Life With Ella

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.