Let's go see the aMiNals

Chloë and I had such a great time at Hidden Villa on Tuesday with the walk and talk group, I had to bring Sam, my camera and some other friends to enjoy the beautiful and informative farm. See it for yourself:
www.hiddenvilla.org
I printed out a bingo sheet of different farm animals and brought stickers for the kids to put on their farm animal as they found them.
(Some of the kids enjoyed that more than others)

Chloë found one of the many "tunnels" and canopies the kids could sit under as they learned about the garden.

Sam just loved running in and out!

Then we went to the goats. They were a lot of fun to pet.

Sam went in for a good look.

Then we found the pigs!

. . . and the chickens.

We also saw cows and piglets. The piglets were born on Sept. 24th and the were already about Sam's size.
This was the best picture we could get.

I am so glad we went back. I can't wait to take Daniel. Everyone said it is much prettier in the spring, but I can't see how that is possible. The mountains and pastures were so green, and different colors of green. The trees were changing colors and leaves were everywhere. The weather was cool and krisp. It is hard to believe we were less than 20 minutes from home.

Sam is holding his bingo chart and Chloë is pointing to another fun animal.
Don't worry Hidden Villa, we will be back!

Daniel's dad Lou

When Loula was born my mom brought me some old pictures of my family. I posted them a month or so ago. In general, geneology sounds boring, but the thought of pictures to go along with personal history...now that sounds exciting. Old pictures from my mom was all I needed to get me more interested in family history. In the future I will post entries with some personal stories from our ancestors. Today I am focusing on Daniel's dad's birth.

Louis Frank Ledesma July 2, 1932 4:18 am

Lou started his personal history when he was 56 years old. I will refer to his
personal history as I blog about him.

Lou was born Louis Ledesma Junior at Lane Hospital in San Francisco. Lane Hospital was constructed during 1893 and 1894 at Clay and Webster Streets adjacent to the medical school. The major contributor was Dr. Lane. The hospital is no longer there. When I told Ann I had found a picture, she said Lou always wanted to see the place where he was born.

Lou said he did not like being called Junior by his aunts and uncles
so he changed his name on October 22, 1951 to Louis Frank.
Frank Martin was his favorite uncle (husband of his mother's sister, aunt Flora).

Lou lived on Cherry street in Menlo Park, CA until he was 9 or 10 years old.

(picture of house on Cherry street)

This was during the great depression. His father worked as a gardener at the Michael's Estate in Atherton. Lou said, "We were always blessed with food, clothing and shelter."

After the house on Cherry street, his family moved down to
Pine Street a half block away.

(picture of house on Pine street)

As a side note... when Daniel and I met, I was living in an apartment with

the same number as Lou's house, and few streets up from him.

see post dated July 10, 2002

alone after 5 years, 2 months, 1 week and 2 days

...but whose counting!

We took advantage of having Ann at our place to go out of town for a night. We left around noon on Friday and drove to Half Moon Bay, CA (actually to the northern outskirts of HMB in Princeton). We found a quaint restaurant by the docks and had some clam chowder.
It was good.


We walked on the beach and picked out some seashells for the kids.

Then we drove around to find a place to feed Loula (we did bring her, but she was very easy).
When she was feed and happy Daniel and I walked around, again.



Then we went and checked into our place we were staying and watched the news. I am out of touch more than I want to be with what is happening in politics and news in general, so I enjoyed watching cable news. (I am tempted to get cable at home, but it might be a good thing if we stay without it.)

When we had our t.v. fill, we went out for a late dinner to the HMB Brewing Co.
http://hmbbrewingco.com/photos/photos.php
I had an amazing hamburger with onions, mushrooms and cheese. Daniel had a sandwhich with shimp and crab. After dinner we went back to the place we
had soup at this afternoon and had a huge bowl of pumpkin ice cream.
In the morning we had breakfast and had a nice conversation with an older couple and their sister, whom is a HMB local. Then we came home.

At home

Well, here we are a few days away from being 3 months old. I think slowly we are growing into our eyes!

See the pretty flower Dad got mom.

Here are Sam and Liv being crazy.

Dinner after blessing

We had a nice warm white bean soup (thanks Kaylene for the recipe). Then we had some yummy desserts. Barbie brought some baklava, Ann made a cherry cake/pie/clafoutis, and I made chocolate silk. After dinner the kids went in Sam's room and played and the adults enjoyed talking for a few hours.
Here is Erla and Barbie.

Home teacher Todd reading to our kids.

Doesn't Spencer look great with his braces off!

Here is Zion and Olivia- they always hit it off!

Zion did such a good job holding Loula, but Talia kept close just is case.

Chloë had dinner and went to bed. She was very pretty is this dress. Thanks Andrea.

Loula's baby blessing

In the LDS church we do not baptize our babies. (We do that when they are 8 years old-the children can then decide whether or not they want to be baptized) but in do give our babies a blessing. Daniel gave Lauren Bell a beautiful, full, rich, yet tender and simple blessing. I know Lauren-'Loula' will fill her life with what our Father in Heaven wants her to do and be.

We are so blessed to have such wonderful family and friends. Thank you everyone for loving and taking care of us.

Aaron has taken a similar picture with all our babies.

(Here is Aaron with Olivia on her blessing day)

Grandpa Mike, Barbie, Loula, Mom, Dad and Grandma Ann.

Here is our complete family. Aren't we beautiful!!

This is all of our friends and family.

back row: Ann, Daniel, Loula, Andrea, Todd, Mike, Barbie, Erla, "Home Teacher Todd"- as Olivia calls him.
front row: Sam, me, Darci (Daniel's secretary), Chloë, Chase, Olivia, Aaron, Zion, Talia, Hyrum, and Casey.

Halloween night

That night we went trick or treating with Miles, Philip and their family. Chloë took things very slow. She wanted to get the perfect candy at each door .

5 little pumpkins

Olivia's class memorized this cute poem. It was a fun way to end the Halloween day at school.

Olivia's kinder Halloween carnival

Mrs. Englehardt is a great teacher. She loves these kids. You would have to to dress as Mini Mouse! Here is Olivia's class.

This is Olivia with her friend Cory- the pirate. He says Olivia is his girlfriend. "And I am serious!" says Cory. He is a darling boy.

In the afternoon the entire school had a parade. Sam was a little bored. There he is in his Pirate costume.

Grandpa Mike can fix anything!

Grandpa Mike came into town for Loula's baby blessing.
While he was here he helped us fix a FEW things around the house
(jammed doors, door locks broken, curtain rod tie backs, outlets, light fixtures
and the list goes on and on).

The most important thing Grandpa Mike did was install a very nice rod iron gate
in the brick wall into our front entrance.
Now I don't have to worry about the kids running into the street.

But the most memorable thing Grandpa Mike did was help the kids build a nice big sandbox.

Sam and Chase helped tow the sand from the car to the sanbox.
Everyone (even Chloë) helped hammer and screw the box together. Thanks!

Trunk or Treat

Here we are outside the church building waiting for Olivia's friend Paige and her mom Regina. We had a lovely evening with them.

This is our little Tinker Bell, Captain Hook and our lovely pirate!

silver lining

This pictures just highlights one of the great memories over the past few days.
I have titled the picture:

Focus and Zoom. . . who needs them.

Like all great works of art we must acknowledge the artists. Photo by Sam of Chloë.

To ease my pain I have written the good and bad of each situation:

1. The camera broke- bad. I appreciate pictures of my kids that are in focus-good.

2. Chloë jammed the DVD player with 2 DVDs-bad. Kids can't watch DVDs-good.

3. After a year of waiting, I painted the living room-good. Sam's forehead painted my couch-bad.

4. The t.v. analog converter broke-bad. Sam and I fixed it-good.

5. I made bread WITH 7 kids from Sam's joy school-good. It was crazy-bad.

6. I decided to make soup for my sick sister-good. She was not sick by the time I made it-bad.

7. I took the soup to her house-good. The soup spilled in the front console of my car-bad.

8. I sewed Olivia a church dress-good. Chloë pulled the sewing machine off the table, it's broken-bad.

9. Took the 3 younger kids to go grocery shopping- good/or brave. Left my wallet at home- bad.

1o. I am trying to organized a demonstration march in support of prop 8-good. Having a hard time connecting with prop 8 community leaders to get people to come out-bad.


BUT, because of my loving husband, Andrea laughed with me, and Dory's help, I would say we had a great week.