Christmas eve

We had some family over for a Christmas Eve dinner last Monday. Anabelle's two favorite parts about it were the artichoke chip dip
and when Bennett, Jenn, Thomas and Tori all came caroling.Anabelle loved the dip so much that she ate almost all of it with Tori's help.

Christmas at the Wignalls

Our friends, the Wignalls, has us over for a small Christmas celebration. Anabelle loved the singing, but was enthralled by the piano."Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who's the fairest of them all? Me!" They also had a Snow White dress and a rocking horse that she loved.

Anabelle's new home

The other day Anabelle got a new home, and she loves climbing in, closing it up and then peeking out the little handle-holes in the sides. It's one of those times that we as parents ask "If she loves playing in a box more than playing with any real toy we buy, why don't we just stick with boxes?" Then we remember, "oh yeah! this box cost us $1400!" Anabelle also loved the computer that came in the box... literally. We told her not to touch it, but it has a little 2 inch LCD screen on the front of it (for diagnostics) so she couldn't resist... she realized that we didn't say she couldn't kiss the computer.

Nevermind the Giant Mayan Temples... They've got Monkeys in the Trees!!!

Maria and Anabelle spent the last few weeks in Guatemala and I joined them for the last week of their trip. While there, we took a road trip up to Tikal. So as to keep Anabelle happy on the 8 or 9 hour drive up there (and to distract and keep her happy when she's say "bye bye... home") we kept saying "Anabelle! Guess where we're going! We're going to Tikal!!" She'd then parrot back "Tikaa?" To let her know how cool it was going to be we then told her that there were monkeys there. I guess we got ourselves overly excited about the monkeys, as you can see below, they evoked a greater response than the giant Mayan temple behind us.(Us pointing the monkeys out to Anabelle)
Needless to say, in order to entertain her during the 8-9 hour drive back to Guatemala City, we kept asking Anabelle if she liked Tikal. She'd always respond "Yeah... Monkeys!" and follow it up with monkey sounds.

We'll be posting more pics over the next few days, so either you can sit and wait
or check out our Guatemala pics site here)

mmMMMmm.... Sand and Cake!!!

Kalyma, a friend of Anabelle, had a birthday party today at a park nearby. Her favorite parts of the party were the party favors (the video blowing on the is actually from Luna Bella's party earlier this month, but Kalyma had some of the same favors) and eating sand. She had a blast playing with all of the neighborhood kids.

Mama, No Hurt, Pwreesh...

Maria took Anabelle to the doctor today. On entering the office Anabelle started to get nervous, then looked up at Maria and said in a pleading tone while shaking her head, "Mama, Mama, no hurt, Pwreesh, no hurt." Maria felt awful because she couldn't assure Anabelle that it wouldn't hurt. Anabelle was going to get her flu shot that day.

An utterly fun Halloween!!

Anabelle saw this cow outfit at a local store and would not stop saying "mooo" the whole time we were there so we decided to buy it since it was less than $10! She looked so cute Halloween night as she went trick-or-treating.

We went trick-or-treating at Bennet and Jenn's House in Encinitas, and Anabelle loved hanging out with her cousins Thomas and Tori.

The Haunted Aquarium

On Saturday we went to the Birch Aquarium at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at UCSD. They had it all decorated for halloween, and best of all, it was free! Anabelle loved the whale fountains out front.Anabelle loved the jellyfish, the eels, the sharks, and kept saying "Dada! Dada!" whenever she a fish that looked like Nemo's dad (from "Finding Nemo"). She also got to touch a starfish, then like the irresponsible dad that I am, I let her eat a cookie with her bare hands... oh well. Anabelle had a blast with her cousins Thomas and Tori and with her Grandma. She also ran into Aeryn, one of her best friends, and so the two of them held hands while they walked around the tide pools and looked at the starfish.

Trunk or Treat

Last night our church had a trunk or treat, where everyone came and kids could go from car to car to go trick or treating. Anabelle was a bit scared of some of the scarier customs, especially one vampire. Every time she saw him she'd start to shake and cry hysterically. However, once she figured out that she could go from car to car to get candy, she had a blast. After each car she'd quickly run back to the previous one, yell out "twickoteet", reach her hand in the treat bucket, and yell out "tankyou". The trunk of Brad and Emmy (our neighbors and my 1st year bioengineering PhD mentee):This is Anabelle saying "Twickoteet" loudly (near the end of the clip)

The Poor-Parent's Guide to Educational Trips

This past week the air quality was terrible due to the wildfires. Unfortunately, Anabelle hates staying inside, so this week I took Anabelle on a couple semi-educational trips, on a grad student parent budget. In other words we went down to the local mall to look at fish, puppies, and kitties at Petsmart and to play on the escalator.

San Diego Moon During the Wildfires

The other night we were leaving my brother's place when we saw the moon, orange from the smoke, come over the horizon. While the fires near us are all gone, the orange moon reminds us that fires still rage elsewhere in southern california.

For Now We're Okay

While fires still are raging in San Diego Co, I think it´s safe to say that we're out of harm's way. They've got all of the nearby fires under control.

Bennett, Jenn and Mom haven't been evacuated.

here's an updated map
and some more maps.

Rain In San Diego

It has been months since I last remember it raining here in San Diego. Yesterday morning, however, when we woke up it was drizzling. Anabelle didn't know what to think of it... she'd only seen pictures of rain in her books.... She quickly caught on what it was and that it's cold, so she was content playing with daddy the rest of the morning.

Puppy Tales

Ever since Anabelle was old enough to reach the top of her head with her hands she has refused to let Maria put any kind of hair accessories on her. However, since Anabelle got half her stubbornness from her mom, it is not surprising that Maria has not given up easily on making her hair look "pretty." Maria's latest strategy has been to appeal to Anabelle's one great love right now: puppies! Since Maria told Anabelle that the two pony tales atop her head are like puppy tales, Anabelle has excitedly embraced the idea of hair accessories. Well, at least for the first half of the day. They never quite make it to the evening.

Maria's Birthday part TWO!

Not only did Nathan make Saturday one of the best days I've ever had, but on Sunday Bennett & Jenn continued the celebration by making a special dinner. Bennett was not kidding when he said that Jenn made the best chicken pot pie, it was delicious!

18 months = No More Anabanana!! (Well maybe for 2 hours each Sunday)

On Sept 15th Maria had her birthday! Maria had a blast on her birthday since I took her out to a really nice restaurant for breakfast. I then let her take a nap for a few hours (she still needed some sleep after Anabelle's surprise wakeup-screaming duo the previous night). After that I took her to the beach and surprised her by whipping out two inflatable ocean kayaks. After an hour of pumping up kayaks (and patching up a hole) we went out for ~45 minutes. It was really cool and we saw leopard sharks swimming under us. After that I had a semi-surprise dinner planned for Maria and we invited over a few neighbors who live right by us. Despite all of these plans I made, Anabelle gave Maria her favorite gift. Her favorite gift was that Anabelle turned 18 months the same day. That meant that today Anabelle finally got to go to nursery during 2 hours of church. We walked her up to the nursery and played with her for a few minutes and then dove out of the room when she had her back turned. In stead of going straight to Sunday school, we basked in our new found freedom. We sat outside and ate Anabelle's snacks. I do have to admit I miss having her run around the teacher in Sunday school and playing with her little monster truck in elder's quorum. Against Maria's wishes I peeked in nursury between classes to see how the Banana was doing.

bebadaba doobadooba babaduba.... amen!

This evening we invited Anabelle to FHE (usually she goes to bed before we start). Maria started with a prayer and so Anabelle bowed her head, folded her arms and closed her eyes. Suddenly about 10 seconds into the prayer we heard a bebadaba doobadooba babaduba bamamadubba mubbabeba.... amen! Then Anabelle hopped up and walked over to get a pretzel... until Maria finished praying... I couldn't help but laugh at Anabelle's first prayer. We love that girl!

Lasik

Well, Maria got lasik! She keeps reminding me that she can now see better with no help then I can with my contacts in... but now she can't use the excuse that she can't read whenever we're doing our evening scripture study. Since Anabelle always wants to be like Maria, she's now dropped her glasses fettish, but now is always trying to get ahold of Maria's eyedrops to put them in her eyes!

Hanging Out with Grandma

While at the grandparent's house we decided to brave the extreme southern Utah temperature and so we hiked up to the Red Cliffs Area, which when we hiked it one winter it had a beautiful stream and some really cool waterfalls. We found out, though, in August there's only one brown-green pool at the base of where a waterfall normally is... the stream was all dried up. It was still a nice hike, though, and afterwards we got some frozen custard from the place I worked at back in 1996. Anabelle loved that part!

Vacation time leads to idle hands for Daddy

What do you get when you vacation in a city where it is over 100 degrees outside? Well, you do get either crazy parents or an entertained little girl... or as in our case, both!

I did get to take pictures of everal pretty sunrises from my parent's house, though, thanks to Anabelle... I've to sit her down and talk to her about how vacations and weekends are synonymous with "sleep-in-days" but she still insists on forcing us to adhere to her "early to bed, early to rise" philosophy.

Pippo!!

After spending a couple days at Fish Lake, we went to my parent's place in St. George for ~5 more days. There I showed Anabelle a small book about hippos and she fell in love with them, but started calling them "Pippo... Wawa!" which is translated "Hippo! It lives in the water!" Then I found a stuffed hippo and taught her that hippos also love to slide up and down the banister... she, however, taught herself that they also like to be thrown down the stairs.

* 3 cheers for blogspot!!! I was always bugged by the links to dirty videos that Youtube kept putting on the end of Anabelle's videos, so I'm happy that blogspot now has their own video thing... but they won't center the videos for you... I had to manually type in the html to do it my self... so I guess it's only two cheers for blogspot...

Fish Lake, Where Daddy Taught Anabelle to Throw Rocks into the Lake and Florentina Taught her to Eat Them

We went to Fish Lake (just NW of Capital Reef National Park) this past August with my family. We had a lot a fun there... Anabelle and I threw lots of rocks into the water. Anabelle also had a ton of fun with her cousins Pioter and Florentina (she keeps saying Pioter's name over and over again... she really liked him). The only bad part of the trip stems from the fact that Anabanana can't sleep in the same room with us, so we set up a play crib in our bathroom. A minute or two after she went to sleep there, we realized that we had a problem... her crib took up the whole bathroom, which means that we had a very uncomfortable night and very full bladders.

The next day we went on a short hike with Randall (my little brother) and Clara who had come all the way out from Boston. It was great catching up with them.

Anabelle LOVES Sunday Mornings with Daddy

Every Sunday morning I let Maria sleep in while Anabelle and I go to the church so I can do some stuff for my calling. While waiting for me, her favorite things to do include (but not limited to): sucking on post-it note pads, scribbling with highlighters, walking on the desk, trying to use the mouse and keyboard, throwing everything in the trash, and running amok in the church when I leave the door open. I don't know how many times people have walked in and said "Is this you child? She was (1) trying to go outside, (2) trying to run around in the other ward's sacrament meeting (3) climbing up and down on the furniture, or (4) all of the above."

We have a beach and you don't!!! :b.. . . . .

While I normally work on Saturdays, I took it off a week ago since Maria and Anabelle were going to DC a few days later. First, Maria wanted to get the house cleaned up, so Anabelle and I went to the beach. At first she was afraid of the water. She wanted to splash in it, but every time the waves would come up she'd run to me terrified... that is until we were walking back to the car. She became fearless and started running directly into the waves... I had to grab her several times as she was running into waves her own size!

NO ANABELLE!! DON'T VACUUM THE LAWN!!!

I've broken our vacuum twice, and so we always have to borrow our neighbors' vacuums. When we went to get one the first time, Anabelle took it over and wouldn't let Maria help pull it to the house.

DC Zoo

During Anabelle's trip to the Washington DC zoo, she was catered to like a queen! She didn't have to walk at all and was carried around by Aunt Jessie and Uncle Hugo the whole time. Her favorite animals were the elephant and the monkeys (since they look like her parents... just kidding). She really likes to imitate the sounds and actions of monkeys and elephants

Ya en Español

Well, due to the fact that we have family and friends who are interested in seeing pictures of the Banana but would prefer to read it in Spanish, we've decided to start translating the page into Spanish. You can access by clicking on the link on the left of the page or by going to mariaynate.blogspot.com.

Puesto que tenemos familia y amigos que se interesen en ver fotos de la Banana, pero que prefieran leer el blog en Español, hemos decidido a traducir la página de web a Español. Se puede ir a la página al hacer click donde dice "el blog en Español" a la izquierda al ir a mariaynate.blogspot.com.

Not Guilty.... but really guilty....

This past week I had the "opportunity" to serve on a criminal case. It was a sexual assault case, which made it rather uncomfortable, I must say.... Well it ended up that there was no real evidence much more that the testimonies of the two people and of course their stories were VERY different. It took almost two days of deliberations just for the jury to come to an agreement, because we all knew the guy was guilty, but the district attorney brought up very serious charges on him and there wasn't enough evidence to be "beyond a reasonable doubt" on all of the charges, and so according to the law, we were forced to acquit him. The only ones happy at the end of the trial were the defendant and his awful lawyer. Every juror said that they would have convicted him if they had tried him on a less specific law (like a more general sexual assault law). Well, this experience taught me that we really are innocent until proven guilty and that when charges are brought up on a person, the prosecutor should not aim too high on the charges and should choose a law were there is enough evidence to convict. It was kind of a downer too that I spent my anniversary on a jury and the case turned out bad... :b .. . .. .

Our Little Goalie

April here in Southern California is pretty cold... just ask Anabelle.

Wagon Time!

We came across a little wagon... Anabelle loved getting pulled around by dad, and dad got to release some pent up aggression from all of those sleepless nights....

Being a Dad... the greatest job I've ever had!

This past year has been tough, being my first year in grad school in a field I didn't study as an undergrad. However, since I just passed my quals a month ago and only have to do research this summer, this past month has been great. Since I go to the lab early in the morning and try to work for 8-10 hours each day 5-6 days each week, I've promised my family that I wouldn't work when I came home (something I had to do all the time when I was taking classes and TAing). Now everyday when I come home and play with Maria and Anabelle. Maria sometimes suggests that we go out as a family for an hour or two when I get home. The day we took this photo we went up to Scripps Lake (next to where my brother's family used to live) and played together at a park next to it. Anabelle and I had a blast going down the slide together and playing in the sand. I love being a dad!

Independence Day... The Day my Tripod Lost its Independence

We went to see the fireworks on the south end of Mission Bay, near Sea World on July 4th. I was excited to try some photo tricks with our camera, but once Anabelle saw it, she said "Thanks dad for the new toy!" For the rest of the night she ran around the park we were at with her BaBa (stuffed lamb) in one hand and her tripod in the other.... needless to say I got to take fewer photos than I hoped.