It now feels like I'm catching up as this didn't seem too long ago! We had another great summer and fall in Los Angeles, so here's another photo dump for readers to enjoy.
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| There always seems to be a child in our bed. There were all four this time. |
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| Dog pile on Daddy. |
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| They do like hanging out in the same places, even if it always ends in fights. |
Our ward in Los Angeles has a tradition of weekly BBQ's at the ball park right behind the temple. It was so fun to see everyone in this setting and helped us make friends fast in the ward. The last BBQ had water games for the children. I snapped photos of the kids (mostly Noah) enjoying his time there.
Noah got a haircut from Sam and looks super different with it so short!
Sam and I have been wanting to go to the Hollywood Bowl and scanned the concerts for the season. We couldn't choose between Tchaikovsky Spectacular or John Williams, so we did both. The first one we attended was Tchaikovsky. They had Joshua Bell play the Tchaikovsky violin concerto, which was a treat! Although I have to say Hilary Hahn ruined every other violinist for me. Then they played the 1812 Overture, with the USC marching band there to boost the brass and, wait for it, synchronized fireworks! It felt like Disneyland to me, I had tears in my eyes. The LA Philharmonic, *chef's kiss*.
As for the Hollywood Bowl itself, it is such a cool venue! To avoid the insane parking situation, we took one of the many shuttles to get there and I'm so glad we did! They had restaurants and you can pack your own food in. We brought snacks from the 99 Store. They also projected everything on huge screens so you can see Joshua Bell dance and sweat glisten on stage. Five Stars, would recommend this experience.
The boys started another year! Joseph was in one of two 4th grade classes, so a lot of the people he knew last year were still in his class. Elijah got to stay with his best friend from Kinder and made more good friends since. I think their faces in these photos reflect how they felt about returning to school pretty well:
Our family always likes it when Sam is in a pizza making mood. He's really gotten the dough down.
The boys had their school pictures taken and when I saw Joseph's I burst out laughing. He sure didn't leave the house with that hair. He said he fixed it in the bathroom. And he said he didn't know how to smile well.
I made Joseph do picture retakes, as cute as his previous photo was. So here are the final prints (to fix Joseph's smile I told him to think of farting chihuahuas - it worked!):
For cub scouts Elijah was invited to go camping at the Santa Barbara Zoo. I'm kicking myself for leaving all our camping gear in Texas. My thought was "we'll never have time for camping!" Whelp, we ordered this tent on Amazon and the kids really liked it.
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| Eden wearing one of my old dresses. |
Hollywood Bowl, take 2! It was very similar to last time: we took a shuttle, sat in a similar section, and were dazzled by the concert put on. This time it was John Williams himself conducting his music with the LA Philharmonic. We really felt we needed to come to this concert as John Williams is really getting up there in age and we probably would never have the opportunity again. Getting a babysitter was a little tricky but we managed to snag one just in time. We got down there in time to get some dinner. I can't remember exactly what I got, but Sam got a BBQ pulled pork sandwich with coleslaw. It was super pricy, but we did it for the experience. Then it was showtime!
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| A night at the movies! |
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| Hollywood Bowl, baby! |
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| Ready for some magic! |
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| The legend himself! |
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| The best part of the night. |
The concert started off with a movie screen put down and the LA Phil playing a medley of famous movie music ranging through the years with scenes from those movies playing above them. Then they played a Bugs Bunny cartoon overhead while the orchestra dubbed over it. After thoroughly enjoying the show, John Williams himself came out to conduct. John Williams was still very with it and had excellent stamina even at 90! We had an idea of what would be played, but it ended up being way more. He played Harry Potter, Fiddler on the Roof, Lincoln, Schindler's List (I got super excited on that one thinking they probably wouldn't play it), Star Wars, and Indiana Jones. He is still composing new music today and gave us a sneak listen to the music for the up and coming Indiana Jones movie. The concert mistress did an excellent job on both Fiddler on the Roof and Schindler's List. What a stud! For Harry Potter John Williams just skipped one of the pieces all together, going straight to Schindler's list (and keeping the orchestra on their toes) only to realize what he did and conducted Harry's Wondrous World later. The coolest part had to be when they played Star Wars and everyone lit their light sabers up and bob them to the beat. It was like the coolest rave I've been too, ha ha! Then the encores. There had to be at least three bonus pieces and people just kept clapping hoping for some more. Eventually John Williams came out the last time to signal that he needed to go to bed. Overall an amazing experience we will always cherish.
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| Eli's new Cub Scout uniform! It only cost an arm and a leg 🙄 |
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| What we did for Labor Day! |
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| Happy Camper. |
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Pretty impressed with Eden's score until I remembered
Sam and I bowled for her in the end when she was done. |
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| Eden started preschool! |
Eden will be starting Kindergarten when we get back to Texas, so naturally we had to get her into preschool. When we first moved to California Palms Park preschool was mentioned to us by one of the bishopric members, saying it was a really good price but hard to get into. There was also a preschool that a couple moms in the ward sent their kids to, although I never caught the name. When I signed her up (and got her onto the waiting list) I got to tour Palms Park preschool, turns out it was the preschool everyone in the ward went to! Which makes sense now that I think about it since it was a member of the ward who told me about it. Well, she had her first day in October. I was unsure how she would like it as she can be very shy. And she was, but she was excited nonetheless with the playground and being able to bring her toys from home.
(I do have to say that she had an accident the first day, but luckily it was a fluke and not a reoccurring thing.) Here are the photos from the first few weeks of preschool:
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| When Eden was asked what she wanted to be when she grew up she said "dragon!" |
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| Candid shot of Sam by Joseph |
A belated welcome happy hour to the new retina fellows at UCLA at Dr. Krieger's house:
Our family was asked to sing for the primary program. If you heard our kids sing I was surprised we were asked...but it turned out great! We sang, "When He Comes Again" and I played the cello while the kids sang. We told the boys to stand away from the mics ahead of time, but the day of they sang right into them. The result? Pure chaotic cuteness. Sam invited one of his co-fellows to the primary program and snatched a video of the performance. Thanks Jiwei!
I was lucky to see Nicole not just in Utah, but in in Los Angeles too! Her husband had a conference nearby and we got to hang out at the beach together. These two together were so adorable! They spent the time on the beach giggling at a puppy nearby, sort of touching the edge of the waves, and playing in the sand. They also gave us dinner! It was so nice of them! Enjoy the pictures Nicole snapped as I am terrible at remembering to take pictures!
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| Calvin and Hobbs |
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| I bet these two would be best friends if they lived closer. |
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A trip to the temple grounds and visitor center for activity days.
Eli ended up joining all the activities for that year despite not being old enough until next year. |
Sam went to Chicago again, this time to attend the annual American Academy of Ophthalmology (AAO) meeting where he and his co-fellow Nick Iafe were asked to serve as floor managers during the Retina Subspecialty Day meeting. He didn't get many photos of his time there (which was mainly spent listening to talks), but he did mention how good the food was!
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| Fancy Asian meal |
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| The small hostel-like room that Sam's co-fellow reserved for them |
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| Having dinner at Mastro's Steakhouse with all the Stein Eye Institute retina alumni - a night to remember! |
Something new happened to us this fall...our frogs got a little busy! Bumblebee found Sunny super attractive and they did it...three times! It lead to a total of 14 tadpoles! Here are the proud parents (and Archer just chillin'):
As we were caught unaware, we quickly had to gather all the supplies, especially since these tadpoles are known to be cannibalistic if hosted together. We had to find room for fourteen deli cups filled with "tadpole tea" that a certain toddler could not reach. They weren't so hard to take care of when everything was set up.
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| Getting ready to come out soon! |
Hanging out at the park during Elijah's kung fu. Look at that sweet moogie!
If you are reading this part, thanks for getting all the way to the end. It's hard to play catch up!
