Life With Ella

Ella is such a joy and pleasure to be around.  Her zest for life is incredible.  This week, her class went bird watching in Dolores Park.  She saw sparrows, crows and robin redbreasts.  She had a lot of fun.  There is a very special bird named Pineapple who was rescued by SFACC a month or so ago.  Ella goes to Becca’s work and visits Pineapple.  Pineapple also came to Ella’s class with Becca last week.  Pineapple is Ella’s new buddy.  Ella has learned some new tricks on the monkey bars.  Take a deep breath Papa – she is now hanging upside down like a bat.  She is very careful when she’s on the monkey bars – not careless and I think we have sufficiently put plenty of fear in her about head and neck injuries.  Love you papa.

 Ella birding in Dolores Park.

 Ella and Pineapple.

Ella the bat.

 I love my students!  I took them to play at a fundraiser on Thursday night.  They had a blast and their music sounded incredible.  I am a lucky teacher.

Last week, Ella was on spring break and she had a great treat in the middle of the week.  Grandma and papa came to town for an opthalmology conference and Ella stayed with them for a few nights at the St. Regis.  The four of us went to a fantastic baseball game on Friday night and there were beautiful fireworks at the end.  Sunny and I spent a beautiful anniversary day riding bikes, going to see 42 and having a wonderful dinner.  Thank you grandma and papa for being with Ella all day and night.  We loved having you in SF.  Can’t wait for the end of June.  Love you guys.

 Ella’s latest and greatest self-portrait.

 Ella is becoming quite the goalie!

Friday night movie night!

 Ella and grandma had so much fun together.  Here is Ella with a little clay nation friend that she made.  Great green penguin!

 Beauty before the game.

 We had to wait a long time on the security line but it was all worth it.

 The whole gang!  What a great night.

 Grandma and papa made it onto the kiss cam.

 Getting cozy before the fireworks.

Nothing like watching a kid watch fireworks.

 Ella getting ready to go to TaeKwonDo.

 Ella and papa watching the ballgame at dinner.

 Ella started her knitting class on Monday.  She can’t wait for the next class.

 Panda really wanted to help Ella do her homework.

Another post to catch up on life with Ella!  Ella has started up with soccer, baseball, had a fund raiser with the rest of the 1st grade classes and raised over $1500.00 to purchase a water tank for an elementary school in Kenya and will begin a knitting class in a week!  Ella also is getting ready to do her Peter Pan play with the musical theatre program that she’s going to.  Ella is having a blast in life and we love to watch!

 Sing Along Beauty and the Beast with the Kim/Arean clan.

The signs that the kids made for the bake sale.

 It was a great bake sale.  We make some killer rice krispie treats.

Ella’s first soccer game of the seasons.  She liked playing goalie.

Having lots of fun playing baseball.

ad a fantastic trip back east for Passover.  We loved getting to spend so much time with grandma, papa, AJ and Milo and getting to see other family and friends who we love very much.  I have a lot of pictures, so I’m just going to go along and write some stuff as I post the pictures.

 Ella made an AMAZING charoses this year.  She chopped the apples, added the walnuts, stirred in grape juice and it was perfect!

 Getting ready to go see Annie.

 At Starbucks with grandma before Annie.

Crossing the street in crazy Times Square.

 There’s Annie!

 We were all so excited to go see Annie.

 Happiness.

 Ella on the Annie set and backstage with the actor who plays Rooster Hannigan how is one of AJ’s friends.

 That night we got a sweet visit from Cheryl, Emma and James.  Ella loves these guys.

 Beautiful Seder!

So sweet!  Ella found the afikomen on the first night.

Daughter/mother dance.

 Milo took this shot of me.  I think he did a great job.

 Ella making a thank you note for Ester who knit her a beautiful scarf.

 Thank you Ester!

 Dancing cousins.

So much love, so much fun, so much goofiness!  True love.

I will continue this tomorrow.  I am falling asleep and want to make sense!

This year, Ella’s baseball team is called the Tiger Sharks.  They had their first game on Saturday.  Sunny and I are still both coaching.  The game was a lot of fun.  It’s a sweet group of kids.  Ella played second base and catcher.  She is still batting lefty and puts everything she has into the game!

Our beautiful Tiger Shark.

Ella and Dillon hanging out in the Tiger Shark dugout.

 So beautiful!

Mother and daughter out in the field.

 Getting ready to make a play at second.

 I’m pitching again this season.  I only sort of hit one kid during the game.

 Our lefty slugger.

 I wonder if she likes being the catcher if if it’s all about the “costume”.

We just came back from Scottsdale Az after a fun filled weekend.  We went down for Spring Training – Sunny had her Giants Community Fund Board weekend of selling mystery balls to raise money for the Junior Giants.  The board sold all of the balls and raised a lot of money for the Jr. Giants.  We arrived on Thursday and the weather was beautiful.  Ella hit the pool about 1/2 hour after we arrived.  We spent about 2 hours at the pool and then went to David and Jackie’s house to see them, Cindy and Bob and meet Ella’s new little cousin Emma.  It was really sweet hanging out with everyone.  We woke up the next morning to rain and 46º!  It was incredible – the weather was the exact opposite of the day before.  Sunny went to the field early for a field visit and to get to work while Ella and I slept in and had a great breakfast at the hotel.  We met Sunny and everyone else at the ballpark and basically just sold mystery balls.  It was raining way too hard for the game to happen and they finally called it at around 3:00.  At one point, Ella got to see her very first hail storm.  There were a lot of kids there and Ella still had lots of fun.  We were with a great group of people and we didn’t let the weather stop us from having a great time. On Saturday, we went to the game and the weather held up although it was maybe 56º at the most.  The Giants lost by a lot but it was great to get to see a baseball game.  Here are some shots from our weekend adventure.

 Beautiful Ella playing around in the pool.

 Here is sweet Emma.  She’s 10 weeks old.

 The proud father David.

 Happy Aunt Sunny with her great niece!

This is a terrible shot, but Ella found a new sport – skee ball!

 Ella and her spring training buddies Jesse and Bella.

 Sunny and the kids getting shelter from the rain.

 Ella and our friend Julia doing some exercise in the rain.

 The kids were sitting by a warm and cozy fireplace.  Ella really did not enjoy the hail and stinging cold rain.

 Ella and Jesse on Saturday coming back from the game.  A much better day.

 Mommy the sports commentator!  Here is Sunny in the booth with Martie Lurie.

 Mommy giving some pointers to our catcher Hector Sanchez.

 Mommy and Bruce Bochy.  This is a great shot.

Grandma and papa came in last Thursday.  We were able to spend some great time together.  These weekend drive by trips go by way too quickly but we have many beautiful times ahead to look forward to.  We had a great dinner on Friday night and then grandma and papa had a date with Ella while Sunny and I had our own date – Zero Dark 30.  We’ll see you guys again in less than a month!  Can’t wait.  Here are a few pics.

 Walking down the street on Friday night.

 Ella and papa had a heated game of schmear!

Beautiful

 Totally silly!

We love and miss you guys.