseball game since the night with Stella and Juliet and although the Giants are doing much better, they kind of stunk on Saturday night.  Good thing the season is so long.  Ella had a very important “first time” experience on the weekend of Grandma’s birthday…Ella went to Santa Cruz with Emmi and her family and another one of Emmi’s friends.  It was the first time that Ella went away with a family that wasn’t ours and she loved it!

Ella and Panda in the morning.

Willy Wonka!  Ella was Charlie at the end of the show which is why she’s wearing that vest.

 Panda is so happy that Ella is home from school!

 Ella preparing broccolini for dinner.  She looks so grown up.  The step stool helped her look very tall.

 Fun with Emmi at the baseball game.

 Reading with her buddy Sophie.

 Ella, Emmi’s sister and Emmi’s friend with the big surprise for Emmi.

 Ella looks quite comfortable in the little hotel.

 Girls in Santa Cruz.

Ella made it to the top!

 More Santa Cruz fun!

And here is the Willy Wonka video…

Our minds are blown that Ella is began third grade today.  Seems like just yesterday, we were bringing our not quite three year old into the Leaping Lizards classroom at CDS!  Ella loved her first day and we can’t wait to watch her grow and learn and keep on being Ella!  Here are some pics and a video from the past week.  The video is more Circus Camp fun.  The first part is the flying trapeze (Ella’s friend Cecelia filmed it) and the second part is of Ella’s second performance.

 Ella is loving her “flash” tattoos.  this one is like a henna tattoo!

 Emmi and Ella after the first show.

 Ella loved the circus face painting.

 Ella completely loved getting to spend time with Bronwen and Georgia.  We loved it too.

 Ella had some pretty fancy jumping moves.

 Ella spent some great time with the Kim/Arena clan this past weekend.  It was great to have the kids hanging out again.  Their new place has a pool and it was great pool weather this weekend.  They all had a blast.

 New art installation near the Ferry Building.

 Sunny and I went to a really sweet wedding on Sunday.  Sunny started the ceremony with the blowing of the shofar.

 Ella’s first day of third grade!

 Ella and Emmi were the first kids in the Quail classroom this morning!

Can’t believe two weeks have gone by since my last entry.  On June 21, we had an amazing birthday party for Sunny and Phyllis.  Ella didn’t come, but she heard all about it and saw lots of pictures.  I will post the pics when we come back from NY.  It was a great party full of so much love and so much fun.  Ella has completed two weeks of camp.  First, she went to golf camp and this week she went to SPCA camp.  Here are some pics from the past 2 weeks…

 Ella reading at breakfast – what a beautiful sight.

 Ella learned a lot about dog behavior this week at SPCA camp.  She made some observations about Panda.  The biggest observation that she made was that he is happy!

 Sunny and I were part of history on Wednesday.  We were at the game against San Diego where Tim Lincecum pitched his no hitter.  It was so exciting!

Pajama day at SPCA camp!  The girls had a blast there together.

While they were at SPCA camp, the girls made a PSA on Animal Testing.  Here is the link:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5CvnY3gFqg&list=PLrQnnOABbepyklt6jnXfQOwpWp_x98vvT&index=6

A visit to ACC after SPCA camp.

The girls decided that they wanted to have a lemonade stand and sell cookies and lemonade and donate the money to ACC.  Here are a series of pictures showing them creating the signs, the actual signs, and the big day today where they raised $75!

One last thing… On Thursday, Ella found out which class she is going to be in next year.  She is in Colette and Kay’s class again. Sunny and I were thrilled but guess who was even more thrilled…check out the video below!

Since my last entry, Ella “stepped up” from second grade and is now an incoming third grader!  Here is a shot of Ella, Colette and Kay on the last day of school.

Once Ella’s school was out, Ella and I got busy for a huge surprise for Sunny.  Another big change since the last entry is that Sunny turned 60!  On Monday, June 9, we made a surprise for Sunny.  I invited about 63 of her friends to the ballgame and they were sitting in the bleachers holding signs wishing Sunny a happy birthday and telling her that we love her.  Sunny, Ella and I were sitting somewhere else in the stadium…the perfect seats to see the signs.  Sunny was so surprised!  It was beautiful.  Ella was amazing and kept the secret with me for over 2 months.  We love you so much Sunny.  We are so happy that June 9 was so special for you.  Here are some pictures from the night.  At the end of this entry, there is a short clip of Sunny’s reaction to the surprise.

 Ella is really excited about the money that she is going to make tonight when mommy says all of the bad words that she is going to say!  Ella made about 12 bucks.

 Sunny and our friend Bertha who helped me with the surprise.

 Taking a selfie to try to stay calm when this is how we were really feeling…I was a wreck!

Cool Ella with Sunny before the surprise happened… Then the surprise happened which you will see in the video clip.  After the big surprise, Bertha got Sunny a scoreboard message…After the scoreboard message, we went over and met up with all of Sunny’s friends.  It was a beautiful celebration of love for Sunny.  Here is a shot of Sunny with her beautiful expression of being completely blown away…

 Then we headed over to hang with friends.This is what happens when you leave Ella alone with a camera.  The evening was amazing.  I hope Sunny was able to feel so much love from so many different people.

A few days after this amazing celebration, we took off to Sedona for a long beautiful weekend.  Grandma and Papa took us to Sedona for Sunny’s 60th birthday. It was an amazing weekend full of fun, relaxation and a little adventure.  We took some hikes, went on a Pink Jeep ride to explore old Hopi ruins, and mommy and papa played golf.  We had an delicious dinner on mommy’s actual birthday with grandma, papa, Phyllis and Michael.  It was a great night.  Here are all the pics.

 Ella got to sit in the cockpit!

 Supposedly these are vortexes.  It was a small hike from our hotel to the vortexes.  I just checked – they can be called vortexes or vortices so pick your favorite word.  We hiked up there twice.

 Mommy and Ella building mini structures.

 We’re not exactly a family of hikers, but we do what we need to do to go where we want to go.

 Mommy hugging a vortex.

 We met a bunch of sweet lizards on our journey.

 This child is so happy being in the pool.

 A GIANT game of Jenga!

 Fun and love with grandma and papa.

 Ella on the pink jeep ride.

 It was incredible to see the ruins.  The Honanki Heritage site is where the pink jeep tour took us.  The Singaua, ancestors of the Hopi, lived there from AD 1100 – 1300.  The guide was very honest when he was speaking to us about the cave art and the dwellings.  He said that there is really no way of knowing what the art meant, but people made up stories over the years.  He let us make up our own interpretation and shared some ideas that he had too.  Ella was really interested in it all.

 Family shots at a magical dinner.

 Grandma and papa did the vortex hike with us on Saturday.

 The five us us sitting on a vortex.  We’re not really believers, but it was fun watching people get healed and energized up there.

So we’re back, Ella is in golf camp in the morning, and on Tuesday, we met Colette for ice skating!  So much fun.   

Here is Sunny’s “surprise” video…

So much has happened since my last post!  First, Ella’s class did the Pied Piper on May 23rd.  It was an amazing production.  The kids did a fantastic job and the musical direction and direction by Colette and Kay was wonderful.  Check out the pics and the video below.  On Friday night, we flew to LA and spent the weekend with Jesse and Heather.  Panda came with us too and got along so well with his four cousins.  Ella did a lot of different things at Disneyland this time…she went on Space Mountain, the Matterhorn and Thunder Mountain!  She loved all of them.  We had a great weekend with Jesse and Heather.  I finished school on Friday and Ella finishes at the end of the week.  Bring on the summer!

 Video is at the end of this entry.  Now onto Disneyland…

 Disneyland selfies!

 We all took an animation class and we learned how to sketch Olaf from Frozen.  This is Ella’s amazing Olaf!

 The last shot is of Ella, Jesse and I by myself on Space Mountain.  Jesse was so excited for the picture that he blocked Ella in the shot!  She is sitting behind him.

 Panda and his cousins.

On Saturday, after TaeKwonDo – we took Ella to the San Francisco center and she got her ears pierced!  I filmed it so no need to explain that Ella looked like she was going to throw up on Sunny! Sunny and I are a well balanced team.  She was nurturing and protective and loving and I was the crazy person who filmed it.  Enjoy!

 Ella right after her ears were pierced – hardly any blood in her face.

 Feeling much better about a minute later.

Today, Ella’s class had their assembly at school.  About two months ago, Ella had a music share in her class.  She decided that she wanted to teach her class how to do the Cups song.  Ella’s teachers loved the lesson and decided that they would all perform Cups for the assembly.  Ella worked hard with Colette and Kay to teach some of her classmates how to do the Cups rhythm.  Today, after months of hard work, the Octopus class hosted an amazing assembly.  They were all wonderful.  After the assembly, we were invited up to the classroom to take part in a book publishing celebration.  We loved Ella’s book.  I don’t want to ruin it by trying to summarize it, but the story was so creative and Ella truly worked so hard on in.  I am going to try to take some shots of it next week and put it on the blog.

 Ella and her classmates getting ready for the assembly.

Check out the video…