Life With Ella

I have fallen so far behind but I am determined to catch up.  Ella is now 10 and becomes more of an amazing person every day!  On the actual day of Ella’s birthday, we brought cupcakes to school, picked up Ella and a bunch of her friends and took them to K1 Speed for a fun afternoon of racing!  Everyone had a blast and Sunny made another one of her amazing Disney cakes at Ella’s request.

Ella and her friends had a blast.  They drove around the track like pros!

After K-1, the Kim-Arena’s came over for some cake.

One weekend later, we flew to Las Vegas to spend the weekend with grandma and papa.  We had a really great time.  We stayed at the Venetian and Ella had her first “gondola” ride.

Here is a super sweet series of Ella and Grandma in the lobby.

We came home for another week and then headed to Disney World for Ella’s big 10th birthday celebration.  Before we left, we got to meet our friend Sheila’s new puppy Olivia.  Ella fell in love immediately.

Now for the moment we’ve all been waiting for… our big trip to Disney World!  This is gonna be great!

Here we are all ready to take on Disney World.  The bracelets are called “magic bands” and they get us into the parks, they are our fast passes, they are our hotel keys and they are our money!

Meeting up with Jesse and Heather at the airport.

Ella and Milo meeting up at the hotel.

Sporting our Ella 10 hoodies.

We all were having so much fun with each other.  It was so great to be together.

About to go onto Everest.

The kids having fun at the Frozen Show.

Small World with Papa and Grandma.

SIL love.

A kind stranger took these amazing shots of the 10 of us.  Go team Ella!

Happiness!

Beauty and the Beast!

Heading into dinner at Be Our Guest.

Try the grey stuff it’s delicious.

While eating at Be Our Guest, Heather noticed that Josh Gadd (the voice of Olaf) was at another table in the restaurant.  Ella LOVES Olaf and wanted to meet him.  She went up to him and said, “I’m a huge fan”.  He was really sweet and asked her if she wanted to take a picture with him.  Pretty amazing!

More pics from our great dinner/

We had a fantastic time on the Mine Train ride.

Magic at night.

We all couldn’t stop smiling!

Nemo and the Little Mermaid.

Check it out – Heather, Jesse, Sunny, Ella and I were in one car (the one with the hands up) and Grandma, Papa, AJ, Michael and Milo were in the other one – very careful riders.

Olaf T-Shirt day!  We had a fantastic day at Epcot.

Ella holding magic in the palm of her hand.

Sweet happy Ella.

The end of a beautiful night.

Dear Ella –

Today is your 10th birthday and we just wanted to let you know that we love you so much.  You are such a beautiful, smart, loving, kind, fun, funny, spunky, interesting, and amazing person.  We feel so lucky that you are our daughter.  Now – let the celebrations begin!

We love you,

Mama and Mommy

 Here you are one minute old.  All of our lives changed for the better the moment we met you!

Ella was testing out the fan on her Baymax costume.  It worked perfectly up until Halloween!

Reactions from Ella and Juliet when we tried to talk to the about puberty! It’s going to be a long few years.

 A beautiful day on the Embarcadero.

 Baymax visited with Emmi and Panda today! We took Ella and some friends rock climbing.  Ella really loves it.Walking over to a new restaurant called Zero Zero.

Love these guys!

 Ella was not happy about Grandma writing “sex” in her Bananagrams words.Sweet day at the Berkeley Botanical Gardens. We had an awesome dinner at Alexanders.  Nothing like cotton candy after a 3 hour meal!

 We decided to mix it up and go to Coyote Point.  We all had a great time with Grandma and Papa.

This was the face that Ella used to make when she had to pee.

 So  this is a little inside joke that Ella and Grandma have…Grandma once took Ella to see an Alvin and The Chipmunks movie and she felt tortured!  Guess what grandma -there’s a new Alvin and The Chipmunks movie coming out and Ella can’t wait to see it with you!

 Sweet Ella having her tea before school. These two are growing up way too fast!

 A bunch of staff members from my school had a bonfire at the beach.  Sunny was the master marshmallow cooker.

 Racquetball anyone?

 Ella giving Panda a bath.

Here are Sunny and Ella at a farmer’s market by our house.  They were learning to bake an apple pie.

 Beautiful rainbow in my work parking lot. Ella’s 4th grade class did an amazing assembly on National Parks.I flew to NY for an amazing show that AJ wrote and performed.  The weekend was Halloween weekend so although I missed Halloween with Ella and Sunny, I did get to spend Halloween with your NY family!  Here are some pics from a little party that Jordin and Kevin had.

 Here is Grandma and Papa’s house on Halloween.  Hen and Grandma did a great job!

Meanwhile, back in SF, Ella switched from Baymax to a vampire and had an amazing Halloween with friends.

 September was a fantastic month!  Ella started the 4th grade.  This will be her last year on the 16th Street campus and then onto Middle School!  Ella has a teacher who is new to CDS – her name is Skye.  So far, Ella is loving the 4th grade.  Strike Out Violence Day was a great day as usually.  The 3 of us were together on the field and it was a sweet ceremony.  Ella had a wonderful visit with her friend Sakura who now lives in Japan and came to my back to school night.

First day of fourth grade!Frolicking in the grass.

Strike Out Violence Day!Here is Ella playing the bass in my classroom.  Eventually I will put together a video that shows Ella playing the drums and shredding on the electric guitar.

This is what was on Ella’s table for us on back to school night.  Who knew that she was looking forward to drinking coffee this much!

Here are some more beautiful examples of Ella’s heart.

Must have been a very sunny day.

Ella leading the red belts in some kicks.

Viting with Sakura.  Ella’s Halloween costume arrived and she couldn’t wait to try it on.Ella got her face painted after doing a breast cancer walk.

The picture before was of Ella waiting for the blood moon and here are Ella and Colette on the yard.  Ella manages to get in hugs with Colette and Alicia whenever she can.

 August was a fantastic month.  Once we came home from our Anguilla/NY amazing vacation, I had to go back to work, Sunny’s work never stopped, and Ella spent some great time with friends and went to SPCA camp, Circus Camp and tennis/skateboard camp.  Here are some pics from some of Ella’s amazing experiences… 

Hanging out with Jeremy Affeldt and Bruce Bochy.

Hanging with Rocky – Julie and Justin’s beautiful son.

A little trip to the beach in SF.

We took Ella and Emmi to see Matilda.  What a great show!

Ella in her Circus Camp make-up.

 Nothing like a ballgame on a beautiful August night.

Ella is so graceful on the ice!

Never too old for this.

Sweet trip on the E line.

So we got home from Anguilla and had some more amazing time with our family and friends.  Here are some pics from the rest of our New Jersey trip…

We went to the New York Botanical Gardens to see the Frida Kahlo exhibit.  It was beautiful and we took a lot of pictures of beautiful flowers but I am not going to post those pics here because there are too many!

That evening, Grandma and Papa treated us to “The King and I”.  It was wonderful…

Now I am going to post a bunch of shots that are all about love and fun!

And now for scenes at Papa’s club…

Ella and Milo had some sweet cousin time with Georgia…

We all had a great time with Jordin and Twyla…

Had a blast with Nikki B…

Super fun family time in the pool…

Big night out in Leonia…

Ella and Milo took golf lessons…

Ella hung out with Ashley…

She did a lot of diving…(I have so much video that I need to put together)

Took a great picture of the sisters and parents…

Most importantly, spent so much time and shared so much love with Grandma, Papa and Milo…

Dog cousins hanging out one last time for the summer of 2015…

And then we had to go home to SF… we love you guys so much and summers are super special!

We had an amazing summer!  After Ella came back from Camp Winnarainbow, I went to Colorado for a conference and Ella and mommy had a week without me!  Ella went to an ice skating and bowling camp and fell in love with ice skating.  When I got back from Colorado, Ella and I headed to NJ and were met by mommy a week later.  During the first week, we celebrated Milo’s 6th birthday, did a lot of swimming, saw Inside Out again and also saw the Minion Movie.  We had an amazing time in NJ and then headed for Anguilla.  Anguilla was a fantastic trip.  We mostly stayed with KK and then ended our trip at the Frangipani.  Here are pictures from the first week in NJ and our trip to Anguilla.  The rest of the NJ trip and the rest of our summer will follow.

 Ella, Panda and I on our way to NJ.

 Grandma and Panda watching us catch fireflies.

 Ella and Milo reunited!  They were catching fireflies on the first night.

 Ella made this birthday card for Milo.

Sweet Milo very focused at the Leonia pool.

 Ella was super happy to see her friend Emma again.

 Ella and Papa before Milo’s birthday dinner.

 Happy birthday Milo!

Sweet and goofy family photos at Kiku.

 Ella practicing her shot.

 Ella and Emma had a great time together.

 Cousins in the sun!

 Our mermaid.

 Beautiful cousins.

 The Minion movie!

 Milo drying himself off!

 Fun and love on the front yard!

 Chillin at the club!

6:00 am and we’re on our journey to Anguilla!

 It took Ella about 4 minutes to get comfortable.

 So happy to get some quality time with KK!

 First family ocean shot!

 We were swimming in the ocean with this beautiful creatures.  I was pretty freaked out by the ray.

 Reading…

 Building sand castles…

 Baking a cake… life is pretty incredible on the island!

 Ella checking out the water while we have lunch.

This is the life!

 Best family shot EVER!

 We did a dolphin experience.  It was amazing.  I will have to find our disc full of pictures of us with the dolphins and post it.  

Later on that day we went to Junk’s Hole where we were invaded by seaweed.  Ella wasn’t very happy about the sea weed!

 We did manage to get a few smiles out of Ella despite the sea weed.

 Here are some shots from a gorgeous day at Da Vida.  We all tried paddle boarding.  Ella was awesome!

 We had a beautiful dinner at Malliouhana with KK.

 We love you Ella!

 Love in Anguilla.

 A view from the pool at Frangipani.

 Nothing like having a delicious dinner on the beach at Smokey’s and Ella getting to play in the sand.

 Ella had a fantastic time tubing.

Perfection.

 Lunch at Blanchards.

Ella and KK taking a dip at Frangipani.

 Attempting the skim board.

 Last day of lounging around for us!

Sending a lantern off into the moonlight.

 Boat ride back to St. Maarten.

 Panda and his buddies.

Last week was pure happiness for all of us.  The three of us were on the steps of City Hall when the city celebrated marriage equality in all 50 states!  It was a beautiful morning and there is a lot to celebrate.  We marched in the pride parade with the independent schools, which meant that we got to march with the Kim/Arenas.  It was so much fun and Isaac was the hit of our section of the parade.  He would walk, face the crowd, say “Hi” and then like 50 people would respond back “Hi” to him.  He loved it!  On Tuesday evening, we flew to LA, had a really sweet evening with Jesse and Heather (although there was a big black out and we went to sleep with no power) and then spent about 14 hours in Disneyland the next day seeing all of the Diamond 60th Anniversary additions.  It was so much fun and we were totally knocked out the next day!  Thank you Jesse and Heather for a wonderful 36 hours in LA!

 Here we are on the steps of City Hall.  Looks like we may tie the knot!

 Decorating the wagon with rainbow streamers.

Getting ready to march.  It took a while!

 Our sister Helen!

 Pride parade gang signs “PEACE”

 Walking through the crowd sprinkling rainbow confetti which the kids were calling Unicorn Barf!

 After the parade waiting for a table at Dim Sum.

 Waiting for the train to take us home!  What a fun day!

 Now in LA, it looks like the Minions have taken over the Cinema Theatre!  Ella took these pics and was thrilled to see these guys larger than life.

 Ella just LOVES Jesse and Heather!

Tram selfie!

 Pure happiness and joy.

 First ride of the day.  Mommy and Ella are rocking it on Cars.

 Jesse got to ride the Matterhorn twice!

 Waiting on line for Peter Pan.

 Love this ride so much!  That’s a Go Pro on my head.  I will edit video at a later time.

 On line for Space Mountain.

 Space Mountain Sshot.  Ella was supposed to be pretend sleeping but she was too excited!

 Starting to get dark out.  We look pretty good going on our 11th hour!

 Saw an incredible fireworks show and parade.  Here is one of Ella’s favorites from the parade.

Ella, Stella and Juliet are at rock climbing camp this week.  They are having so much fun together.  Tonight, we went to see the movie “Inside Out”.  It was a hit with everyone.

 Planet Granite is located in a beautiful spot right near the Golden Gate Bridge.  Not a bad place to hang out!

 All of the kids are having a blast!

 Ella can’t wait for this movie to come out!

 Acting aout all of the different emotions.  The movie had joy, sadness, anger, fear and disgust.

 Very clever movie ad!

Ella had an amazing week at Camp Winnarainbow – her first time at sleep away camp, and her moms made it through the week without missing her too much!  The pictures in the first part of this blog were taken by Ella.  She took a camera with her to camp and took some sweet shots and fun videos.  Here are the pics.

The teepee circle

 Tight rope practice place.

 Aerial practice place.

Nurse’s dome.

 Dinner menu!

 Chocolate pudding.

Turquoise teepee (the place where Ella slept for the week!)

The rainbow stage.

 Another look at the tightrope area.

Another shot of the turquoise tent.

 The road to the lake.

 The lake – Ella passed the difficult swim test.

 The campfire!

 Great shot.

Looks like a selfie to me!

Ella explained her teepee experience as a group of girls who were sisters for the week.  She said that they felt like a family.  I know that she loved being there with Stella and Juliet and that she also made some new friends.  The counselors told us that they were the best group of girls that they ever had.  Ella even bragged about the teepee winning the cleanest tent award!  They were rewarded with M&M’s.  Here are a few more pics from Ella’s camera.

 The next group of pics are taken from my perspective.  The shots of Sunny, Ella and I were taken by Karen who was visiting from NY.  Thank you for taking these pics!

 Not exactly your “traditional” camp!

 Reunited and it feels so good!  We love you so much Ella!

 A little unicycle action.

 A new friend Cadence.

 Very sweet closing show.  I have videos that I will throw together which show Ella doing gymnastics and some aerial stuff.

 Back in SF, Ella started rock climbing camp today.  She successfully did the purple path today!