Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Halloween-ify

Google photos is making sure that all of our photos are appropriately Halloween-y. Thanks TaTa for taking the photos and doing all the work. I have a much easier time with the silly than I do with the scary. The scary is SUPER SCARY.


Eeeeeeek!

 


Saturday, October 25, 2014

Opa is in Town!







Friday, October 24, 2014

Last Rose Garden of 2014









Ice Skating Adventure

Both kids + mama were very, very nervous. The last time I went skating I was 14-ish years old and was pretty darn bad at it. 


The kids, like life, attacked ice skating very differently. Vera played it safe and hooked herself to the wall or my hand as she circled the rink. She and I skate very similarly and we like circling at a nice and slow pace. Keller decided right away that he was going to be good, ignored advice that people tried to give him, and shuffled along at a surprisingly fast pace. He did well, right up to the point where his arms would windmill and he would crash on down. So glad we ended up with no emergency visits on this trip.



The little kids sat this one out. 



I would say a good 20% of my time was spent hoisting kids up.  Proud to say, this mama only went down once!


Friday, October 17, 2014

Elephant Encounter

Being a Santa Barbara Zoo member has added benefits in the month of October. They offered a free elephant encounter to the first 10 people who signed up in the morning. Score! All kids were very, very excited!


We got to wear VIP passes.


Little Mac was brought over to meet with us. She is a geriatric female elephant who is on a diet. :)


The man with the red shirt was adorable. He was probably in his late 60s and was thrilled to be at this encounter. He and his wife kept stating over and over that elephants were his favorite animals.


Keller feeding Little Mac celery.



Petting her!


Vera has decided that she is going to be an elephant keeper.


I was glad that Gus ended up feeding her, because when we first walked into the enclosure he was one nervous little boy.


Vera took this awesome photo! See how calm I look petting that gorgeous elephant. Uhmmm...my visions of this relaxing and cool experience lasted about 10 minutes. At about the 10 minute point, Gus decided that he was done seeing the elephants and instead would try to run up and down the ramp to the enclosure. I am sure the nice people in charge of these experiences are reconsidering an age limit. Pearl was content for about 20 minutes before all that she wanted to do was walk around the entire area. Of course, I had said that I would keep her in my arms. See my hair in that picture...that is sweat!!


Four kids by myself = no problem. ;)



Thursday, October 16, 2014

Diva


Tiger Shark - The Dude



I don't want to say I am stinking as a sideline parent this year, but I pretty much am. These are the only two shots I have gotten of Keller and I have none of Vera yet. What!?! We are already lugging so much gear around that grabbing the camera in addition seems like work. I will do better next weekend.

Keller loves the game, listed as his favorite alongside baseball. 
 


Nonni and Nonno Visit...

...such a nice visit at the beginning of October. Kind of silly that I am just now posting pictures. 


Nonno has some mad scientist hair going on in these pictures!


Dude, Gus, please smile for the camera. He is such a turkey butt sometimes. 


Nonno and his Pearly-Girl.


Granddaughter love!



Almost made it with all four grand-kids, Pearl was just not having it. 


Take a Walk

Pearl - October 4, 2014


Gus - 2012


Keller - 2009


Vera - 2006


Monday, October 13, 2014

Light Scoop

I completely forgot that at BlogHer '14, during a nursing break, I took Pearl around the expo. We had our our picture taken at the Light Scoop Booth. Their product is a bounce flash that you use with an SLR camera, to avoid the use of the dreaded direct flash washout. I just found our photos! These were taken in August and Pearly-Girl is adorable as usual. Can you tell that I am smitten with her?