Art, War, Fusion and Fashion

Ella is a proficient artist who works in a variety of media; however, she has a particular fondness for printer paper, construction paper, magazines, markers and Scotch tape. Scissors always play a big role in her creations, and she has mastered the skill of exacting the most intricate object pictured in a magazine.

However, I'm starting off this post with a recent creation that had me a little concerned. Why is Ella drawing a picture of a nuclear power plant with army tanks outside? What are they teaching her at pre-school?!

Luckily, it turned out to be a beach picture, and the nuclear towers are actually sand castles, and the tanks are shovels. Glasses of lemonade and bowls of noodles are on the right. Phew.

Ella probably had "beach" on the mind, because we all went to Half Moon Bay on the Martin Luther King Jr Holiday, where it was unseasonably and wonderfully warm.


Ella and Sarah had a good time playing in the sand.


Sadly, the warm weather didn't stay, and the next weekend required bundling up.


This is Ella on the way to feed the ducks at the park behind the house.


Once again, life inspired art, and Ella made a diorama of the park behind the house. Notice the playground with slide, water with boat, and grass with picnic basket.


Apparently, Daddy wasn't factored into this piece - just Mama, Ella and Sarah. (Those are gloves on Mama's hands.)


Of course, Ella and Sarah do have their vices as well, such as watching Sesame Street. We're hoping that Ella isn't tracking to be the next Al Bundy.

New Year's in Cambodia

On January 1, we rang in the New Year a little bit differently than times past. Dick Clark was no where to be seen, there weren't any disco apples descending on a throng of revelers kept warm by high spirits (emotional or otherwise), and our prospects of finding good cold champagne kept us from even trying.

We left Hanoi on New Year's Eve and landed in Siem Reap, Cambodia with enough time to get checked into our hotel and find some dinner. We knew there was no way we would last until midnight to officially witness the beginning of 2009, plus we were getting an early start to see the temples. Of course, we should have known that our slumber would be disturbed by all the other revelers without such an ambitious itinerary. As it turns out, we heard lots of loud bangs but couldn't see the source of them, thanks to our ineptitude in figuring out the exterior shutters.

Traveler's fatigue allowed us to quickly get back to sleep, which was needed for our 7:00 appointment with our tuk-tuk driver and a full day of temple site seeing.

In addition to the photos below, you can see a few dozen more here.

As mentioned the day started early with our tuk-tuk driver.


Our first temple was Banteay Srei, which is known for its intricate carvings in pink sandstone.


Bayon was another impressive temple with huge faces cut into many towers.


We saw a lot of interesting things on the road between temples, like these piglets on their way to market.


And a woman selling fried grasshoppers, of which our tuk-tuk driver gladly partook.


Of course, Angkor Wat is the most well known temple, and it's no wonder with its sheer size and amazing carvings.


Here's the whole crew at Angkor Wat.


There are more than 2,000 Apsara's carved at Angkor Wat.


We also came across a family of monkeys who were very active. In fact, five or six were playing on top of a parked car.


It took about two hours via tuk-tuk to visit Bang Malea, which has been left in its ruined state. We felt like we are on an Indiana Jones movie set.


We climbed over a lot of fallen stones at Bang Malea, although apparently these were more treacherous than others.


Megan graces the entrance to the main drag in downtown in Siem Reap.

Christmas in Nipomo

While Meg and Jason were out gallivanting around Vietnam, Grammie and Papa (aka Rog and Peg) took care of the girls and made sure that they had a Christmas to remember.

Ella bribes Santa and his reindeer with a snack.


Decorating the tree...


Ella and Grammie also built the requisite gingerbread house. Luckily, Ella doesn't have an over-developed sweet tooth, so the building stayed intact.


Santa came!


Somehow Santa found the Mandy doll Megan had as a kid. He couldn't find the Six Million Dollar Man *action figure* that Jason had.


The girls had lots of fun in Nipomo.


But, of course, you need to take a break now and then.


Sarah shares her toys.


And experiments with alternative forms of transportation.


Before leaving for Nipomo, Ella was getting into the Christmas spirit...


...which included dressing up as Rudolph.


Thanks Grammie and Papa for taking such good care of our girls!

Christmas in Vietnam

This Christmas, we left the kids with Grammie and Papa in Nipomo and went to visit Ian and Maya in Vietnam and see Angkor Wat in Cambodia. (Photos from the Vietnam portion of trip are here.) Read on for some Christmas-specific photos.

After sending a few days in Saigon, we headed up to picturesque river town Hoi An to spend Christmas.

Although we were on the other side of the world, Santa did stop by our hotel.



The hotel even gave us Bush de Noel cakes - although they were artificially flavored with an odd smelling tropical fruit, which stunk up our rooms.



The daugher of the hotel owners also got into the Christmas spirit.



We had a wonderful Christmas Eve dinner at a fancy restaurant on the river, where they had live music and ethnic dancing.



A group of Australians at the table next to us brought their own lights and kept us entertained with their boisterous sense of humor.



On Christmas Day, we took motorbikes out to a village to visit the home of Mr. Phong, who we had met a couple of days before.



Mr. Phong's wife (not pictured) cooked us an amazing lunch while he gave us a tour of his village and got us up speed on recent Vietnam history and politics.



From Saigon, to Hanoi and Hoi An, everyone got into the Christmas spirit.