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....