Life With Ella

A continuation from last night’s Hawaii blog…

 Our amazing snorkeler.

 The beach in Poipu.  Ella re-connected with a friend from San Francisco.

 I took Ella out to see these incredible fish  Ella wasn’t thrilled in the ocean here.  It was a little rough.

Mommy and Ella in and out of the water at Tunnels.

 Fun on the beach!

 Ella took this shot of us.

 More turtle fun.

Ella on her first big snorkeling excursion.

 Ella and mommy getting reach to check things out.

 What a beautiful snorkeling team!

The next several pictures are ones that I took with the underwater mask camera.

 Pretty cool huh?  As soon as I get it together, I’m going to post movies of me swimming with a turtle and Sunny swimming in the center of a school of thousands of fish.

 Another round of mini-golf…this time with Phyllis and Michael and at night.  There were frogs jumping all over the course!

 Look closely and you can see the rainbow.

 Michael shielding the girls from the rainbow rain.

 Another rainbow!

 So sweet at Hanalei Bay!

We had a wonderful time in Hawaii.  We had 2 weeks of total rest & relaxation in paradise.  We went to the beach, snorkeled, swam with turtles, swam in the pool, went to Hanalei Bay, played mini golf, kayaked, ate Bubba Burgers, hung out with friends and family and just had a fantastic time.  There are a lot of pictures to post so I’ll do a little narrative as we go along.

 This shot was taken about 4 hours after out plane landed.  We were ready for the pool!

 Aloha!

 Ella was having an olympic boogie board race with a friend in the pool.

 Miniature golf in Kauai.  It was a beautiful mini-golf course in a botanical garden.  This was Ella’s first time playing mini-golf and she loved it.

 Sweet family shot before dinner one night.

 Building a sand castle on Hanalei Bay.

 Our little mermaid with adult teeth coming in!

 This is a place called Lydgate Park where a man made lagoon was built.  You can see the waves crashing on the rocks.  There are some amazing fish in the lagoon and Ella was able to comfortably snorkel and see lots of fish.

 Beautiful child.

 Out one night for some shave ice.

 Here we are on our kayaking adventure.  We made it 2 miles this time!  It was much easier than last year and Ella even rowed a little bit.

We had a great dinner at the Hanalei Dolphin with Auntie Pie, Michael and Grandma Alice.  Phyllis and Michael were in Kauai for 2 weeks and grandma Alice was there for a week.  It was great to get to spend some time together.

Here are some great shots of Ella feeding the koi, hanging out on the beach, walking around Hanalei and just being beautiful Ella.

 Ella did a lit of snorkel practicing in the pool.

OK – I’m getting a little tired and have a lot more pictures to post.  Stay tuned for Hawaii 2012 Part 2 tomorrow.

I can’t believe our summer trip to the east coast is over. We had an amazing time. We are so thrilled that we were able to spend so much time with grandma, papa, AJ and Milo. It was also fantastic catching up with all of our friends and family. If we did not see you this time, we’ll see you next time. I have so many pictures to post so I am just going to start posting away.

One of our first nights here and Ella is doing a favorite activity…catching fireflies!

 We had a sleep over at AJ and Milo’s house.  Here is Ella reading a good night story to Milo.We were so happy that we were able to spend Twyla’s 2nd birthday with her.

Here are some great group shots.  Ella was rocking out on the drums.

 That’s right…Twyla turned 2!

 Milo and Ella had a lot of fun at the party.

 Beautiful shot of KK and Twyla.

 Sisters and cousins in red, white and blue.

Ella spent a good part of this trip in the pool.  She’s a little fish.

 A beautiful shot of papa, Ella, Milo and grandma at Dante’s.

 Ella and grandma playing the ladybug game.  Grandma one twice and Ella won once.

  We went to Gar’s 90th birthday party.  Ella and Milo really loved the cookies.  AJ sang and song for Gar and it was beautiful.

 Here is Ella, AJ and Milo heading to Central Park to Victoria Gardens.  It was a super hot day but the kids had a blast.

 What a fun day at Victoria Gardens!

 After dinner one night, there was some excitement on the street.

 Ella and papa taking a lovely stroll in the Village.

 What a beautiful picture of grandma, Ella and papa.  We were having dinner at Kiku.

 Our chef was really funny and we all got a kick out of him.

 On the morning of Milo’s birthday, Ella was sitting in mommy’s lap at the kitchen table and all of a sudden…one of her front teeth came out!  It wasn’t the one that has been wiggly for the past month, it was the other one.

 On our way to the Empire State Building for Milo’s birthday.  The next several pictures are either at the Empire State Building or on the Double Decker bus that we all took downtown after our visit to the Empire State Building.  We all had a fantastic time and we were so happy that Mommy was able to come in for a long weekend and be with us.

 Milo planned one amazing day for all of us!

 Milo’s cousin Vaughn and his new love affair with salami.  (Vaughn’s mom is a vegetarian).

 Happy Birthday beautiful Milo.

 Float night at the Leonia Swim Club.

 Ella and Milo in front of St. John the Divine.  We were on our way to meet Sarah, Pato, Jennie, David and Tess in the park.  The park was a lot of fun and had 2 peacocks roaming around.  Ella loved it and took some great shots.

 Ella was so happy about the peacocks.

 Ella took these 3 pictures!  She’s getting to be quite a little photographer.

 Ella in the park with Tess…(notice Milo in the background kicking around the soccer ball).

 Here we are at the Liberty Science Center.  Milo tried out his first 3-D movie and made it through about 2 minutes.  Baby steps… the next several pictures are of our fun time at the Liberty Science Center.  I am on a blog deadline – have to wake up at 5:00 am and it’s now 11:00!

 The outdoor section was a huge hit.  I have lots of video of Ella jumping that I will put in a little video when I get back to SF.

 Ella looking a little sneaky here.

 I love these 2 shots of Ella waiting on line for the diving board.  She was hanging with the big boys.

 Ella doing one of her amazing dives.  Again, there will be a lot of video with Ella diving.

 AJ and Milo the sweet pirate.

 Hip hop cousins.

 Ella and Papa at the River Palm.

 We are watching the greatest love affair happen.  Grandma, Papa, Ella and Milo.  The love is so beautiful and it makes me so happy to watch everyone grow up together.  We had such a fantastic time and we love you very much.

This has been a very full 36 hours!  I am pretty tired so I’m just going to post a bunch of pictures.  We leave in the morning to head back east and we are very excited to see our beautiful family.  Mommy – we will miss you so much and we love you so much, but we’re so happy you are going to come to us in about 10 days.  First, the pictures from Rock Land Band Camp…

 This is just a shot of Ella practicing her dribble.  She’s really been in to basketball lately.

 This poster is something that Ella made to announce her concert.  She taped it onto our front door.

 Ella shooting hoops in her sparkly dress.

 We all had a rocking’ great time at the show.  The kids were so great and so happy.

 Papa and Ella back in the building.

 Papa has some bonding time with his fur grandson Panda.  Panda really loves papa.

 We had a blast at the game, but the Giants didn’t have so much fun.  We’re still in first place.

 Ella had a blast at Marlowe’s skating party.  She flew on the ice.  Ella has a lot of confidence when she skates.  Too bad it’s such and expensive hobby.

Here’s a video of Ella skating…

Today, we marched with some families from Ella’s school in the Pride parade.  It was a sweet, fun, festive day full of love.  When we were leaving to go to the parade, Sunny asked Ella if she knew what the parade was all about.  Ella said, “It’s about pride”.  Sunny asked if she thought it was about anything else and Ella said, “Peace and love”.  Ella has it right!  We had to wait a really long time to march and some of the kids couldn’t handle it so they left with their parents.  Ella and a few others hung in there and were amazing.  At one point, Ella was walking down Market Street, right along the divider and was giving high fives to the crowd.  She has such amazing confidence and loves to have fun.

Getting ready to catch the train for the parade.

 Arriving at the parade.

 HOoking up with friends.  Ella immediately took a hold of the banner.

 Fantastic kids.

 Love makes a family

 Yay Children’s Day School!

 Ella and Julietta.

 Ella giving high fives to the crowd.

Maybe it was the pink-eye, maybe Ella got super busy, maybe I have a lot of things to do, but I will not be such a blog slacker.  Here are some pictures of the lambs that Ella is learning about during lamb camp this week.  Ella said that it was fun but that she was expecting to learn how to train the lambs.  I’m not sure what she was planning on training them… the does get to walk them on a leash, brush them, feed them and clean their hooves.   Ella has been having a lot of fun at camp playing with friends, both old and new.  The first 3 days had amazing weather and now the weather is freezing!  Time to go back east for a real summer.  The Kim/Arenas come home from NY and the Caribbean tonight and we are going to have Friday night movie night as scheduled.  Ella can’t wait for her next door family to be home.  Me too!  Sunny is almost finished with her second week of work.  It’s been challenging, but she is slowly getting into a good groove.  Tonight we all had dinner with Kristen and Emmi to celebrate Ella and Emmi’s kindergarten graduation.

 Ella’s first day at lamb camp in a very empty redwood room!

 Here are the sweet new lambs.  They are like puppies.

Crazy Ella after having some Rocky Road Ice Cream.  Check out her crazy shark tooth in the front.

 Shooting hoops at camp.

 Ella and Emmi at Benihana.  They had such a great time together.

Sunny and I have been a little under the weather – I am getting over pink eye and Sunny has some respiratory infection.  Because of this, we didn’t do anything wild over the beautiful weekend.  On Friday, before I saw the eye doctor, I took Ella to Pier 39 at her request.  Ella bungee jumped, we had a little lunch and then we went to the aquarium.  Ella was most excited about touching the rays.  She was also mesmerized by the octopus.  We all stayed home and watched TV on Friday night.  My eyes were killing me, Sunny was zonked out and Ella is always happy to relax and watch TV.   On Saturday, it was a beautiful day.  We decided to take a walk to mission creek where they were having a kid’s event.  It was a kite making/flying day.  I hung back in the park with Panda while Ella and Sunny made a kite.  Not only did they make a beautiful kite, they actually flew it!  It was really cool.  I’ll download the video another time.  Later in the day, we met up with Becca and Ru and all the dogs for some brunch.  We did a lot of walking with the dogs and by the time we got to the dog run, the dogs all wanted to lay down under the bench.  We finally got home and had a great dinner and just chilled.  We watched the Giants game hoping it would be a good one but it wasn’t.  On Sunday, we woke up, all feeling a little better but not perfect and decided to go to Golden Gate Park.  It was beautiful there but it was cold and windy.  We were going to do a paddle boat but it was too cold.  Instead, we fed giant koi fish challah from Friday night.  We came home, watched the game, played a few board games, played the Wii and had a perfectly sweet, easy, lazy mellow weekend.

One more thing before I post the pics.  A few weeks ago, Ella told me that she knew the best present for Sunny for her birthday.  I asked her what it was and she said, “Matt Cain is mommy’s favorite player so let’s get her an autographed Matt Cain ball.”  I thought that was a terrific idea so I did.  I also thought it was so incredible that Ella was actually thinking about Sunny – listening to the things that are her favorite things.  Ella give it to her on her birthday and Sunny was so out of her mind happy.  That night, during dinner, we were all following our phones at the table.  We were watching Matt Cain be on his way of pitching a perfect game.  That’s exactly what happened  that night.  It was a perfect night (Sunny’s birthday) with a perfect gift and a perfect amount of love and then Matt Cain pitched the perfect one!  Brilliant.

Now for the pics.

Ella loves this thing.  She’s not quite fready to flip,

Ella and her amazing kite.  It caught some air and flew!

 Road dogs in the back seat.  We went to Golden Gate Park today and walked around Lake Stow.It was pretty cold but really sweet to be outside.  We had a treally sweet today and if we were all feeling better I bet it would have been an amazing weekend.  Goodnight!

Happy Father’s day Dad.  I love you