Life With Ella

The Black Widows had their second game on Saturday and won 11-2.  Ella subbed as goalie at the end of the first half and then played goalie the entire second half.  She is a natural defender of the goal.  She gets right in there and grabs it and her throws were quick and well thought out.  After the game she told me that she didn’t want to play goalie next week because she played it twice already.  I was trying to explain to Ella that she was a great goalie and that teams needed that.  Without someone protecting the goal, the Black Widows wouldn’t win!  I don’t know if I was able to convince her to stick with it.  I think that goalie is a great position for Ella.  Here are some pics from the game.

 This was all so much fun to watch.  The team is becoming a pretty good team!

On another note, Sunny and I received this great e-mail from Ella’s teacher Colette:

Hi Sunny and Lauren,I just wanted to send a picture of Ella’s octopus oil pastel drawing today. It blew me away, how focused she was and her attention to detail. The rock cave, the shafts of light, beautiful! She’s quite an artist.

I hope you are having a good week so far!

Take care,

Colette

Here is the picture that she was talking about…

Ella had her first Black Widows game this weekend.  This is the first year that they area actually keeping score.  The Black Widows won 6 – 2! It was fantastic watching the Black Widows take the ball up and down the big field.  Ella was goalie for the 2nd half.  Although she let two goals get by, she saved about 12.  She was fearless as she got in there and grabbed the ball.  On Saturday we went to the ballgame.  It was Strike Out Violence Day.  This was the first time that Sunny wasn’t on the field because she doesn’t work for the SFSD anymore.  It was a meaningful ceremony and even better, the Giants won in the 11th inning!  We bumped into Ella’s friend Emilia at the game and Ella loved hanging out with her.

 Ella was quite flexible at TaeKwonDo taking a little rest in a cubby hole.

 Lou Seal was dressed as Darth Vader.

 Ella and Emilia having a blast.

 Here’s another picture of beautiful Ella on the first day of school.

Some very exciting news…Pineapple, the bird, has learned to say “Ella”.  It’s really cute.  She only says it when Ella walks away.  Ella is really serious about being a pirate for Halloween and bringing along Pineapple on her shoulder or arm!

We decided to get away from SF for a little weekend adventure this past weekend.  We went to San Jose, mostly because it was cheap, sunny and the hotel let us bring Panda.  We went with Becca and her 2 dogs.  We had a lot of fun, did tons of swimming and completely relaxed.  We all needed it (at least Sunny, Becca and I needed it – Ella has had a pretty amazing summer!).  Here are a few cool shots of Ella playing in the fountains across the street from our hotel.

Lastly – today was Ella’s first day of school.  She went in smiling ear to ear and had the same smile on her face when I picked her up at 4:30 to go to musical theatre.  So happy that she’s in love with school.

Ella and Sakura were able to spend Saturday – Sunday with each other.  Sakura is now on her way back to Japan.  They had such a wonderful time together.  Ella seems pretty sad that Sakura is back in Japan.  It’s pretty incredible to watch Ella and her very meaningful relationships with friends.  Here are a few pictures from their special day.

 Reading one of Ella’s favorite books…”Do Not Open This Book”.

 Sakura brought this book for Ella from Japan.  Ella took it and ran with it!

 Giving each other school work to do.

 Two of the original powerpuff girls.

 Sweetness.

Diary writing with Panda.

 One last goodbye.

Ella didn’t do any diving off the diving board this summer but she had so much fun jumping off the board.

Grandma, papa, Milo and Ella – they all love each other so much.  This was before a delicious dinner at Kiku.

 Croquet on the front lawn with Nikki B and Co.  I was of course joking around!

 Beautiful children.

Happpy swimmer.

We had a lovely day with Adam.

 Yoga family.

 Loved watching Ella and Adam get to know each other.

Love on the terrace with papa.

 Loving the monkey bars.

 Ella gave Tess some big girl support.

 Sweetness.

 New yogurt place in AJ’s hood.  Ella had watermelon cilantro yogurt!  YUCK!

 Grandma and Panda totally bonded.

 Ella does her best Scutaro.

Cutest cousins in the world.

 Sweetness.

 A happy girl and her dog.

 Posing in front of big things.

 Fun at Bloomingdales.

 Never saw so much love!

 Ella and Milo had so much fun with each other this summer.

This was the first summer that Ella was actually able to putt with papa.  They both loved doing this.Golf cart ride!

 Milo is a wild tester.

 Last Leonia photo shoot of the summer of 2013.

 Wonderful journey back home with Ella and Panda.

 Ella is reunited with Sakura.  The girls were so happy to be with each other.

We just came home from three beautiful weeks in NJ visiting grandma, papa, AJ, Milo and many wonderful friends and family.  We love you guys and miss you a lot.  I have a lot of pictures to post here we go!

 This was the first time that we traveled with Panda and he was an amazing traveler!  Can’t wait for more trips with Panda.

 Fun at the Liberty Science Center.

Grandma took Ella and I to see Matilda.  We all loved it.

 Having fun at a little kid’s park.

 We had a sweet afternoon with Jordin, AJ, Milo and Twyla.  Twyla really cracked Ella up.

 Beautiful cousins in Madison Square Park.

 Before Haircut…

 After haircut.

 Normyn and Panda were so sweet together.

 The kids had a great time at Overpeck Park.

 Shucking corn with grandma.

 One of many amazing jumps at the Leonia Pool.

 On top of the world!

Fun and love at papa’s club.

 Ella reading papa a Jack and Annie book.

 Panda loves a good bedtime story!

That’s it for tonight – I will try to finish this tomorrow night.

Today was the day of Ella’s group performance.  She was very excited.  Cousin Clara, Dan and Cindy are visiting SF for the weekend, so Clara came to the show.  Ella was so happy to have her there.  They played around in the playground before the performance.  Ella did a great job.  This year, she was a singer, not a drummer.  I think she may have had more fun playing drums, but she was so sweet singing.  The movie is at the end.  The camera is focused on Ella but there is very loud music coming from the whole group.  After the show, Dan, Clara and Cindy came back here and we ate a great meal at Koh Samui and The Monkey.  The food and company was great.  Tomorrow we head to the exploratorium.

Ella at the airport in Cabo with her Lauren and Sunny tattoo.

 Snack before the show.

Sweet, loving cousins.

 Ella in action.

 Getting ready for the song to begin.

 Oh yeah – rock on,

 And that’s the show!.

We have actually landed at home for more than a week!  Ella has been having fun catching up with Stella, Juliet, KJ and Isaac, seeing some other friends, visiting ACC, and this past week she has been at Rock Band Land at CDS.  The final performance is tomorrow (Friday).  Ella decided that she wanted to sing this time.  I will film the song and post it tomorrow.

Ella and her buddy pineapple.

 The perfect pyramid of love and friendship.

 Touching the rays at the Aquarium by the Bay.

Ella and a drop of water at the Exploratorium.

On Sunday, Ella and Sunny’s scooters were taken from our garbage chute room.  Here is Ella with her new scooter.

Here is a video of Ella making a basket this morning at camp…

We had a fun and relaxing week in Cabo this past week.  The trip was totally different than our amazing adventures in the Southwest the week before!  On this trip, we laid in the pool or next to the pool, went to the beach and swam in the ocean, ate some good meals and…Ella was able to live out a dream of hers.  Ella swam with dolphins.  She did a little class with about 7 other kids.  She was so excited and a little nervous.  While she was waiting for her class to start, she was standing in front of a  huge port hole looking for the dolphins.  She found a few and they swam right up to her beautiful face.  Ella was so focused as if she were communicating with them with her eyes and smile.  It was fantastic to watch Ella and her magic.

 Ella was so happy and excited.  She was so focused on getting to know the dolphins.

 Right before she got into the water.

 Having fun with the other kids.

 Look at Ella riding that dolphin like a pro!

 Shaking hands and kissing.

 The dolphin was super sweet.

 Relaxing in Cabo.

We just came back from Cabo San Lucas and I have some photos to post from that trip, but I don’t want to do that until I finish the Southwest trip.  I am still in awe of all that we did, all that we experienced together and how truly incredible that week was for all of us.  I left off in Bryce Canyon and will now continue in Bryce on our horse/mule ride down the canyon.  We were all a little nervous and hesitant to do this ride but we did it and conquered our fears and tried to let go of control…this can be pretty hard for this crew!

 Sisters!

 I love my peeps!

Me and the two loves of my life.

Enjoy the next several shots of our ride.  Ella was in the front with the cowboy – Ella’s mule was tied to the cowboy so that he could help the mule along and Ella didn’t have to do anything except focus on staying on the mule (which was tricky).

The evening in Bryce…

 Magnificent in every way!

 Love with the in-laws.

The next several shots are of the whole family in a hike in the Zion narrows.  Everyone did an amazing job staying safe, having fun, and being super adventurous.  We were the most impressed with grandma, papa and Milo.  This was an incredible day.

Thank you again, grandma and papa, for the experience of a lifetime.  We love you guys.