Rainy Days and Dinos

It's New Year's Eve! I think that calls for a dino slide show.

Kiernan found this raincoat under the Christmas tree. The coat was accompanied by Baryonyx from The Dinosaur Farm (best dinosaur store in the world) and a Pterosaur place mat. Santa knows his [her] stuff.

A raincoat in Southern California? A foolish gift you say? Well guess what, yesterday it was raining, lo and behold, and Kiernan and his mom needed to walk down the street for a playdate at his friend William's house. So, voila, gift in action.

Happy New Year, all.

Dinosaur Moment of This Day

Ah, the end of December in Southern California. The dinosaurs needed a little time on the chaise to decompress.

Kiernan was happy to oblige them.


After this idyllic moment the dinosaurs moved to the slide where they plummeted into a bucket. Good times.

Today. Moments ago.

Squirrel Picture For This Day

My brother came through.


As promised, I've posted the picture he was taking while I was taking the picture at the bottom of this post.

The boy's got skills. Or rather...skilz.


Washington, D.C.
July 2009

Picture For This Day

Another pic from the HD cleanup.


From our visit to Colorado last April. Taking a walk with Amy and Halley. I love that dog. I love Kiernan's face here.


Denver, CO
April 7, 2009

Random Bonus Picture For This Day

Looking through my laptop files and deleting old stuff. This Dell Mini is great, but has a tiny HD, so I have to bump stuff all the time. Don't worry, it's backed up.

I don't usually like posting pics with me in them, but I like this one. It's from a visit to Virginia last summer. We were attending an outdoor concert in Yorktown with Sandi and Dad, one of the lovely Friday night affairs that goes on all summer on the Riverwalk. It was raining, so we took our picnic food and sought refuge under a banquet tent.

Great picnic. Great time.

Yorktown, VA
July 31, 2009

District 2009

More pics from our impromptu trip to D.C. last summer, as I clean up my HD.


Kiernan and Uncle Mason cooling off their feet in a large fountain/pool after touring the museums.


Sandi challenges Kiernan to a race around the pool/fountain.


Sandi and Kiernan are on the far side of the pool. You can sort of make them out if you look carefully.



Kiernan and Sandi finish the race. It was neck and neck.


Chilling out, after the race.


Walking with my brother. I think I'm cool. He is cool. Check out the bandana!


No, they hadn't just seen 2012.


A break for a drink with his Terminator protector, the Sandi2000.


Finally, we stopped at a cool little ice cream spot on the way back to Gloucester Pt. from D.C. This is a little place in Fredericksburg, VA called Carl's, an ice cream shop that offers maybe five flavors, all soft-serve...and all delicious. One of those little hole-in-the-wall places you hear about from friends or see on some obscure show on the Food Network. We worked our way through Fredericksburg, asking for directions along the way. Finally we found it and there was a huge line outside.

Great end to a great trip.

You Can't, You Won't, and You Don't Stop

Some more pics from my laptop HD cleanup. These pics are from this summer, taken during the return trip from Pennsylvania back to Virginia with my brother Mason, Sandi, and my dad (Pap-Pap). On our way back home, by way of DC, we decided to find a lawn globe for one of Sandi's friends. I took some weird pictures, inspired by my brother's love of reflections in photographs. I love Kiernan's pose in this picture.


My brother Mason is much better at this than I am, of course. He's a pro. I'll link to his stuff here if he gives me permission. He's incredible. But for now, my amateur attempts will have to suffice.

Here he is, with me, both our cameras in shot. So meta.


This was a great trip, back in July, 2009. Kiernan's first foray into Washington, D.C. This was an unplanned side-trip, and it worked out beautifully.

Here's one final pic. My brother at work. [If he sends me the pic he took at this moment, I'll post it, and you'll see what I'm talking about.]

Picture For This Day

At the birthday party for Kiernan's friend Isabella.


Northridge, CA
December 13, 2009

(A Couple of Weird) Pictures for This Day

After pictures of two of the grandfathers, I'm feeling the need to post some grandmother stuff. But I'm having trouble finding anything cool of Gammy from Thanksgiving. So I'm posting this weird picture of Luke Skywalker. Who the heck knows what I was thinking in taking this picture? I don't know. But I like it. There's Luke, and in the out-of-focus background you can see Kiernan and Gammy and Grance.

Also...some espresso.


This is a shot of the espresso I mentioned from the lunch trip that nobody but me liked. I'm no good at taking pictures of food (you'll have to go to Mitch for that), but I loved the espresso here and this makes me feel happy today.

Also, love the grandmothers.

The Pap-Pap Chronicles

After putting up the post about Grance and Kiernan, and getting some nice feedback from Rance, I started thinking about my dad's visit earlier in November. I went hunting for some pictures and decided to put up a few. These two pictures are from my favorite part of the day, school pickup time.


To be sure, Kindergarten pickup-time is much different from the way it was last year and the year before at preschool. When I showed up for preschool Kiernan would just sprint to me and leap into my arms, almost knocking me over. The look on his face was amazing. Nowadays, well, basically he just notices me. He might give me a wave or a nod of acknowledgment. From time-to-time his face will light up and he'll yell, "Daddy!" But there's no running and jumping and hugging. He's too focused on his friends and playing. He comes to me only to raid my bag for any dinosaurs I may have brought. Progress. Oh well.

However, when Pap-Pap is visiting, Kiernan is much more excited after school. He was particularly excited to see my dad on this day, as Dad had not volunteered in Kiernan's class and so they had been deprived of each other's company for a few hours. The previous days (Thursday and Friday), Pap-Pap had volunteered in Kiernan's classroom. They both loved it.

Whenever my dad comes to California we have to take him to see the Pacific. He absolutely has to see the beach, so we try to build in a meal at a restaurant with a view of the ocean. This time we went to a place suggested by the mother of one of Kiernan's friends, a little dude named Mason. Mason's mom told my dad about a place right on the sand, and we sought that out. There was a forty-five minute wait, which was perfect as it gave Kiernan and Dad the chance to play in the sand a bit.


The food was pretty good too. I had an excellent butternut squash soup and some more than serviceable fish and chips. As we were on the sand we could not order beers, but the fish had been battered with Guinness, so there was that.


Miss you, Pap-Pap/Dad.

Picture of This Day

Yes Virginia, even in California we send letters to Santa.

It's raining here and Wendy elected to take Kiernan to the mall to get a picture with Santa. Brave girl. Sadly I've come down with some mysterious 3-hour flu bug, so I missed it. Not to worry, I suspect I'll be better for my trip out to the movies this evening.


Saturday, December 12, 2009

The Daily Grance

Over Thanksgiving, Grance and Gammy were here and Grance took this time to teach Kiernan how to read the paper. Sadly it was the Los Angeles Daily News they were reading together, and that's a terrible paper, but I suppose you need to start somewhere. It was nice to see Kiernan having such a nice time with Grance, although it was a bit disturbing to wake up to a five-year-old talking about settlements on the West Bank.


But it wasn't all news. Grance also did his level best to get Kiernan interested in some football. Better Grance do it than I do it, since I can't really watch a football game that isn't Tivo'd. I have to be able to fast-forward through the boring stuff, which is roughly 90% of any football game. The plus side of this is that I can watch a football game in about half an hour. But a little boy should not learn to watch football in this way. So, hat tip to Grance.

Lest you come to think that all Grance does is sit in a chair, allow me to disabuse you of that impression. One of the coolest things Grance and Kiernan did was go for a daily walk to a nearby park, a park I like to call Park Omar. I did not get any pics of those outings, so here's a picture of them walking at a shopping center.


I got this shot after we had lunch at a new place in town, a place I went with my dad when he was here called Roladin. It's a new bakery/cafe and it's quite good. Alas, I was the only one of the five of us who really cared for it (and Rance straight up hated it...ACK!). Great sandwiches. Amazing bread. Very good espresso.

After lunch Wendy and her mom just had to go to the dollar store down the way. None of us boys could stomach that, so we hung out outside. Grance and Kiernan made a circuit of the shopping center so that Kiernan could walk on the planter walls.