So you say it's your birthday!

Okay, I'm a day late on this one, so sue me! :-) Lily's FIRST birthday was officially yesterday, but we chose to celebrate today to give us a little more time to get organized. She was very happy and bubbly as usual all day yesterday. It was almost as if she just knew it was her birthday. She would smile and laugh whenever we said, "Lily's the birthday girl today!". We got the girls a big slide from Toys R Us as sort of a birthday/moving gift. They were so excited when we brought it out. Hopefully they will enjoy it through the winter months in the basement and outside in the summer.

Tonight we celebrated Lily's birthday with my mom and Dave, my dad and Clare and Grandma Mazie. We ordered pizza and celebrated with a Dora cake. Lily stuck her hand in the cake before we even got the candle lit! :-) She was a little perplexed while we sang Happy Birthday and Ella was crying and hiding under the table (do we really sing that bad? I'm sure the answer to that is, yes. I'll post a video in the next few days and America can be the judge.). Lily cried after we were finished singing. But she was sort of interested when we put the cake on her tray. She had a few licks of frosting and then dug into the cake. After awhile she just picked the cake up with both hands and took little bites off it (like a squirrel). She actually was quite neat eating, until she rubbed her eye and got it all over her face. Then, she decided it would be fun to finger paint on the tray with the frosting. All very cute! And captured in digital pictures that I'll also upload in a few days.

Ella and I helped her open a few gifts and she played a little bit in her new Dora car (Ella also got a police car--with her birthday gift cards). Lily also enjoyed pushing her new baby doll stroller all around the house.

After her bath, she promptly fell into a blissful birthday sleep. Happy Birthday to our little one-year old! We can't believe its been that long already. The year has gone by so quickly. We have loved every minute with Lily and look forward to all her amazing feats!

Sidenote: we took Lily to her one-year checkup and she is 23 lbs. and 32" tall! That's 90th percentile for weight and over 100% for height. She's a tall girl! And their baby books are packed but I know that Ella was about 20lbs and 30" at her first year checkup. Lily really is amazing when it comes to language. Her favorite word is "bubble". She loves to say it. She calls balloons "Bubbles" which I think is the cutest thing ever. She also says "thank you" in CONTEXT after you give her something!

Other than that, things are getting organized and we're still getting settled here. We will be going to my friend Claire's wedding tomorrow so look for pictures from that as well. AND, my brother-in-law, Benjamin is running in the Portland Marathon on Sunday morning. So good luck wishes sent to him. If you're curious about his progress throughout the race you can check out his running blog. I'll be his guest poster for the day and sending updates every two miles or so.

Hope you are all doing well!

Bittersweet Farewells

When we first moved to Los Angeles and for the first couple years, I didn't really let myself get close to people because we always knew we would be moving back to the Midwest at some point and I wanted to spare myself the inevitable good-bye. Well, obviously when you know people for a certain amount of time, you're going to get to know them, and find people you really like to hang out with. After I had Ella and chose to stay home with her, I realized that I needed contact with the outside world and preferably adults. I found a playgroup online that was very informal. There were no requirements for joining and you could go to whatever you felt like, however often. Sounded good to me! I never expected to meet such good friends through that group! I guess when you see people 2-3 times a week plus a weekend event every now and then for 2 1/2 years, you're bound to grow pretty close to them.

Andrew and I decided at the beginning of September that Sept. 27th would be the big day, officially. So began the good-byes. And it seemed we couldn't just do one big shindig. We had to drag it out for more than two weeks. We did our best to spend one last outing with all of our good friends in Los Angeles. Starting with one last Mom's Night Out for me with The Tot Lot (our current playgroup). We had a fondue party at Melissa's house and played The 80's Game where I got to show off all my completely trivial pop culture knowledge (Like that Michael Bolton sang Down in the Boondocks and Bo Diddley did a "You don't know Diddley" commercial for Nike). From there, we moved to one last Wednesday playdate. (our regular weekly scheduled playdate) That week's playdate was at Petco. Ella and her friends went on a guided tour around the store and were able to touch/hold various animals such as rats, birds, and chinchillas.

Friday, I met up with my friend Shelly at a great children's bookstore in Studio City called Storyopolis where Ella and Lily enjoyed storytime and then we grabbed a bite to eat at California Pizza Kitchen. We met Kate, Pete, and Liam at the "sand" park in Burbank on Saturday morning for one last outing to our favorite park. Kate and I worked together at the Autry. She started there as my assistant and now she's running the place and has been there longer than I worked there!

Saturday evening, we took Andrew's boss, Greg and his wife, Kelly out to eat at my favorite restaurant, Taverna Tony's in Malibu. We really enjoyed their company and are so appreciative of the opportunity for Andrew to continue on with Famous/Hornet here in Minnesota. Sunday evening, we visited with our friends the Pickenpaughs and the Smocks with homemade pizza and the kids running around the backyard. It was a really fun, relaxing night. And finally, the last, yes, I said LAST good-bye, was our last "Mondays at the Park" outing with the Tot Lot where 9 of the 11 members came to wish us well. Ella ended the evening by giving everyone hugs and high fives. Even Lily gave out some hugs too!

After all of that, I spent Tuesday packing, organizing and being in frenzy mode to get everything ready. And Wednesday morning Sept. 27th, only 15 minutes behind our estimated departure time from the house, we left with 6 bags to be checked, 5 carry-ons, 2 car seats, 2 kids, 1 double stroller, and ourselves (We left the partridge in a pear tree in California). We had a near perfect travel experience. We were able to get everything on the shuttle bus and utilized Northwest's curbside check-in. The girls napped for half the flight and were well behaved for the rest of it. My dad and Clare (in two vehicles to fit all our stuff!) picked us up from the airport and we arrived here at their house in Bloomington without incident! Whew. Minnesota! Here we come!

Tidbits

Well lots of little things to report these days. First we had a scary day on Wednesday. We were at our playdate at Griffith Park and Lily tried part of a cracker with peanut butter on it. You're supposed to be a year old for peanut butter and she has two weeks to go so it didn't seem like a big deal. Then not ten minutes later, she had a large bump on her lip and hive-like spots on her face. I tried calling her doctor and they weren't much help so we just made a trip to the ER. They didn't do much for her except make sure she was breathing fine and they got us in right away. By the time we left two hours later she looked about 85% better. They just said to give her Benadryl. She was fine the next day. But we have to be really careful from now on with her because each time she's exposed the reaction can come on quicker and more severe. Very scary! Not something I want to deal with again anytime soon!

On a much lighter note, Ella hit a major milestone (at least in my eyes!) on Monday. While Lily was taking her morning nap, Ella asked me to come sit by her on the floor, she crawled into my lap and asked me to read her a book! She actually sat there and listened and pointed things out and let me read the words! Then she wanted me to read her four more books after that! Okay this might not sound like a milestone to most people, but this is quite amazing for Ella. Since she was a baby, she would always have to be in charge, turning the pages, never wanting me to read any of the story. And you know how I love books, so I am really hoping the girls turn out to be readers. I was so thrilled she actually wanted to be read to. I think the storytimes I've been bringing her to have really helped.

We also took Ella to the doctor a couple weeks ago to have her ears checked just to make sure everything was working right. Since her speech seemed slightly delayed we just wanted to make sure there was no physical problem keeping her from talking. And she is fine. The doctor said she was on track and pretty normal for her age. And she really has had a language explosion the last couple weeks. We hardly have any temper tantrums at all anymore. It's so nice! Guess we're just biding our time until Lily hits the terrible twos. :-)

In Hollywood excitement this week. I am a fan of Grey's Anatomy and I know some of you are as well. They were filming at the Autry Museum on Wednesday. There were swanky stars trailers and gaffer trucks, catering, people walking around in hospital garb. It was pretty cool. I even got to see the guy who plays George dressed in his scrubs and lab jacket walking around. If I can tell which episode they filmed there, I'll let ya know. Also, for anyone who is a fan of the show Cold Case. The season premiere episode was filmed in the Burbank mall. I was there a couple months ago and they had parts of the mall cordoned off with signs saying they would be shooting somewhat graphic material that day that may not be appropriate for smaller children. They were building fake walls and there were signs that read "Woodland Valley Mall". Definitely going to miss the excitement of seeing filming going on once we get to MN.

And I guess my final tidbit is that even though we haven't sold the condo yet. We're heading East. We're going to stay with my dad and Clare for a little while (and hope the condo sells very soon) and have the movers come get our stuff sometime the beginning of October. We have one guy who is pretty interested in our place, but just isn't ready "to commit" yet and wants to mull it over another couple WEEKS! Geez, just make a decision already! So anyway, we're ready to move on and we're coming to terms with the reality of leaving here and starting to say good-bye to good friends. I can't think about it too much because it makes me sad. I'd rather just sort of be in denial and think I'll see ya in a while.

And with that I think I'll end today's post. Hope you are all doing well and starting to get into the spirit of fall with slightly cooler weather and football season starting!

And She's Off

And running! Lily started officially walking on Friday, August 18th. Here is a little movie from that night and then this week so you can see just how much she has improved in a short time. The movie is still from our small digital camera so again, the quality may not be the best. We finally got our video camera back from Best Buy. SO look for better quality movies in the future!

Enjoy!

History Repeats Itself....

Probably no explanation needed. But the top picture is Andrew and his brother, Benjamin. And the bottom, Ella & Lily practically in the same pose.

Happy Anniversary!

Actually, our fifth wedding anniversary was last Friday. The anniversary I am referring to here is the one-year anniversary of when I started the blog. I have to say I feel like its been longer than a year. But I guess that's just because we had the website before. It's amazing how much blogging knowledge I've gained in the last year. And how many other people have copied us! ;-) Technology and communicating through technology interest me and so here we are still plugging along.

We spent some time two weekends ago in Wisconsin to help Andrew's Grandpa Milt celebrate his 90th birthday (a little bit early, his birthday is in December, but they thought a summer party would be much more fun!). We enjoyed seeing all the Isaacson clan (except for Todd-we missed you, but working in Houston with the space shuttle is a pretty good excuse). After the weekend, we left the girls with Tom and Pat for the entire week! This was a new experience for all of us. We've left the girls for a day or two. But a whole week was very surreal. Walking through the airport without all the extra baby stuff was amazing and we thought to ourselves, was flying this easy before we had kids? It seemed like such a piece of cake! And I enjoyed watching movies and reading for the entire flight. The house was eerily quiet when I got home. I was on the computer and kept waiting to hear someone cry to signal naptime was over. After Monday though, I sort of got in the swing of things like leaving the house without having to remember 20 things. And I came and went all day running errands, shopping, etc. Andrew and I went to Nick and Stef's Steakhouse downtown on Wed. night to celebrate our anniversary. The food was delicious and the view was really cool with all the buildings and lights at night.

The true purpose of the week without the girls was to pack up all the stuff we don't use on a daily basis. I packed up 12-15 boxes and rented another storage unit. We moved a bunch of stuff over there. The place looks really big now! Someone better buy this place soon before we all go nuts!

By the end of the week, we were definitely missing the girls and ready to see them again! We took the red-eye back to WI on Friday night and Lily met us in the driveway waving excitedly to us. It was so cute. And when Ella woke up she came right to me and cuddled. Both girls were very happy to see us again! We all flew back home Sunday morning and spent the rest of the day recuperating from the time change and lack of sleep. Things are back to normal around here today. And will be pretty calm for the next few weeks.

We are thinking of getting a St. Joseph statue and burying it under our for sale sign. Apparently that is supposed to bring good luck to house sellers. Keep your fingers crossed for us!

Reading for the Record

You all know how much I enjoy reading and hope that Ella & Lily will enjoy books just as much as I do. Today, August 24th, there is a campaign going on called "Reading for the Record". You can go to www.readfortherecord.org and register. Then read "The Little Engine that Could" to a little one you know. They are trying to set a record for the number of people reading the same book in one day. It is to promote reading to your child and the website gives you tips on how to read to keep your little one involved and interested.

All right, looks like I have a new topic to add to my soapbox platform. :-)

Ella's Birthday Candles

I'm playing with a new blog feature. Here is Ella's birthday movie in a different format. This is so easy that maybe you'll get to see more video clips from now on.

The movie quality is low because its from our digital camera instead of our video camera which is currently being fixed at Best Buy. Look for more videos in the future!

Further Ramblings...

So not much exciting has happened in the last week or so. We went to a birthday party for Ella's friend, Olivia, last weekend and a BBQ at Kate and Pete's house. The food was sooo delicious. Ella and Lily had fun playing with everyone all weekend. On Monday, we did a usual trip to Target. But it was more eventful than most Target visits. Another celeb sighting for you to add to your list. Jennie Garth was there! I would guess many of my blog readers will have no clue who she is. However, I also know that Camille and Jenn W. will be highly jealous of me if they read this. Jennie Garth was one of the stars of the tv show, Beverly Hills, 90210. Sad to say, but I watched this show until the very end. Ironically, I also spotted Brian Austin Green (another 90210 alum) at the same Target a few years back. Anyway, I glanced her way and then thought to myself, "She looks a lot like Jennie Garth." I did a double take which she noticed. And it was her. She is ginormously pregnant right now and she had her two older girls in a cart and was pushing it around with no nanny in sight. I gawked for a minute and then went on my merry way. It's funny when I first moved here, I would have been elated at this star sighting, but now its sort of like, they are real people too, who shop at Target and they just have this job where they end up on tv or movie screens. No big deal. The funny thing is that I mentioned it to a friend of mine and she forwarded me a link to this. That was the day I saw her at Target! I just can't even imagine someone following me around in their car, taking pictures of me as I'm just out and about on a normal day. And paying attention to what I had in my shopping cart!

I have a whole different view of the paparazzi now that I've been living here for awhile. It would just suck to know that going out in my sweats with no makeup, hair air-dried, and someone is going to take a picture of me and put it on the internet. Really its amazing people care that much. I know, I know. I subscribe to People magazine and for some reason I am entertained by reading the latest celeb gossip or seeing these pictures that are taken. It's like they are royalty or something. Why do we care? They are just regular people living their lives. I warned you I was going to ramble today.

So getting back to us, the regular people. Lily is almost walking!! She stands up all on her own and just looks around like she is thinking about taking those steps but is still a little leary about it. Last night she took 4-5 steps all on her own! It's amazing how fast she is growing up. She also seems to be getting attached to one of her bear blankets. It was on the floor last night and she started dragging it around whereever she went (don't worry my floors are spotless for house showings). :-) It was pretty darn cute! Speaking of house showings....

We were supposed to have an offer put in last weekend but it has yet to show up. Not sure what's going on with that. We have some more people coming by tonight. Actually at a really inconvenient time, right before the girls are supposed to go to bed. But I'm trying not to be too annoyed about it. Some day the house will sell and we'll actually move....

Thus ends another post of my ramblings.....until next time. :-)

More birthday fun!

I know it's been forever since I have posted a movie. Here's one of Ella doing the cake thing and blowing out her candles at her birthday party. You can see she is a little apprehensive about what is going on. And Andrew and I agree that it was a good idea to not sing "Happy Birthday" this year. I haven't had a chance to actually update the "Movies" site. So just click here to view the clip.

What's special about today?

That's right boys and girls, it's Ella's THIRD birthday today! And I think she had a great day. We started off the morning by giving her some fun new Princess jelly sandals and getting the snacks ready for her party (veggies & dip, fruit, cheese & crackers, pb&J sandwiches, pita & hummus). Then we all piled into the car, stopped at the Burbank Ralphs to pick up her awesome Ariel cake and we were off to Sweet Little Faces (aka SLF), a play area at the Burbank mall for her party.

When we got to SLF Ella's eyes lit up because there were balloons set up already and the tablecloths had balloons on them. "Wahoon, Wahoon!" She and Lily jumped right into playing while the two SLF hostesses helped me put the food out on the tables. After that, they took over and Andrew and I just visited with everyone and had fun playing with the kids. There were 10 kids Ella's age and 6 Lily's age along with various parents and friends. The kids weren't really into the games they had planned so they brought out face painting. Well, Ella LOVED that! She had her face painted like a cat, then had a butterfly on one hand, cherries on the other. Some balloons on her wrist. THEN, her little friend Olivia wanted to paint something on her face, so Ella got a big blue splotch on her cheek. I personally think it was an abstract version of a cat. ;-)

Ella sort of had a meltdown last year when we sang "Happy Birthday" to her so we had the hostesses tell everyone we were going to just all yell, "Happy Birthday Ella" on the count of three and that worked like a charm. She's so good, she knew to try and blow the candles out right after they said Happy Birthday. It took her a couple tries to get all three. But she did it all by herself this year!

After the SLF people cleaned EVERYTHING up FOR us(!), we said good-bye to all our friends. We came home thinking Ella and Lily would both crash from all the excitement, but Ella announced she wanted to go to the "bayou" with Daddy. That's her word for any body of water: lake, ocean, pool, etc. So they went swimming. Then, she took her nap. When she woke up, she found the gift fairy had left all her birthday gifts in the living room. She started ripping into them. Made appropriate "oohs", "ahhs" and "whoa" noises as she flung the paper off each gift. She paid attention to it long enough for me to say, "We'll open up all the toys after you've opened everything up." Well that sent her into a flurry and she just opened everything lightning quick. She really liked everything she got. We took a ton of pictures which I plan to upload tonight. So please check out the "Ella's Third Birthday" album on our photo site for pictures of the entire day.

I think Ella really enjoyed her day and I have to say, having her party at the play area was the best idea I've ever had. It was so much less stressful to have the SLF people in charge of everything and all we had to do was show up. It was great! The day was also bittersweet as Andrew and I realized we would be leaving soon and we would miss all the wonderful friends we've made here very much. Ella & Lily have a lot friends here as well. It will be an all new experience starting over. We also can't believe that Ella is three years old already. She is not really a toddler anymore and she is growing up so much. Well, that ends another eventful day in the Isaacson household. Tomorrow, we have an open house again for our condo and we're off to finally see the movie Cars and sit through it this time!

Okay, maybe I'm a little obsessive...

So, unless you have kids who are into the Disney movie CARS, maybe you won't have a clue what I'm talking about. But Mattel has created die-cast matchbox cars of all the CARS characters. We bought Ella Mater and McQueen about two months ago just because she really seems to like them. She has a few different CARS things: a book, some McDonald's toys, a sticker book. Whenever we go to Barnes & Noble, she likes to look at the CARS books. Well, she loved these two little cars. So when we had to fly to MN a couple weeks ago, Andrew bought three others at Kaybee Toys just to have as new things to entertain her on the plane ride. These were also a big hit. So when I was at Toys R Us last weekend buying Ella's birthday gifts, I noticed they had a whole rack of the cars. I called Andrew and asked him how many I should get. He said, get all of them! So I got all the ones we didn't have yet. There were three out of the 16 that we didn't have after this purchase. I refrained from buying all of the multi-pack "Movie Moments" sets because I thought that would be going a bit overboard. I just got one of those.

I got home and Andrew says to me, well, why didn't you buy all of the Movie Moments sets? I told him I was practicing not spending too much money. (This is a new thing for me). I emailed some people and just asked them if they happened to pass a Toys R Us and wanted to look and see if they could find a Lizzie, Chick Hicks, or Filmore. I'd love it if they could pick them up for us. Well Pat found a Filmore. So we're down Lizzie and Chick now. I decided to just do a little browsing online and came across an article that said how rare Lizzie, Nitroade, and Sarge are. (I got a Nitroade and Sarge no problem when I was at TRU--he he). It was then that I realized how obsessive people are over these cars. The frenzy is being compared to the Toy Story toy shortage of 1995 (Tour Guide Barbie makes reference to the short sighted toy manufacturers in Toy Story 2--yes, I've seen this movie waaay too many times). I checked it out on eBay. They are selling for $20 a piece (versus the $3.49 retail price)! And now, I'm completely kicking myself in the arse because I didn't buy those Movie Moments sets when I had the chance. I've now become one of those obsessive people....

Hello, my name is Holly and I am a CARS addict. I went back to both TRUs within 5 miles of our house yesterday to see if I could find any of the ones we're missing, and they had NOTHING! So now, I'm checking eBay again. And I'm actually considering buying them. I have an auction finishing in an hour to get all four Movie Moments for what would have been the retail price if I'd bought them at the store. So I don't feel too badly about that. But I'm horrible at these last minute auctions so I'm assuming I won't get it even though there are 0 bids right now.

It's funny, I cared absolutely nothing about these things until Andrew said we should get them all. Then when I came home all proud of myself for the restraint I showed in not buying the multi-packs, and he said, "Why didn't you?". Well, of course that gave me the green light and now that I know how hard it is to get these things, I'm completely obsessed. At least I know Ella LOVES them and will play with them. And I really won't spend more than I would have paid for them otherwise. So it looks like Lizzie and Chick will probably be missing from our ensemble forever. Hey, I'll pay ya back if anyone out there can find those two cars!

UPDATE: How sad is this? I am SOOO happy right now. Completely made my day. I won an auction on eBay for ALL 4 Movie Moments sets and for a decent price. Funny though, Ben called me to say that I outbid him! Luckily, someone was inbetween us so I didn't just pay more than I could have. I was seriously doing a Happy Dance when I was won. Boy, it's the little things, isn't it? And in further news, Ben won a Chick and he's working on a Lizzie. So, we will have ALL of the CARS now. Whew, now I can relax. Boy, isn't my life exciting?

The Good Life

This picture shows one of the things I will really miss about California. The views are never boring. It's funny, we have a view of the Verdugo Mountain foothills from our loft window and we almost always have the blinds down (that would be because the museum worker in me knows what the sun will do to the fabric of our bedding). But the blinds were open yesterday because we had an open house. And last night there was a really great sunset. At that point, the girls were bathed and put to bed, and Andrew wasn't home yet. So I sat with my Mike's Lemonade and just enjoyed the beautiful sky. I think we should open our blinds more often.

We also spent the afternoon at Topanga Beach yesterday with our playgroup. Can you believe that I have lived here 5 1/2 years and this was the first time that I went to the beach with the sole purpose of just going to the beach? We've stopped by before to show visitors the Pacific Ocean, but never really made an outing of it. On the LONG drive there (an hour and half because there was traffic and construction in Topanga Canyon), I realized the drive was what kept me from going before. But I think maybe we'll have to make a day of it again before we move. Amazing what you take for granted until you know it won't always be there.

We've been back from MN almost a week now. We had a really great trip there. Andrew and I had fun looking at houses in Plymouth and Maple Grove. We think we've settled on a neighborhood we really like in Maple Grove and put in an offer on a house. They weren't too crazy about an offer with a contingency so we are sort of putting offers on hold for the moment to see what happens with our condo. I was pretty disappointed about the house when we heard yesterday, but then I looked this morning and there is another house in the same subdivision that is less expensive, pretty much the same layout, and more square footage. This only reinforces my belief that everything happens for a reason and that things work out for the best.

While we were in MN, we visited with all the usual suspects, saw the Underwater Adventures Aquarium at the Mall of America, Deep Sea 3D at the IMAX theater by the zoo, took in the Aquatennial festivities, and saw Superman Returns (just me and Andrew at that one). Ella and Lily got to spend good quality time with Grandpa Gary and Grandma Clare. It's amazing how well behaved Ella is in a setting she's not completely used to. Makes me wish she was that well behaved all the time. Sure would make my job easier!



Just a quick update on the girls. Lily is ten months old tomorrow. She had her 9-month checkup a few weeks ago and weighed in at 20 lbs, 8oz (75th %) and measured 30 1/2 inches long (100th%). For comparison, Ella was 19lbs, 8oz and 29 inches at her 9-month checkup. Lily is just chugging along, she pulls herself up, walks along the furniture, speed crawls, climbs things, and tries to do everything her big sister does. Ella is almost three (in a week!) and I can't believe it! She has really grown up in the last 6 months too. She is very helpful around the house, she has been better with Lily lately, she listens better, and she is talking more everyday. I think she will absolutely love our new house when we move. She had such a great time with the freedom of going outside whenever she wanted and playing in the sand box or with a ball or whatever when we were at the grandparents last week. They both loved just having the patio window there to look out and see the world.

Okay, I think that's all for this installment. I promise new pictures very soon, but for now enjoy the ones in this post.

UPDATE: Over 100 new pictures in June & July albums on the photo site

How We Spent Our Fourth of July

I took the girls to the park and Barnes & Noble this morning so Andrew could clean the carpet in their room. He started to work in the kitchen as well. We grilled out for lunch and had some yummy corn on the cob (it wouldn't be Fourth of July without grilling out!). Then I did some touch up paint in the bathroom and the girls' room. We cleared out anything extraneous from their room and took pictures for our realtor. Then quickly put the stuff back (the whole idea is to get people interested and in the front door, right?).

Then we packed up the car and drove over to the Rose Bowl in Pasadena for what was supposed to be Southern California's largest and longest fireworks display. The show is supposedly put on by the same people who do the Olympics and the Super Bowl. We exit the freeway and find a good place to park and see about 75 people sitting relaxing waiting for the fireworks to start. (There are thousands more right by the Rose Bowl, we were a little further away. Trying to beat out traffic issues.)

We find our spot and settle in. More and more people join us. Then, we hear the familiar boom of the first rocket's red glare, but "Where are they?" All of sudden, all 250-300 people around us realize the fireworks are right behind this large (and the only) patch of trees! I've never seen so many people get up in a mad dash and move across the street at one time! Andrew and I stayed put for a minute trying to decide our next step. After a minute or two, we gather up the girls and leave our stuff and join the mass. But our view was horrible. So we got in the car and drove closer. We had a great view from the car for about 3 or 4 firecrackers. Then we found a great place to park and were able to see them if we just walked a few feet. The anticipation for the finale rose with each new boom. Then about five went off at the same time and I said to Ella, "Here we go, this is the start of the Finale!" Then it was over. I stood there stunned. THAT was the finale. No way, there had to be more. NOPE. THAT was it, five measly little booms. All from the people who brought you the Olympic and Super Bowl fireworks. Well, I certainly hope they put more effort into those!

So we got back in the car, highly disappointed, beat the masses driving home, and drove past the Rose Bowl on the freeway. There was a GIANT flame shooting into the sky by the Rose Bowl. And I mean ginormous when I say GIANT! Okay, so feeling slightly guilty about calling the finale weak, we start to worry that something went very wrong and that they had to cut the finale short and that was why it was so lame. We put the girls to bed and turned on the news. But all we can find is a perky second rate reporter telling us that all was well at Amerifest and that the Rose Bowl fireworks were great! So hmmm.....a giant flame shooting into the sky is NORMAL after a large fireworks show? Okay, filing that one away into my misc. completely trivial knowledge. *Back to being disappointed with the finale*

But overall, we had fun "trying" to see the fireworks and as you can see, makes for a good story. Hope you all had a safe and festive Fourth!

Major Happenings in the Isaacson Household

We have some news to share with all of you. I have been meaning to send everyone an email and just haven't gotten around to it, so if you read this here first and I haven't gotten to you personally, please don't be offended. The Isaacson Family is moving back to the Midwest! We've been pondering this decision for a while now and were always on the fence. In the last few months we finally decided it would be best for us and our little family to move back to the Midwest to be closer to all of our family, and be able to afford a nice house with a yard and a garage. So we took the leap!

Andrew talked to his bosses over at Hornet, and as much as he was dreading the conversation because he loves working there so much, it went much better than he ever expected. They asked him to stay on with Hornet from Minneapolis (oh, yeah did I forget to mention that, we're planning on moving to the Twin Cities area). They want him to work in sales and business development. So his role will be different, but this allows us to move without Andrew having to find a new job!

We already had a trip planned to visit my family so now we'll get to look for a house too! We are so excited by this change in our lives. We love the weather out here in California and the people we have met are all wonderful and supportive. But there is nothing like being close to your family and having your kids really know their grandparents.

Our condo goes on the market July 10th! So we spent last weekend and today getting it ready to sell. We're painting the kitchen, touching up the "evidence of children" on all the other surfaces, trying to stash the clutter in a way that won't be noticed by a potential buyer nosing around our stuff, etc. It's actually been kind of fun "fixing up" the place.

More news on this topic in the future....

The end of June already!

Time flies! We're almost to the Fourth of July already! We just spent the last week in Wisconsin visiting with Andrew's family. We celebrated Father's Day there where I believe Andrew had a very nice day. He received a hat and t-shirt from the girls that said "Dad's Team" on them (thanks to Target). And he also received a Survivor Exile Island Buff (if you are not a fan of the show, these are bands that the teams where either around their head, wrists, or sometimes the skinny minnies on the show where them as shirts). Ever since the first season of Survivor, Andrew has said (jokingly) that he wanted a buff. I think he just likes saying the word "buff". Now he finally has one! I'm sure it will become a completely useless gift or perhaps just headwear while he watches the show. :-)

I also got him the last remaining autographed copy in Los Angeles of the book An Inconvenient Truth. Al Gore did a book signing the same day he was on Leno so I went online and figured out what bookstore, called them, and they had one left! And it was on sale for 20% off the retail price! Can you believe my luck?! They are selling on eBay for over $250!

So, he didn't get a trip to Pismo Beach, but I think he enjoyed his gifts and his Father's Day!

That night we drove down to the Chicago area to visit with some Knox friends. He stayed at Bob Carroll's house where the guys all particpated in a Live version of a Fantasy Football draft for the upcoming season. Yes, it's only June and they are already glued to their computers analyzing the data and trying to come up with the perfect team! (And to think, I used to look forward to football season every year.). Bob's wife, Amber and I left the guys to their business and went to see the movie, The Breakup which we both found to be entertaining.

On Monday, we all gathered at Willow Crest, a Marriot resort golf course, for what I believe was the 12th Annual Harley Knosher Golf Outing. There were two teams of younger alumni. Andrew's team one the low gross with a score of 57. I enjoyed the round also, walking the course and chatting with Amber.

We spent the rest of the week catching up with family in Racine. We were able to see just about everyone who happened to be in town. And we had some time to ourselves while the girls were spoiled by Grand Tom & Grand Pat.

We spent last Friday and Saturday nights helping our friend Phil Paulson celebrate his marriage to Amy Lesch at Meadowbrook Country Club. We were the official videographers for the event so hopefully we'll be able to throw a nice DVD together for them before their first anniversary (that's how long it took us to get the last one finished!). It's funny, Andrew said to me, "We've really been to a lot of weddings." He realized he completely knew what to expect and when to expect everything to happen so that he could capture it on the camera.

Now, we are back home and trying to get back on California time. Although, I'm rather enjoying the girls going to bed 8pm, we may try to make that their regular bedtime now!

Oh, I finally got those May pictures up on the site. Hopefully, it won't be another month before I get the June pictures up!

Oh, boy, here we go....

Well, its official, Ella is potty training. She sort of decided this all by herself, and rather all of sudden. Too suddenly. I don't think I'm ready for this. :-) I just have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to this new turn of events. We'll see how it all goes....I'll keep you informed, but not too informed. ;-)

And well, Lily seems to think she's a big girl now and doesn't want to eat baby food anymore (she's not even 9 months old!). She loves any kind of "real people" food she can get her little fingers on.

Things are getting really interesting around the Isaacson household these days..... :-)

Sign of the times...

Just thought I'd ramble a bit tonight...

It's amazing how much kids really change your life. When I was pregnant with Ella, Andrew and I both felt like, yeah our lives were going to change, but we'd still go out to eat, and do the things we really enjoyed. Before kids, we went out to eat at least once a week, we usually saw a movie (in the theater!) and sometimes two in one weekend! Plus, we watched them at home. We were really into it, analyzing them, comparing how they were made. For obvious reasons since Andrew worked in the business. And we just really enjoyed the experience of going to the movies. We played board games and were fairly competitive about it (at least I was. Sounds about right, huh?). ;-) I read all the time. ETC.

NOW, we go to a restaurant pretty much only when people are in town visiting. And I usually dread the experience because I picture Ella flying off the handle, screaming, throwing food, spilling drinks, etc. (The screaming and throwing food has certainly happened, and well we've had drink spillage a time or two too, but that's more in a shopping experience than restaurant). Usually my vision is much worse then the reality. ;-) We go to the movies about three times a year. We watch a movie together at home about once a month and that's usually in about 20 minute increments. We've cancelled our Netflix subscription for now because even the one-at-time plan was not being utilized. CAN YOU BELIEVE THAT?! Oh, and thank god for DVR! I can still stay addicted to tv with that little invention.

I have to read about books in my Bookmarks magazine as opposed to actually reading...Oh, and there was a time when I received my People magazine on Friday and had it read cover to cover by Saturday morning. Now, I have three issues waiting to be read!

Oh, and how often does Andrew get to play golf, oh, about four times a year (not including the four times in three days he plays during the Carnival of Golf).

And you should check out the inch of dust collecting on our board games shelf.

It may sound like I'm complaining. But really I'm not at all! Because, all that time is spent with our two beautiful daughters who make us smile and laugh, and we're utterly amazed by them on a daily basis. It's just astounding to me how much two people's lives can be changed sooo drastically in just a few short years by two other little people. I'm just reflecting, not complaining. :-)

Quick sidenote: Lily is climbing stairs! Last night we put the gate up in the girls' room and Andrew set Lily down in the hallway for a minute and went to grab something, he came back and she was on the fifth stair! We didn't even know she knew how to do that! And she's really good at it, not scared at all, and it seems like she's been doing it all her life. Now, we just need to teach her to not back into a sitting position when she is going up. Well, and teaching her how to come back down would be a good thing too.

Okay, I guess I'll sign off for now. No more random thoughts to add, except, dang, I still haven't added those photos, have I? and...must...go..to...bed...now....

Where does the time go?

I almost came close to having new pictures posted. I just want to add some captions and then there will be plenty of new ones to see, I promise!

Things have been sort of crazy around here. Andrew has been preparing Hornet to move to a new office building so he has been wildly busy with that and will work much of this weekend getting everything in place in the new space. The new office is in Culver City, which is not quite so convenient for our airport needs, but we'll manage. ;-)

The girls are still doing well. Lily is an amazing 8 1/2 month old. She crawls, pulls herself up, walks along the furniture, almost waves "hi", says "ma" "ba" and "da". She tries to mimic anything her lovely sister does such as screaming, and yelling "Maaa!" at the top of her lungs. Nice what they teach 'em, huh? :-) She's still working on getting those top teeth. Ella is 2 3/4 now. She is saying more and more every day. The latest is "We go?" or "We gooo!" if she thinks I'm not paying attention to her. She says "wahoon" for balloon, "bubb" for bubble. She likes to tell me two stories over and over again. 1) about the time that her balloon came loose from its weight and floated up to the top of our balcony ceiling and then flew away--and she makes this very sympathetic face when she tells me about this; and 2) about when she accidentally threw a ball over the edge of the balcony and Daddy saved the day by going down and getting it for her. Everytime we are out on the balcony playing (which is at least twice a day) I hear these two stories. She also does a couple tricks (yes, I'm aware she's not a pet). :-) If you ask her, "What kind of face does a puffer fish make?" She puffs out her cheeks. And if you ask her to show you her teeth, she'll actually smile (We'll remember that one for our next trip to Penney's!).

I've been busy attempting to keep the house sort of clean, organizing playdates (you don't know how difficult it is to coordinate toddler schedules!), I sometimes find a little bit of time to knit and read. Oh, we tried out a new activity this week. We went to free day at the Natural History Museum. Ella had a good time looking at the taxidermied (spelling?) animals. But I do believe she was slightly confused. You could tell she paused at each case and watched it for a few seconds. I think she was waiting for the animals to move, like at the zoo. Now, that concept is definitely one I'm not going to try and explain to a toddler.

They also had a butterfly pavilion there. Now, that was pretty cool! It's this enclosed space with natural plants, and butterflies just fly around freely to land on whatever flower, plant or person they please. It was really neat. Ella LOVED it. She liked looking for them among the flowers and pointing out the different types she saw. They had a sign that showed all the different types in the pavilion. When I asked Ella which ones she had seen, she pointed to three or four of them! We may have to visit the butterflies again this summer.

Weekend Fun

Andrew's parents came for a quick visit last weekend. We had a fun time with them. We went swimming in the Hilton pool. Ella had a great time jumping around in the water and gave Grand Tom and Andrew a good arm workout insisting on being thrown up in the air. It was Lily's first time in the pool and she LOVED it! She wasn't scared or nervous or anything at all. Ella was a little leary her first time in the pool when she was 10 months old.

We all went down to Long Beach and met up with Andrew's cousin Ed, Yolanda and Patrick. We visited the Aquarium of the Pacific and said hello to Dory and Nemo (or "How are you" and "E-O" as Ella refers to them respectively). Then we had dinner and stopped in at Coldstone for dessert. YUM!

Sunday, Andrew and I left the girls with Grand Tom and Grand Pat and went to see Posiedon (typical all-action movie, but gave me a headache from all the moving camera shots and bright light flashes. Can it be that my brain can't take watching a movie on a big screen anymore?!) We also spent some time shopping before returning home. The girls had a great time hanging out with their grandparents.

The week was pretty low-key. I did take the girls to the Huntington Children's Garden again. This time it was great, there was no one there. However, they happened to be doing construction on most of the garden and so only one set of fountains was working. They didn't say anything about that at the ticket booth. I asked on my way out and received a free pass to return at some point when hopefully they are not doing construction. The whole trip was not at a loss. For those of you who like to keep track, I did have a star sighting. I saw Amy Yasbeck (actress and John Ritter's widow). She was there with her and Ritter's daughter, Stella. Just the two of them spending the afternoon together.

Andrew was able to get home a little early on Friday to start our Memorial Day weekend off. Saturday we took the girls to see Over the Hedge. We missed the last 20 minutes or so because Ella got antsy and decided she was ready to leave. There was an animated short at the beginning of the movie that we hadn't anticipated. But I think she enjoyed what she saw of the movie. She keeps pointing out every merchandise with Disney's Cars on it and she is very interested in the new Garfield movie coming out. So maybe we'll venture out to those.

On Sunday, we visited with our friends, the Harveys, at their house in Pacific Palisades. Their little daughter, Grayson is soooo cute. She's a couple months younger than Lily. We went swimming in their pool and enjoyed lunch poolside. It was Grayson's first time wading. She loved it, she just chilled and took everything in.

Today, we just hung out around home for most of the day. We ventured out to a park in Pasadena for a bit. But mostly just took it easy. (Well, I did. Andrew did a bunch of laundry and took stuff to our storage unit. So maybe I should just say, I mostly relaxed and took it easy). :-)

No new pictures for this post. Maybe I'll get things updated and uploaded tomorrow and post some new pictures! Hope you all had a GREAT three-day weekend! I wish every weekend was a three-day weekend.....