Skip Goes to Jamaica

Tori took all these kids to the beach one day and had a great time. Dillon has the food and to his left is Tori's host sister Poonkey, then Lasanya. The othe kid is Dillon's brother Tiger Shark (that's really his name).

Skip with Dillon, Tori's godson who she calls every Sunday. Note Skip's mosquito-bitten face!

Skip catching a ride on the donkey cart in Tori's host community.

Skip likes to practice his kung fu moves and make lots of whoosh whoosh sounds. On the veranda of Auntie P's house.

Skip the World Traveler went to Jamaica with Tori for a week and just returned this past Wednesday. Tori had a service project to do and also wanted to help take care of some things with Poonkey, her former host sister.

So this year Skip has spent three weeks in China and one week in Jamaica. He gets selected to travel since he is under two and travels free! But the funny thing is that Zadie thinks she's getting the better end of the deal because she gets to go to Mama Niece's house and she finds that way cooler than China or Jamaica. So, Zadie, don't be mad at us when you get older -- you had no interest in going!

Fun Adult Time!

Toasting a great meal with friends I wish I got to see more of...

Vegan mapo tofu. Nice presentation!

The great thing about friends without kids is that they really enjoy interacting with kids! Zadie has a special place in her heart for Tim and he was kind enough to read her this really silly book about Clifford the Big Red Dog.

In the early days of parenthood, Tori and I were determined not to let kids slow us down and we regularly took our kids out and about. We would go to a friend's house and put our kid(s) down in a bedroom and then load them in the car at the end of the night. Not so much lately. We're just in survival mode and it has certainly limited our social life.

But last night was a special treat because a bunch of good friends from grad school came over for a cooking party. It was so fun to have adults around and not just any adults, but adults that I really like. So thanks, my friends, for coming over!

And the food was good, too!

Starting Christmas Traditions

Zadie and Tori start unwrapping the ornaments.

Except for the really high ones, Zadie ended up doing all the decorating and I think she did a pretty good job.

Sidney came over with a gingerbread house kit and Zadie was quite a fan of this experience, especially because it involves gum drops!

This is the first year Zadie really gets Christmas and she's pretty excited about it. She's loved learning about all the traditions, like decorating the Christmas tree, building a gingerbread house, and of course the advent calendar. It's been fun for us to start creating our family's first Christmas traditions.

Skip isn't really interested in Christmas traditions, but he thinks it's really fun to pull all the ornaments off the tree. I tried to enforce a "no touching" rule and then Tori convinced me that I was being really controlling and I needed to let go. That's the Christmas spirit!

Beach in November

Minus the snotty nose, I think this is a really cute picture of Skip!

Zadie trying to bury herself in the sand.

Skip loves to hold hands with Zadie when they're in their car seats and sometimes he can get her to cooperate. He's about to fall asleep here after a nice workout running all around the sand.

I know that L.A. has its detractors, but you can't beat going to the beach in November. Our summer weather this year was definitely subpar, but we had some great beach days in the fall. According to my camera, this was November 13th that we were enjoying this fine weather -- not bad!

I would have more beach photos to post, but most of them involve nudity and my sister tells me to watch out for weirdos on the internet.