Friday, July 29, 2016

April 2016

Well look at that! It’s July already. Almost August. The truth is, aside from being busy, I don’t blog much anymore because my blogging program is not very good. I used to use Windows LiveWriter, a decent program but not great. At some point Microsoft decided to stop servicing and updating LiveWriter. Noot quite a year ago, Blogger, the blogging platform that I use, stopped allowing uploads from LiveWriter. Blogger code changed and was no longer compatible with LiveWriter, so if I wrote a post in LiveWriter, it would not upload at all. Before that, I stopped being able to post videos and had to edit the html code so I could post videos from Youtube. Anyway, a bunch of people decided they really wanted to keep LiveWriter going, so they wrote a program called Open LiveWriter, which is open source (meaning it is not managed by any company and anyone can edit it) and available for free on the internet. It is pretty much the same thing, but it crashes a lot and is very slow, and often when I manage to finish writing a post, fails to upload the first three or four times I try. So that is why I don’t write very much. It’s just a pain.

So what did we do in April? We went to the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles and visited every room. I liked the quietness of the diorama room. We went upstairs and it was like a maze. We stayed until after the millions of school children left and got to see all the dinosaurs in relative peace. The next day we visited Jen and her kids and had a blast! I am just going to post all the photos and hope they are all self-explanatory.

DSC00312 DSC00313DSC00314 DSC00315DSC00316 DSC00317DSC00318 DSC00320DSC00323 DSC00322DSC00324 DSC00326DSC00325 DSC00327DSC00328 DSC00321DSC00329 DSC00319

20160403_081650 20160403_08191620160403_082032 20160403_08203720160403_082043 20160403_082049

We went for a little hike to see a nesting owl. It was really neat! And Jen introduced me to Trader Joe’s pizza dough. We never get delivery anymore, I just make the pizza at home. We ate a lot of pizza in the spring.

DSC00330 DSC00331DSC00332 DSC00333DSC00334 DSC00335DSC00336 DSC00337DSC00339 DSC00341DSC00342 DSC00343DSC00344 DSC00345DSC00346 DSC00347DSC00348

Fiona wrote some notes:

20160403_160019 20160403_16003520160405_173537 20160405_17354220160409_165127 20160409_165136

20160411_124434 20160411_124435 

20160411_133635

20160413_155234 20160413_15523620160426_074353 20160426_074357 20160427_07441420160429_140029 20160429_140031DSC00349 DSC00350

DSC00352 DSC00353DSC00354 DSC00355DSC00356 DSC00357DSC00358 DSC00359DSC00360 DSC00361

We spent a lot of time outside and Fiona mastered climbing all the trees she could in the backyard:

DSC00362 DSC00363DSC00364 DSC00365DSC00366

Victoria tried to emulate Fiona by attempting to climb the lemon tree:

20160411_123953 20160411_124003

 DSC00367 DSC00368 DSC00369 DSC00370 DSC00371

DSC00372 DSC00373

There is a story here. Fiona’s doll was not feeling well and she was trying to rest, so Fiona put this sign on her door so no one would distrurb her:DSC00374 

It actally rained:

DSC00376 DSC00377DSC00379

DSC00381 DSC00382 DSC00383 DSC00384 DSC00385 DSC00386 DSC00415 DSC00416 DSC00417 DSC00418 DSC00419 DSC00420 DSC00421 DSC00422 DSC00423 

DSC00426 DSC00428DSC00429

DSC00430 DSC00431 DSC00432 DSC00433 DSC00434

At the end of the month, Jen, Elliot, and Calliope came to visit us. We went on the Botanical Gardens hike and all the wildflowers were in bloom! We saw Morris people dancing and had a great time!

DSC00435 DSC00436DSC00437 DSC00438DSC00439 DSC00440DSC00441 DSC00442DSC00443 DSC00444DSC00445 DSC00446DSC00447 DSC00448DSC00449 DSC00450DSC00451 DSC00452DSC00453 DSC00454DSC00455 DSC00456DSC00457

DSC00458 DSC00459 DSC00460 DSC00461 DSC00462 DSC00463 DSC00464 DSC00465 DSC00466 DSC00467 DSC00468 DSC00469 DSC00470 DSC00471 DSC00472 DSC00473 DSC00474 DSC00475 DSC00476 DSC00477 DSC00478 DSC00479 DSC00480 DSC00481 DSC00482 DSC00483 DSC00484 DSC00485 DSC00486 

DSC00487 DSC00488DSC00489 DSC00490DSC00491 DSC00492DSC00493 DSC00494DSC00495 DSC00496

The next day, we went blueberry picking. We picked several pounds of blueberries. My intention was to make tarts with some of them, but we ate them all within a week. Maybe next year.

DSC00497 DSC00498DSC00499 DSC00500DSC00501

DSC00502 DSC00504DSC00507 DSC00507 DSC00508

DSC00505 DSC00506

As an current update, Victoria says lots of words including “Mommy”, “Daddy”, “Seesee” (sister), “Puppy”, “Kittie”, lots of animal sounds, and whatever else she was saying before. And lots of “What’s that?” She “reads” books and does the motions or makes the sounds at each page, specially “Mr. Brown Can Moo” and “From Head to Toe”. Fiona helps her with her shoes a lot, but she also puts them on herself, and always reminds us to put her hat on her whenever she is outside. She also loves to put on Fiona’s flipflops for some reason, much more than anyone else’s shoes. She can do some simple puzzles and puts things away where she found them. She is very good at following directions, even if she runs away a lot and gets into everything. She makes a mess, but she very willingly helps clean it up. She is unbelievably cute. She finished getting her canines in June and is taking a break before those second molars come in. Both girls bring so much joy into our lives.

Hopefully I’ll get May and June up soon. Happy Summer!

No comments:

Post a Comment