A day at the Monterey Bay Aquarium

A rainy cold day... so we spent some time at the Monterey Bay
Aquarium. It's an amazing place. We had been there separately for
field trips for the kids, but never as a family.


The size of the exhibits puts you IN the ocean. Bubba Gumps for lunch
and crepes for snack...

a fun day.

Tahoe: Day 2 & Day 3

The kids, Lori and I had a pretty great time skiing together. It was said that the snow was the 'Best in 17 years'... Indeed it was pretty amazing. On day 3 the sun came out and it was absolutely magical.

 

 

 

Day 2 was filled with snow.

Chloe skis her first black diamond!

On her own, she said to me one day on the lift, "dad, do you think I'm ready for 'Show off'?" (a black run we'd been watching for a while).

I said, "sure Chloe, do YOU think you are ready?"

Apparently she was. We ended up skiing it a few times in a row.

Afterwards she tells me, "dad, I'm really proud of myself."


You should be, chloe. You should be!

:)

Christmas day...

6:01am... after a somewhat long night, we started our day!
In our family, we slowly open presents throughout the day. A few on
Christmas Eve, and then in phases throughout the day.

Lot's of legos and putting things together. It's raining today, so a
great reason to stay inside and just hang out. Candles, music and
cooking...

It's a good day today with family.

An afternoon at PIXAR... what a treat!

Sometimes you have an experience where the layers of emotion and inspiration come shining through. Today was one of those afternoons for me.

One of Lori's childhood friends (Mark Andrews) has been at Pixar for over 10 years now. He hosted us (and the kids) for lunch and a tour today.
What an amazing time we had! 

For those who knew me in a previous life, I once wanted to be an animator! I spent my early twenties teaching computer animation through my association with Alias | Wavefront. Now as a dad, I've grown-up with my kids knowing (and loving) the characters in the Pixar Movies. Our friend Andrea also met us up on the tour, which was amazing.

The thing that struck me about Pixar is that they are the real deal... their creative culture that is. I've seen the 'Behind the Scenes' of their DVD's for years, but I see Ed Catmull and John Lasseter, (major icons in the industry)... having lunch in the company cafeteria. I see the artwork, the animators offices, and I EVEN got to see the secret Lounge. 

I've seen many company cultures and always admired those companies that walk the fine line of delivering top creative products yet retain an atmosphere and an environment that keeps and retains the creative people that help drive it. Pixar is that company, deep to it's core.

I'm all giddy like a little kid! Today was a great and amazing day.

This was my Disneyland...

Going to the Annual Carnival

We went with Tucker to the St. Mary's carnival last night. I continued my experiments with Flip HD camera and iMovie with 45 min edit sessions...

All in all, we went to the carnival all three days & used up all our tickets. The kids couldn't get enough!