memorial day at the water adventure park

We spent Memorial Day at the Lake Casitas Water Adventure park.







Micah and Amy float around the bend:



+10 bonus parenting points for completely avoiding sunburn

we'd like to say `thank you' to all our fans

Today was the big day! We finally crossed the threshold. Yes, today was that day that our top video, "Micah's heartbeat", surpassed 50,000 views on YouTube. What's all the fuss about? See for yourself:


Note (and please accept our apologies for) the ad the pops up part of the way through. Once they sussed out just how much of a big deal we are, Sergey and Larry over at Google offered to share revenues with us if we allowed them to monetize our child. That means we're raking in about 1 cent a day for the roughly 100 - 200 views that we get. In another year or so, we hope to hit the big 100k mark. Actually, the moment I'm waiting for is when we have more views on YouTube than miles on the car.

One last thing: WHAT?!

Who are all these people watching Micah's heartbeat? And what happened to Funky Kingston? (It was big in Feb. and May 2009, but interest has dropped off.)

fambly, jotuns, and gorgons

This is a big season for family visits. After Grandma and Grandpa visited in early April, Granddad Joe came down for a weekend at the end of the month. Of course he brought another Bruder monstrosity-- this time a logging truck. The nice thing about this visit/truck (there's a one-to-one corresondence) was that, for the first time, Levi was able to share in the joy delivered by Granddad Joe. The truck came with real-fake logs, which Granddad Joe supplemented with some real-real logs cut from the downed Avocado-tree branches.



This picture documents Micah's current obsession. Since late March, this book has been all that he's wanted to have read to him. It's D'Aulaires Book of Norse Myths with colorful illustrations. Micah now is an expert on Thor, Odin, Loki, Balder, Freya, and Frigg. He's the only three-year-old (not for long!) that I know of who goes around talking of riding a "steed" (eight-legged, at that) and of "crushing the stony heads of Jotuns". His favorite parts are reading about Thor's escapades with the Jotuns ("I want to read about Thor and the Jotun Utgardsloki"), the death of Balder, and, of course, Ragnarok. We were a bit uncomfortable, at first, with how violence remains in these kiddie-versions of the myths. In the end, I think it's ok. I can still self-edit as we read and we can discuss the events of the story with him in a way that we couldn't do if he were just watching scary/violent movies at a friend's house.

Grandma and Grandpa gave him the book for Hanukkah, at my request. Micah will insist on reading from it for hours, roping in anyone who is willing. This grew a bit tiresome for us after several weeks, but fortunately Grandma and Grandpa also gave us D'Aulaires' Book of Greek Myths, so now we're getting started on Zeus, Hera, Athena, Apollo, and Artemis.

So now, next week when Nanny, Pop-pop, Nanny Gorgeous and Uncle Victor come, they will get to read for hours about nymphs, oracles, titans, gorgons. And a week later, things will come full-circle, when Grandma and Grandpa return for birth-days.

two more Levi vids

Looking sly:

Why they call it "grappling-paper":

abdominal percussion

boyzatbeach

We visited the beach with our friends, the ex-ex-pat Rice family. Here are some pictures of our boys-- we would share pictures of the Rice children, but there's too much nudity!

hula-hoops and raptors

...at the Earth-day festival (back in April).

Look at those dirty hippies go!

Micah was fascinated the Ojai Raptor Center exhibit:


E tu, Micah?

Micah at play and post-nap Levi

swing down

A windstorm took down a major branch from our avocado tree last month. While we enjoyed the flood of ripe avocados a week or two later, we also lost the swing. :(
Levi, before he was walking, enjoyed man-handling the rottinh avocados.

As you can see, he is easily lured away from the avocados whenever Haile slinks by. That's him saying "cat". Watch him pursue Haile across the yard (though he does get distracted for a moment):

yes, he is

I'll finish catching you up in another day or two. In the meantime, this is what Levi does:

He also says "cat" regularly, while chasing Haile around the house. He's uttered "dog" and "ball", but those are less dependable.

inflatable madness

...at Dylan's birthday party.

reggae seder

This one was the largest ever-- we squeezed over 20 people onto our porch.
--My parents came from NY
--Cousin Corinne, Stacey and Lia came from LA
--the most-longstanding Reggae Seder guests were my old grad school friends Pete Fishman, who drove down from the Bay Area, and Kristof Madarasz (with his girlfriend, Roni), who came all the way from London and whom I believe is the only guest to have come to every single Reggae Seder.
Representing Ventura:
--The Burts: Sloane, Josh, Elijah and Nathan Burt
--The Hamiltons: Haley, Alex, Kayden (with fire helmet), and Cooper
--Perry and Jody Shapiro

--Special guests: Perry's son Sam, from the Bay Area, with his wife, Ketut, and sons, Prajna and Zion

Amy worked her usual culinary magic and I burnt the jerk chicken.

Levi enjoyed some matzah balls
the kids ran around
and afterwards we bopped 'til we platzed.

grandma and grandpa!!

Grandma and Granpa came to visit in early April and spent most of Passover with us.

Unfortunately, over the course of the week, we all (except Amy) took turns suffering from a nasty stomach bug.

The highlights of the week were reading lots of stories...
...Levi taking his first step at the second seder, lots of cuddle time, and, of course, the sixth annual Reggae Seder, which merits it's own post.

fire station!

Micah's friend Kayden always wears a fire helmet.

Why?

Well, you would, too, if your dad were a fireman and worked at a real fire station.

Recently, we got a chance to visit with a bunch of our friends.
Shylee helped Micah test out the controls in the truck:
Micah sat in the cab
and tried on some boots
Levi acted as a chock.
For a moment, he thought he had finally found the motherlode!
Our visit came to an abrupt, but exciting halt when a call came in and all the fire crew had to leave.

the di-di's

Steve and Rachel came to visit in March.

We took them up to the Gridley trail in Ojai, where Amy and Micah almost ran right over this:Yes, that's a rattlesnake. It had been right in the middle of the trail, but slithered off when we came barreling down.

The next day we hit the Ray Miller Trail in La Jolla Canyon. It was a another beautiful spring day. Steve occupied Micah as Amy readied the baby gear:
Micah and Rachel lead the way up the climb. Like the day before, we saw some reptiles.
We stopped for a snack
and headed down, while Steve and Rachel ran up to the top.
After they got back, Levi mugged me.

boysinbasket

I couldn't pick a favorite.

experimenting with new foods

How's that cherimoya, Levi?

Yummy!

11 months

Oops-- dropped a month.

Here is our big 11-month-old.

Now I'll try to fill you in on what you missed.