First Day of school (Aug 22)

It is finally the first day of school!!!  I don't know who is happier - Bobby and me or Graham and Charlie :-D

I am glad I was still able to give the boys their haircut without making a big mess in the apartment.  This big hair-catcher thing is awesome!!!

Here's my first morning of school.  Talk about bad hair day! HA HA!

Graham made a whole bunch of paper chatter boxes for his new friends in his new school for the first day of school.  How sweet of him!

We decided to move Graham to a Parent-participation/Charter school this 2018/19 year.  I think I am more worried about my ME-time!  Charlie was on wait-list for the 3 days of school but by Friday, the District called and said that Charlie got in as well!  Yippeee!!!  I was so happy because driving up and down the hill was already getting to me just in those first 3 days!

Graham is in 3rd Grade and Charlie is in 1st Grade this year.  Here's to a great year for both boys!!!

Charlie loses his first tooth

Finally!!!  As Charlie puts it.  He finally lost his first tooth!  We were actually in the mall at that moment.  We were walking along and for whatever reason, he was biting on his shirt and when he pull his shirt, his tooth fell out!  It's his bottom right central incisor:

It bled for a little bit but that didn't stop us from getting our lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant in the mall!

I am so glad the tooth fairy didn't forget her duties that night ;-P

Happy Charlie!!!

More body boarding (Aug 22)

We are off to "Dolphin Beach" a.k.a Redondo Beach for more body boarding.  Our last experience at Cabrillo was just so-so as the water there was more sandy if that makes any sense.  But it was definitely a good start at Cabrillo as Graham and Charlie needs to get familiar with the bigger waves here.  It is so busy the day before school restarting!

Graham is not too phased by the bigger and more powerful waves. It takes Charlie a few minutes to warm up but after a while he joins his brother on the deeper end as well.

I keep telling Charlie his board is too big but he just won't listen!

Graham definitely has an upper hand on the body boarding: 

Perhaps once my eye is better and I can stick my contact lens back in my eyes, I will give it a try too :-P

In the meantime, I am just making sure our blue umbrella tent doesn't fly away. So far so good!

I knew I should have worn my swimwear...

Graham and Charlie - our surfer boys!

Now if only Graham will not lay on the sand once he gets out of the water:

Makes it so difficult to clean Graham up with all that sand!  But it doesn't stop us from getting dinner and crepe at our usual/favorite restaurant:

I'm trying to figure out where Daddy is tonight????

Monster Jam!

It's the weekend before school starts (last weekend - Sat, Aug 18) and we decided to surprise the boys with Monster Truck/Monster Jam tickets! Charlie wanted to wear his new birthday socks but we told him it would be too warm.  How cute are these macaroon socks!!!

We are on our way to the Staple Center.  I have never been to this side of the city center before:

Here it is!  This is where the LA Lakers play basketball and I believe the LA Kings also use this for their ice rink:

Pretty cool sculptures around here:

Charlie just woke up from his nap in the car.  Cranky pants!

I like how the city shut off this part of the street for pedestrians.  We are obviously very early since there is no one on the streets yet.  We are actually meeting another family at a restaurant nearby for lunch:

There is a street soccer promotion going on across the street from the Staples Center:

After lunch, we head inside.  Woah... who knew Mommy had bought "Premier" seats at the Suite level!

There they are!  The Monster Trucks!!!

I brought the boys' monster truck toys.  Charlie had the "Grave Digger":

This truck is a rather interesting one - Zombie.  Can you see the zombie arms??!  Ha Ha!

The Jam actually started out quite slow.  The trucks are competing against each other to see who can go around twice the fastest:

There are actually a couple women drivers (or "athletes" as the announcer puts it) - although this gal is only 24 years old.  She is actually from California and driving the "Wonder Woman" truck:

Family we-fie! Notice Charlie has ear-plugs on.  It's a good thing I bought some. It is quite loud!

This one was Graham's favorite - Max D (for Maximum Demoliton).  Pretty neat trick!

The crowd is loving it when the trucks get some air!

The other woman driver is in this puppy truck.  Hmmm... doesn't seem very intimidating:

Grave Digger in action!

Oops!!! Grave Digger has turned over!!!

This tractor was really busy tonight!

In between the Monster Truck actions, the drivers, I mean athletes, also have other things going on like the ATV race:

It's half time... Momma is busy taking more photos. There is so much history in here:

Yes, quite the history!

Okay, back to the action.  Here is Wonder Woman performing spins:

Not too shabby!  I think the Zombie stole the show though during free-style when it caught fire!!!

And yes, that little spray of a fire extinguisher actually worked!!!

WOAH is right, Daddy!!!

Here is some of the action from Grave Digger:

But in the end, El Toro Loco wins!

I still can't believe we went to a Monster Jam show.  Graham and Charlie LOVED it!

I do wish it was in a bigger stadium though.  There were some videos on the jumbotron that looked very impressive. Maybe next time!

We browse around the Team Shop after.  Check out these two caps:

Can you believe the price on it!??  This one is for the purple Lakers cap to the left:

And this one is for the black one to the right:

That is just super ridiculous!!!

Okay, moving on.  Did I mention how cool some of these sculptures are:

Looks like we are stuck in this area for a bit.  The freeway going home is closed because of some lady on the freeway??! Never a dull moment in LA!

At least the boys are happy with dessert:

Looks like we can check "Monster Jam" off the list!  :-D