It never rains in California, but...

For those of you on the East Coast and other parts cold in this world, I will preface these pictures taken last Sunday with the news that it is currently about 58 degrees (this is the temperature at which water freezes in California) and we have a forecast of rain for the next seven straight days. Whatever we will do?

Thanks Dr. R......

On Monday we made our quarterly trip up to L.A. to see Elizabeth's eye doctor. It was just about two years ago that she had eye surgery for her strabisumus (crossed eye). It is a bittersweet trip nowadays since the surgeon, whom I loved, Dr. Rosenbaum--passed away earlier this year.

But we definitely thought of him when his protege Dr. Velez said, "Elizabeth's eyes look great. They are straight and her vision is 20/25. We no longer have to patch her eye and it looks likely that she will not need to wear her glasses much longer. Unbelievable.

We follow up in three months and we will see how she is doing with the lower prescription. In terms of her vision right now she doesn't need glasses at all, but we are keeping the glasses for now to help keep the eye straight and strengthen the muscle. If all goes well, ""adios, glasses".

Then again, as my brother said--"don't be surprised if she doesn't want to ditch the glasses". Well, yeah--she loves her glasses. She has also gotten used to the "transition" lenses which turn into sunglasses when she is outside in the sun. She won't go out without them. I think we might have to get her sunny glasses without a prescription to keep her happy.

Let's hope so.

And thank you Dr. Rosenbaum--we're thinking of you.

Here is a pic of Elizabeth at Jules Stein Eye Institute--she has a blast there playing in the little playhouses they have.

Disneyland

Last week we headed over to Disneyland. I guess I couldn't avoid it any longer. Well, it wasn't as bad as I had been dreading--but I still don't get this "most magical place on earth" business. Long lines, shuttles to get to the park, fair amount of noise and crowds . Not my idea of Nirvana. But for little E I am willing to "stuff it" and pretend to enjoy it as much as I can.

Here are a few photos of us on the "teacups", Elizabeth's new favorite ride. And then of course she "had" to get her face painted.

And then there was the disapointment of not seeing any of the Princesses. Unless you want to wait at least an hour to see one of them--they's no where around. It seems that with budget issues, Disney has nixed a lot of the characters and princesses on the weekdays. Nice you pay a zillion dollars to get in and no Princesses! We did manage a sighting of Goofy. I guess he works cheap.

A few photos

Here she is peeking around the corner.



Here are a few shots of her with Marty on Hallween day when she wore her Minnie Mouse outfit down at Balboa Island. For some reason she is not too enamored of this outfit, but I happen to think it is really cute.

Lunch at the Bay Club

On a nice afternoon last week Elizabeth and we had a nice lunch with grandparents at one of Elizabeth's favorite "fancy restaurants". I saw a report on the news about how it is hard to keep young kids away from McDonald's. If things keep going as they are we are going to have to worry more about our wallets than about Elizabeth's bad choice in nutrition. She would much prefer the Four Seasons or The Pelican Hill resort to McDonald's. She needs a place to wear her couture, of course.

Halloween Then...and Now

So here you see the girls, Elizabeth, Kaila, Maria and Megan last Halloween over at the Halloween contest at University Center..and then you see the this year, 2010.

I'd be lying if I didn't tell you that seeing the difference in the girls got me more than a bit teary eyed. It seems in one year they girls have gone from being toddlers with lots of baby like characteristics to being little girls already.

Yes, next year I will probably say the same thing, but somehow in the newest photos I can really see the girls as they get older. As I told the other moms already, I can picture them hanging out up in L.A. together at sixteen. Kaila will be the first to get her license, so Jan and Gary--hold off on getting her that car. Ay carumba.

Halloween 2009


Halloween 2010

Trick or Treat

Halloween was lots of fun for Elizabeth this year. I think it may fast become her "favorite" holiday.

This year, we realized that our neighborhood was pretty darn boring on Halloween and our friends Patty and Ed were kind enough to invite us to their house for some Halloween fun. I am not sure if Elizabeth was more thrilled with the idea of going to Maria's house for dinner or trick or treating itself. Needless to say she had a great time. She especially liked opening the door to the trick or treaters--of whom there were many!











And, Elizabeth also had a Halloween "parade" at school. It was really cute to see all the kids dressed in their costumes. Interestingly there were about 6 or 7 Snow Whites in her classroom alone--maybe a dozen in the school. She's popular this year.