Griffith Observatory

We've been spending quite a bit of time at the Griffith Observatory. It's free and the kids love it there. The kids also learn quite a bit about the solar system and planets. They are not so into stars, maybe because we rarely see stars in the LA sky, but the moon is the best thing since M-n-Ms. Jack even attended his first planetarium show today and learned about the potential for life on other planets. The planetarium scared Sadie, so we missed the show, but I hear that Europa is our best bet for extraterrestrial life in our solar system.

Cousin Ross

Sadie and Jack's cousin Ross and his girlfriend Sarah came to stay with us recently. The kids love house guests and were thrilled to have Ross and Sarah here. Sarah was brave enough to show Sadie how to use her camera, which resulted in Sadie running around with the camera lens glued to her face screaming "Do you see me?" Sadie is nothing if not a ham.

Zoo Pics

Our babysitter just emailed me these photos from when she took the kids to the zoo last weekend.

Catch up

I've been delinquent in posting. 2011 has proven to be a very busy year. That smidgen of free time I used to have seems to have evaporated. So this post is a catch up. J. is in Austin this weekend at a film festival, so I've been flying solo with the kids. It has not been the easiest weekend, but the kids are asleep and J. comes home tomorrow so I think that I can safely say that we have fared okay. We had a lovely dinner this evening with our friends Troy and Siri at our favorite Salvadoran restaurant. The kids LOVE pupusas. This was the their second dinner of pupusas this week, but what the heck, enjoy it while they can.

I had to work yesterday, so the kids were with a babysitter who took them to the zoo. They saw lots of animals, but oddly they only wanted to talk about flamingos and how there was no turtle. Go figure.

We stood in line for an hour this morning at a fruit tree give away (I'm a sucker for anything free). Another little girl in line showed the kids roly-poly bugs and they were completely entranced. They insisted on picking up the largest roly-poly bug I've ever seen. Despite the gross-out factor I was grateful for their new insect friends. Sadly most of the trees were gone by the time we made it through the line, but we did get a cutting from a fig tree and some tomato seedlings.

So that's what's been happening around here, nothing too exciting, but we do seem to be emerging from the cold winter days into a lovely spring with the potential for lots of new adventures.