The Cutest Harry Potter Fan

Violet loves to watch the Harry Potter movies with us, and is so funny about knowing all the characters names and things.  Today when she was watching a scene with Glenn that Ron wasn't in, she asked him about every 30 seconds, "Where'd Ron go?".  She also loves to point out Hermione whenever she is on the screen, because she knows they share a name! Glenn took this video of Violet using her wand the other day.  Enjoy!

P.s.  I've always hated how in a couple of the movies, like 3 and 4, the director really emphasized a physical relationship between Harry and Hermione.   It made everyone who hadn't read the books think that Harry and Hermione ended up having some sort of romance.  Anyway, now I have proof that there was too much touching between those two, based on how often Violet says, "Harry and Hermione kissing?", and we answer, "No, Hermione is just scared."

At the beach with Glenn

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, Violet and I have been at the beach every week this summer!   Glenn, however, has not had as many chances to go.  When our parents were here two weeks ago, Glenn had SO much fun at the beach, that he insisted we go as soon as finals were over.

So yesterday we went to Manhattan Beach.  First, we stopped at Jacks 'N Joe, our favorite breakfast place, to have breakfast.  

Then we headed out to the beach.  We took turns boogie boarding while the other person played with Violet.  The waves were so big!  We actually broke our boogie board.  I couldn't even hold on to the board when I'd catch a wave because the wave was so strong!  Glenn also thought the waves were stronger than they'd ever been, but he had a lot of fun, and stayed out in the water for a long time!

Glenn catching a wave:

Me:

Violet had a great time too, although predictably, she wasn't very happy when it was my turn to play with her when Glenn went out in the water.  

Also, we spotted some dolphins!  They were so close to the beach, and swam back and forth in front of us for a long time.

Tar Pits Museum

Ugh, you guys, I am so sick.  It is just a sore throat and runny nose, but I feel so awful, and also barely slept last night.  Also, the last couple of days, Violet has had a runny nose and been really whiny.  If she felt as bad as I do right now, she is a trooper!  She didn't behave nearly as badly as I have today.

Anyway, I knew it was going to feel like a long morning no matter what, so today Violet and I tried out a new museum we'd never been to before!  I just wanted to do something that would keep her very entertained, so I wouldn't have to talk.  Talking hurts so much.

Our membership to the Natural History Museum also works for the Page Museum at the La Brea Tar Pits.  The park around the museum is really cool, and the tar pits are still there, though fenced in.  We didn't spend much time in the park, but next time I'm going to plan on it.  The inside of the museum was small, but entertaining.  The Natural History Museum, where we go regularly, has mostly dinosaur fossils, with one exhibit of extinct mammals.  This museum is almost completely fossils of extinct mammals, and I though it was so interesting to see the fossils and read about them.   One of the first exhibits we looked at was this one of a saber-toothed cat attacking a ground sloth.  The animals were robotic, so they moved a little bit, which terrified Violet!

This was the best picture I could get because Violet was so scared!  One of the workers assured Violet that those two had been locked in combat for decades and probably wouldn't even notice her, but it didn't help.

There was a robotic wooly mammoth just past the real bones of the mammoth, and Violet was pretty scared of that too.  I did manage to get a picture of just her with the mammoth skeleton.  That skeleton was pretty impressive in real life!

Of course we had to stop in the gift shop for a while, where Violet insisted on holding all of the pink stuffed animals in the whole place.

Also, one of the places where Violet had fun was in the atrium, which was just a garden in the middle of the museum that had big koi fish in a stream, and a little waterfall.

The last thing we did before we left was watch the "Ice Age Encounter" show!  It is similar to the Dinosaur Encounter show we watch at the Natural History Museum, but with a saber-toothed cat instead of a dinosaur.  Violet was very excited-scared the whole time!

He got pretty close to us once and roared right in our faces!  Even I felt a little jumpy!

(Also, just so you don't feel too jealous of me living by this cool museum:  It is less than 5 miles from my house and it took me 35 minutes to drive there.  Traffic is so fun.  We got home in 10 minutes though, since traffic had cleared up by the time we were done!)

The beach with friends

We went to the beach this morning!  We went with a few moms that I don't know very well, except for one of them.  They all have little girls right around Violet's age though, and she had so much fun!  I was so glad that one of the other moms took pictures and emailed them to me.

All the girls in one shot - a miracle!

Violet saw Amelie swimming like a fish, and decided to join her.  I thought the water was pretty cold; they are brave!

But Violet did insist that I play with her a little bit in the water.

Violet is loving the beach so much the summer!  We have gone almost once a week!

Violet's Art Gallery

Violet has been a coloring fiend lately!  It is so nice that she can color all by herself for a little while now.  Making lunch is a lot more peaceful now!  She always wants to tape her pictures on the wall, and a couple of weeks ago, I stopped taking pictures down before I put new ones up, so now there is quite the collection!

She is getting so good at trying to color in the lines, and she really works on a picture for a long time now before telling me she is done.

Conversations With a Two-Year-Old

Violet has been saying so many funny things lately, I thought I should write them all down so we don't forget!  

(I was about to mop, so I was holding the swiffer between my legs while I put the wet wipe on it, when Violet walked into the kitchen...)

Violet:  (gasp)  Mama ride like Harry Potter!

(At a new exhibit at the Natural History Museum)

Violet:  What's that, mama?

Me:  An oil pump.  What do you think it is used for?

Violet:  For... making..........honey?

(Violet and Glenn are watching a James Bond movie in the other room when I hear...)

Violet:  James Bond is going to church!

Glenn:  Uh...no...he is just wearing a suit...

(Right before bedtime)

Me:  You are so sweet, Violet.  Did you know you are sweet?

Violet:  Yeah.

Me:  What makes you so sweet?

Violet: CANDY!

(At WIC, talking to the nutritionist about healthy foods we should eat)

Nutritionist: (shows Violet a picture of all different kinds of foods):  Which of these foods does your mom like to eat?  (When Violet doesn't answer for a while, she prompts her:) Carrots?  Apples?

Violet: Mama likes this one. (points at picture of cake)

Violet sings the ABCs

Violet loves to sing the ABCs right now, so I decided to video her doing it the other day.  Unfortunately, Violet is a little camera shy, and neither video I took really show off her skills.  I am posting both, so feel free to watch just one!  Or none, if that sounds really boring to you.  

A Weekend with ALL the Grandparents, and my birthday!

To celebrate Violet's birthday with her, my parents and Glenn's parents decided to come visit last weekend!  Glenn's parents got here on Thursday night, and mine came on Friday night.  My birthday was on Friday!  It was so nice to have Glenn's parents with me all day to celebrate!  And to see my parents for the last hour of my birthday! My parents brought a cake with them, so when Glenn and I got home from the Dodgers game that night, my parents had arrived and everyone sang to me and we chowed down on cake!  Of course, earlier that morning I had opened my presents from Glenn.  Hey Glenn, can we stop opening presents first thing in the morning?  So I don't have to post pictures of myself looking like this?

At least I didn't blur my face out this time, am I right? (warning: that link contains a super creepy picture.)

The only reason I felt the need to post that is so that you could see what great presents Glenn got me!  I have seen Sense and Sensibility of course, but not for a long time.  I LOVED watching during VIolet's nap on my birthday, and I'm pretty sure it has now jumped up to the top of my all-time-favorite-movies list. Also, I didn't expect much out of the book Sarah's Quilt, mostly just because it is a sequel (to These Is My Words), but it was SO GOOD.  I loved it about as much as I loved the first book, which was a lot.

And here is the only other picture we took on my birthday.  We had such a good time at the Dodgers game, and it was the perfect way to celebrate my birthday!  

The day after my birthday, we all went to the beach in the morning and had a wonderful time.

That afternoon, we had Violet's birthday BBQ!  We grilled hamburgers and hotdogs at USC, where there are some grills on the quad.  Violet LOVED exploring with her grandparents, and we all had a good time relaxing and talking.  

(My dad manned the grill, and I barely got up from that chair the whole time)

And Violet got to open more presents!

We missed everyone as soon as they were gone on Sunday, but we really only have four more weeks until we'll be driving back to Arizona for a long visit!

Violet's Birthday - TWO!

Violet's birthday was last Tuesday!  She is the sweetest, smartest, most vivacious two year old you can imagine.  We started off her special day by opening presents at breakfast:

It was fun to watch her open her presents because she could unwrap them herself, which she did enthusiastically, and she recognized everything she opened.  She exclaimed, "A BOOK!" and "A TOY!" when she saw what each present was.  

Later that morning, Violet and I went with some of our friends to the splash park.  She had a great time as usual.

To end her birthday off right, we had pasta (Violet's favorite dinner) and chocolate cake for dessert (Violet's favorite thing in the whole world).  She blew out her candles like someone who has had way more than two birthdays!

(she snuck a bite of frosting before she even blew out the candles!)

I call the next series of pictures, "Violet - ladylike, even when confronted with chocolate cake".

It was a pretty low key birthday, but BOTH of Violet's grandparents came this weekend to help celebrate her birthday, and we had a great time, and a real birthday party.  More on that later. 

Family Trip - Day 2

On Friday, July 5th, we headed out for our second day of adventures!  As I mentioned last post, Violet didn't sleep much the night before, so we were relieved when she went right to sleep as soon as we buckled her into her car seat that morning.  She slept for about an hour while I navigated some pretty scary hairpin turns on the craziest part of the PCH that we encountered on our trip.

After about an hour of driving, we got to Bixby Bridge!  It is beautiful, but you really just get out of the car and take a picture, and then there isn't really anything left to do but get back in the car.  We knew it was going to be a quick stop to just stretch our legs, so we weren't disappointed.

We went a little crazy with the panorama setting on our camera on the second day of the trip, so I'll try to only post the best of those :)

Our next stop was at Point Lobos, and it was probably my favorite place we saw the whole trip!  It is a big nature preserve where wildlife is abundant.  We hiked about a mile in to get to "Sea-lion cove".  The sea-lions were too far out to see well, but the seals were really close!  They are on that rock behind Violet and I in the next picture.  We continued to hike down, and ended up on that little gray beach you see on the right.

Violet is thrilled to be getting her picture taken with me, as usual.

We didn't take any pictures of the next place we stopped: Carmel-by-the-sea.  It is just a really quaint, touristy town, with lots of antique stores and pricey boutiques.  We ate at a landmark restaurant there called Katy's Place.  It was delicious, and their specialty was breakfast-all-day, so of course Glenn was thrilled!  Ironically though, he ended up getting a hamburger, and I got biscuits and gravy.

We made it to our hotel on the Monterey Peninsula by 3 o'clock that afternoon.  No nap for Violet again, but we did get to explore the peninsula that afternoon.  This lighthouse is one of the main attractions there, but I guess it closes at 4, so it was all gated in once we walked over there.  But we took a picture with it anyway...

If there is a beach, Violet can entertain herself, so of course we spent a little more time on the beach that afternoon.

I just can't tell you how relieved I was when Violet went to bed that night at 7:30.  And then I was even more relieved when she slept all the way til 6:30.  She was like a different person the next day, with a good night's rest behind her.

And if I had to guess, I would say that Violet's favorite thing she saw on this whole trip was probably this dolphin statue in the hallway outside our hotel room: