Life With Ella

Grandma and Papa arrived on Thursday night and we loved every minute of having them here!  As usual, we didn’t want the weekend to end.  Grandma and Papa got to see Ella play soccer (the Black Widows are still undefeated), we hung around and had fun, grandma and Ella took a great 4 mile walk today, we saw Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs Part 2 and mommy and papa played golf!  On Saturday night, Sunny and I went to see the Carole King show Beautiful.  It was great.  Thanks grandma and papa for the date night!  We love you guys and can’t wait for Thanksgiving.

Ella teaching grandma the Cups song.

 Cool sculpture downtown by Roy’s where we had a great dinner.

Love on the soccer field!

 Having too much fun.

 A little more serious.

 Best cheerleader for the Black Widows.

 Happy papa – serious grandma.  Must have been a serious play going on.

 Cutest goalie in the world.

 Fun at the movies!

Sunny and I went to Ella’s back to school night this evening.  It was terrific!  Her teachers are terrific and I think that Ella is going to learn A LOT this year.  Here is a letter that we received from Ella when we sat down at her table spot…

 Ella is beautiful and has a lot of courage.

 Here’a a shot of a poster in the classroom.  ELla can recite and explain many parts of the brain.  She blows me away!

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.