PoTW 07/17/09 – Starting off the weekend with a blaze

We’re up in the Bay Area this weekend to celebrate Christabel and Tedman’s (or Tedman and Christabel’s) wedding!  The plan was this: Christina was at Pediatric Advanced Life Support (PALS) training on Friday, and the hope was that she would be able to get out of the second day (of two days) of training in time for us to get on the road with plenty of time to get on the road to get up to SF at a reasonable hour.

Right out of the gate, we saw a big rig flipped over on the Slauson on ramp to 605.  Not a good omen.  It took us roughly 20-30 minutes to traverse a section of road that normally would have taken all of 3 minutes at worst.  We hit more traffic on I-5 and it took us another 40 minutes to an hour to get out to the grapevine.  Smooth sailing after that, right?  No such luck.  Round about Pyramid Lake, the freeway turns into a parking lot.  This is what we saw:

It took us about an hour to get through the traffic that you see there, and when we finally did, Christina very deftly snapped some pictures to see what all the fuss was about:

Oh. My.  Bus carcass.  We booked it up to SF at the highest, safest speed that we could.  We finally arrived at Pau Pau’s house at about 10:30 PM, having left Whittier at 2:45.  Good Lord, that was a long trip.  After doing some investagative research, I found the following story:

CASTAIC, Calif. — A passenger bus went up in flames Friday on Interstate 5 northwest of Los Angeles but all ten people aboard got off safely, the company said. The blaze sparked a brushfire.

The bus, operated by Coach America, had pulled onto the shoulder of the interstate, a major connector between Los Angeles and California’s Central Valley.

Glass windows broke and several explosions could be heard as the bus burned, and only a skeleton remained after the fire was out.

The vehicle was en route to Bakersfield from the Los Angeles suburb of Torrance, Amtrak spokeswoman Karina Romero in Washington, D.C. said. Amtrak has bus connections in parts of California not served by rail.

The cause of the fire was under investigation.

After the nine passengers and the driver disembarked, the fire spread to nearby brush. Northbound traffic was brought to a halt when firefighters arrived on scene. The fire burned about 10 acres.

In the same region, Los Angeles County firefighters were battling a 55-acre wildfire.

More than 200 firefighters fought the Castaic-area blaze, which erupted at midafternoon in medium brush, said fire Inspector Steve Zermeno.

An aircraft painted a line of pink fire retardant across hilly lands between the fire and a neighborhood of homes. Containment was estimated at 70 percent by nightfall.

Geez o peez.  I’m just glad that we finally made it.  More pictures from today’s goings on as they go on.

PoTW 6/6 – 6/12

Yesterday, we met Auntie Julie and Avery at the Aquarium!  This week’s Picture of the Week is when Emmett decided to ponder life and general existence in front of one of the exhibits.

We saw the seals/sea lions get their lunch

we saw the octopus for the first time in four visits!

The "Sea Dragons" are very cool.

A very cool looking fish that I don't remember the name to.

This eel was mocking me. I can feel it.

Emmett and Avery look at the seals

And our last stop was to look at the lorikeets.

PoTW 5/30 – 6/5: I realize I’ve been remiss…

… but it’s been crazy around here.

This week, we went to the LA Zoo with Adam, Timmy, and Micah Noritake.  While we were walking around the zoo, Emmett chose Timmy as his best friend du jour.  Whenever we moved from animal to animal, Emmett would look around for Timmy to hold his hand.  This was great for me, because I didn’t have to worry (as much) about Emmett wandering off by himself.  Wherever Timmy went, Emmett was there, too.

We’ll see if he remembers him next time we see the Noritakes.

PoTW 04/25 – 05/01

We’re back in Northern California (for about a month)!  This week’s PoTW comes courtesy of Emmett’s Bak Fu.  Daddy’s preaching on Sunday, and Mommy has been busy relaxing like a pro.

PoTW 4/18-4/24

Emmett has been developing quite the sense of humor.  When he discovers something is funny, he’ll do it over and over again, and then he’ll re-hash the same jokes the next day.  Quite the sign of development.  I present the above as evidence to the fact.

This morning, I got it in my head (with much prompting from the doctor) to get on my bike and ride.  My ultimate goal is to be able to get to church and back without totally killing myself.  You see, we live at the base of a very large mountain on the other side of which is church.  I managed to find a route that would get us to church without going over the hill, but rather going around the base of it.  There are still, however, a number of ups and downs to be contended with.  Today was the first experiment:  how far could I get while towing Emmett and the trailer and still be able to get back without my legs falling off?

The results:

9.5 miles.  About 5o minutes total riding time.  We’re getting there.

Next week’s PoTW will be from some place different, yet familiar!

Wow, I almost forgot – PoTW 4/10 – 4/17

This past Sunday, we celebrated Easter Sunday at Evergreen!  This means, of course… Emmett wears a tie!  We all wore Khakis and Converse, too.  His Cons are size 4, and he’s almost outgrown them!

PoTW 04/04 – 04/10

Our little chef!  As described last week, the Learning Tower arrived earlier this week.  It’s pretty solid, and we’re impressed with it overall.  In the few short days that we’ve had it, Emmett has already learned how to crawl up into it and how to get down:

What worries me is that he can do this rather quickly and will be up at the countertop without me knowing.  Time to implement some discipline.  Over the past week, Emmett has developed remarkably fast in his comprehension of language and humor.  His “vocabulary” to this point:

“Ma Ma” – Christina
“Ba Ba” – Nate
“Pau Pau” – Christina’s Mom
“Yee Yee” – Hannah
“Peen Peen” – Diaper
“Night Night”
“Bye Bye”
“Foo Foo” – Pants
“Nai Nai” – Milk
“Bao Bao” – Bread
“Bib Bib”
“Yuu Yuu” – Fish

Ones that he’s still working on:

“Goong Goong” – Christina’s Dad
“Goo Goo” – Katie

It’s the “G”s that he’s having problems with right now.  They come out more like “ghhhhhz“.  Here’s a video of his verbal prowess:

Happy Easter everyone!

PoTW 03/28 – 04/03

This weeks PoTW comes courtesy of our prolific bread baking as of late.  Emmett was watching me knead the dough and asked if he could participate.  I gave him a little piece of dough and showed him how to knead it.  He very dutifully began to knead his little dough ball.  Soon, he’ll be able to participate more fully in our cooking/baking because we’ve ordered this:

It’s a wooden tower that allows a child to come up to counter level without the worry of falling down or escaping.   We’ll see how well it works.  Should be here next week!

Happy Friday, everyone!

PoTW 3/20 – 3/27

On Wednesday, Emmett and Daddy went to the Aquarium again.  This time, we just parked the stroller in the “stroller parking” area on the first floor and Emmett walked around the rest of the time (for the most part).  This week’s picture is of Emmett, making the sign for stars (he does it when we say “sing sing!”).  He has now drawn a relationship between a picture of a star and a picture of a starfish.

Some other pictures from the day:

The scuba divers, after they had finished feeding the fish, spent some time playing with the kids through the glass.  Emmett gave this particular diver a high five, and then waved bye-bye and blew him a kiss.  The scuba diver took out his regulator (the part that goes in your mouth, I looked it up) and blew a kiss back!

We went to go see the Lorikeets again.  I thought these three birds looked remarkably like this:

Close enough.  Happy Friday, everyone.

PoTW 3/14-3/20

We went to Disneyland with Mah Mah and Yeh Yeh today.  Emmett was in hog heaven, having Yeh Yeh chase him around California Adventure.  We went on Alice in Wonderland, Buzz Lightyear, Winnie the Pooh and then we ran around in the Redwood Creek Challenge Trail at California Adventure.

Story of the day:

While waiting in line for Winnie the Pooh, Emmett began to dance to the background music (“The wonderful thing about Tiggers, is Tiggers are wonderful things…”).  Not knowing the limits of his own strength, both of his feet left the ground at the same time, and he fell flat on his butt!  Not only this, he had the presence of mind to keep his head from hitting the cement.  What a smart/foolish child.

Since then (it’s been all of 4 hours), when  you tell him “Jump, Emmett!”, he does this:

Happy Friday everyone!