Sam & Ella: shiny happy babies having fun

I'm in charge of the morning shift, and I've noticed over the course of the past week that the kids are downright happy & cute in the morning. Check out this video I shot the other day. It's a bit long, and might take a while to download, but if you need to fill up on cuteness, this video will definitely overflow the tank.

Getting some culture

There is this great program in the Phoenix area called the Culture Pass. Available through the library system, it lets anyone with a library card check out a free pass (when available) to one of about 15 local museums. Availability is limited, and the most popular venues (e.g. the zoo) can be almost impossible to get, but I've been able to snag several passes for places I want to visit, and I take the kids along as an outing. I know that at this age, they could care less whether they are in the art museum, the botanical garden, the science museum, or our living room. To them, these trips are a ride in a car, some sun, a somewhat bumpy stroller ride, a bottle, and another car ride. But to me, it's a chance to get out of the house and see something interesting while pushing the stroller and lulling the kids to sleep. Last week we went to the Phoenix art museum. It's a good sized museum and we only made it through about half of it. We started with an Ansel Adams exhibit which was excellent. That guy could take a really nice picture. Really, really nice. Then we strolled outside through the sculpture garden so the kids could fuss while I prepped their bottles, and not disturb too many people. They ate, I shot some pictures, and then it was back inside to the modern & contemporary wing of the museum. It's a decent size, just about the right amount to not be overwhelming, but I wasn't overly impressed by most of the works. My initial reaction upon walking into one of the galleries was, "Okay, so contemporary art has to be BIG, but not particularly technical, or visually appealing, or good for that matter." I'm sure the curator would disagree with me, and I did find a couple pieces that weren't just huge, but at least in that first gallery, they were few and far between. I enjoyed the upstairs gallery a bit more, as there were several pieces I really liked. One in particular, a piece called, "You Who are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies " by Yayoi Kusama I would love to take the kids back to see when they are 2-3 years old. It consists of a dark room with mirrorred walls creating a feeling of infinite space. Dangling from the ceiling are lots of wires tipped with color-changing LED lights which turn on and off and change colors while you stand amongst them. It's a dazzling effect, and the only problem is that with mirrors on the walls and a very dark room, it's hard to find the way out (especially when pushing a double length stroller!). I also liked a big installation by Peter Wegner ("Guillotine of Sunlight, Guillotine of Shade), and a smaller painting by David Hockney.

The art museum was last week's trip, and it was very successful. Yesterday we tried to go to the science museum, but that was much less successful. Five minutes after entering, Ella got extremely fussy, and despite trying to feed her, trying to hold & comfort her, and changing her diaper, nothing would calm her down, and we had to leave. That might not bode well for her future science career, but I'm not worried about it. At least she settled down to a slumber while walking the long way back to the car.

Tucson Visitors

Our good friends and former neighbors in Chile, Chris & Rikki & their son Jack came to visit Arizona this past weekend. They were all down in Tucson, where lots of our other friends and former neighbors in Chile live, so we packed up Sam & Ella and headed down there on Saturday afternoon for a party, poker game, and overnight slumber party. It was lots of fun, and great to have so many old friends together again. After the party/poker game at Simon & Nancy's house, all us out-of-towners headed to Greg & Ilene's for the night. We woke up Sunday and had a scrumptious breakfast on their roof.

Since it was pretty bright up there, and hard to get the kids in the picture, we posed for the group shot at the top of this page in Greg & Ilene's "Arizona room," another of the many very nice features of their house.  Full from breakfast and with the sun high in the sky, we then piled into two cars for the drive back to Scottsdale.  Chris, Rikki, & Jack all stayed in our guest bedroom, and Jack was treated to his first poffertjes breakfast on monday morning.  Judging from the post-meal smiles, I think he liked them: 

Jack is super-cute, but I know that pictures of him are not why people tune into this blog, and by now many of you will be complaining that the pictures of Sam & Ella are too small & far away to really see them.  So to sate your desires for a little while at least, here they are:

More Bris Pics

Bris and Baby Naming

About ten days after they were born, Ella and Sam had their debut at their bris and baby naming. Oma and Opa (Marcel's parents) and Nana and Zayde (Jaime's parents) as well as Uncles Mike, George and Allen and Aunt Lauren were all there to help welcome them, along with about 250 members of their new community.
As most of you know, a bris (brit milah) is a circumcision ceremony for boys. This can be a very scary experience for the parents but luckily we had a great mohel (pronounced moy'l) who dosed Sam up with some heavy penis numbing drugs so that he didn't feel a thing. Ella had her own covenant ceremony too, a welcoming ceremony with water. Aunt Lauren, Uncle George and Uncle Mike all washed little Ella's hands and feet just like our ancestors Abraham and Sarah did to welcome their special guests.
After the ceremony (which was beautifully conducted by rabbis Kahn and Keller) we ate some seriously yummy grub. Besides for the bagels, tuna and egg salad, fruit salad and other yummy brunch stuff, we were also treated to two special brews made by Daddy -- Ella's IPA and Sam's Milk Stout -- and several gallons of freshly squeezed orange juice, grapefruit juice and lemonade from our garden. There were also some seriously delicious deserts. So all in all the day was fabulous.

Road Trip!

 

Happy Monday Y'all.  We are preparing for an upcoming 2.5 week long road trip to southern and central california, which will start this upcoming sunday.  That's an ambitious first trip, so this past friday we decided to do a test run, with an overnight trip to Tucson on Saturday/Sunday.  On short notice we called up our friends Dara & Knut, who offered to host a barbecue for us, and Greg & Ilene, who offered to put us all up for the night, and packing was begun.  I didn't get enough sleep on friday night as I tried to get some lingering work done (paying off old bills, sorting through insurance claims, that sort of thing),  but we did manage to get everything packed up pretty much on time, got the kids fed at 1pm, and got onto the road at 2:06, almost making my 2pm goal departure.   Then as we were driving down, I remembered that Dara & Knut live about 30 minutes further than Greg & Ilene, so that rather than arriving just before the next meal time, we would be ~20 minutes late.  True to expectations halfway across tucson, and 20 minutes away from our destination, the loud screaming kicked in from the back seat.  A meal was needed.  Now.  Really, NOW.  So we pulled over on the side of the road, got the bottle out of the cooler, and gave the kids a snack to tide them over.  Lesson learned: make sure you have a good place to stop just before the next expected feeding time, not ten minutes later.  

The barbecue at D&K's was great, with lots of old friends who used to live in Chile, but now live in Tucson, in attendance.  We had delicious food, showed off our deliciously cute children, and only had to unpack half the car to get all the baby feeding & diapering accoutrement into the house.  Around 9:30, just before the 10pm feed, we repacked the car, drove over to Greg & Ilene's, and started prepping for the next meal (I used to think my old life & travel was all about food, but I had no idea...).

And then we realized that we left half the feeding stuff at Dara & Knut's, half an hour (each way) away.  No way we were going back saturday night, so we made do with what we had for the evening.  Lesson learned number two:  double and triple check the packing any time we leave from one place headed to another.   I was exhausted by midnight, and was up to help jaime with the 1am feeding, which we both did in a daze.  At 4am, the daze was even deeper, but luckily the kids didn't fuss much as they ate.  By 7am, I was mostly sleep recovered, and actually woke up a couple minutes before the kids, or the alarm.  I went to grab the car seats to try out the simultaneous feed ability of those (at home we use their boppy bouncy chairs, but I don't want to schlep them to Cali).  It worked out well, and jaime was able to sleep while I fed them.  Back to sleep at 7:30  until 9am, and then started to pack everything up again.  Dara found the stuff we had left at our house and was kind enough to drive half way into town, meeting us in the middle, so that we had a hope of making it back to phoenix in time for the next feed.  Always fitting things in before the next feed, or at least trying to.  We had some serious rain squalls during the ride home, but made it home within five minutes of baby hunger explosions, and our first road trip was completed.  Quite successful I think, and now we have fewer trepidations about the upcoming mega-trip.  California, here we come!

Oh, the picture.  This trip was the first time for most of our Tucson friends to meet Ella & Sam, and they were passed around and cuddled by many a person.  The picture above is Tyra, almost five years old and to whom I am the godfather, holding little Ella in her lap.  Check out Tyra's cool blue fingernails.

playing & sleeping

 

Wednesday's morning shopping trip was to Home Depot.  Thursday I was more aggresive with my to-do list, and I had planned to go Fry's (a big grocery store, for dry goods and other stuff), then the bank, the gas station, the auto body shop (we had a crack in the windshield), Sprouts (another grocery store, for produce & meat), and finally our friend Mike's place to return a casserole dish.  And I hoped to do this all in the 2.5 hours between when the 7:30 am feeding finished and the 10:30 am feeding starts.  Well, I made it through the first four items on the list and it was 10:15, and I was in the Sprouts parking lot waffling about whether to go in or not, because it shouldn't take me too long to run through and get all my salad & barbecue stuff, but also because the happily sleeping kids could wake up and melt down at any moment (as Ella, especially, is wont to do at 3:01 after the previous meal).  I had pretty much decided to chance it when Jaime called and said come home now, someone is coming over to bring us that night's dinner and the kids need to be there to say thanks (in the form of cooing, farting, and generally looking adorable).   So I drove home and it was the better decision as two minutes in the door Ella woke up and explained quite loudly that she was ready for her meal.   Note & re-note to self:  don't push it... these kids will want to eat every three hours (still).   Anyway, this is all just a ramble and an excuse to post a cute picture of the kids in their new rainforest playgym thingy since I sent out word of this blog on wednesday and then promptly failed to post any updates until now, saturday (too) early morning.    We are heading down to Tucson tonight for our first overnight away from home (not counting the hospital).  I hope it all goes smoothly!