"Why are you taking my picture, dad?" Because I want to save this slice of life. Ethan playing Runescape, like he does every spare moment of his life.

2009-10-31 Halloween Pumpkin Carving

So there's a little bit of obsession in the household, even surrounding things we don't particularly get wound up about. Like pumpkin carving.

Old friend from Ann Arbor, Jim Jackson, visited for a few hours. Turns out he lives just po the road in Santa Monica. Small world -ON.

The Kralls came to visit LA looking at universities, and we got together in West Hollywood for an evening.

Rebecca and Andreas from Sweden drove all of Route 66 and ended up in our guest room.

Potica, the round challah for Rosh Hashanah, as beautifully and deliciously executed by Karen to ring in 5770.

Ethan started 7th grade on Tuesday, and as I was coming home from surfing and he was leaving, I took the obligatory 1st day of school photo. He hasn't cut his hair seriously since June of 2007.

Saturday afternoon we drove down to Playa Del Rey to work with Ethan's science club team removing some invasive Caster Oil plants from the Ballona Wetlands. Trampling Ice Plant under foot released enough moisture to make it a muggy, jungle adventure. We did not eat the seeds, with contain the poison Ricin.

We got Ethan back from Camp Pali. Here he is with his counsellor, "Wax."

We dropped Ethan off at camp today. He'll be there for a week learning to be a 'secret agent,' or at least playing paintball.

Just so that you know: we're still here, enjoying California life. I'll have to take more photos, but somehow Facebook and goofykook.blogspot.com seem to be tracking life pretty well, and this blog has languished. Will do better.

Ethan and his buddies from RockAmp performed at the Camp Expo on Saturday. They did a half-hour set with Ethan at the mic.

Marie and Simon Wallis came to visit this week. The weather today was perfect, and we spent the morning at the beach trying to surf, then had breakfast at Uncle Bill's in Manhattan Beach. Here's a rare photo of me with Karen, as well as one with Marie and Simon.

We had a great visit from Willow and Karla, including a two-day trip to Joshua Tree National Park (while Ethan was away at a sleep-over science camp). The flowers weren't blooming spectacularly, but they were still colorful and interesting. Temperatures were perfect for walking around, with highs in the 70s.

090325-26 Joshua Tree

Here are the parting shots from Willow and Karla's visit. Karen and Willow covered up at the beach to nap, while everyone else was in his or her bathing suit. Then we had a photo shoot out on our back balcony.

It's time to catch up a little. We're still here doing interesting things, so you should know about them. I'll post some retro-active updates.

Our first visitors for the year were Lyra, Merode and Max. They drove down from SFO and spent the weekend. Lyra stayed on for another week, and although we didn't have awesome LA weather, it was better than Manhattan.

On Presidents' Weekend, at long last, we held LimmudLA 2009. Karen and I were both involved in the organizing (with a great group of volunteers), and 700 people enjoyed the 3-day event. Here's Ethan with the chocolate chip challah he made.

Chris Miko, Ethan's excellent science teacher from last year, has been organizing kids to work on re-claiming marsh land at Ballona Wetlands near LAX. We spent an afternoon hacking down invasive plants like the Brazilian Pepper Plant. It seemed like a hopeless battle, but perhaps it will pay off in the long run. Some of the marsh is already reclaimed, but this chunk is a dry dumping ground for old concrete.

090117 Ethan's Birthday Trip to Santa Monica Pier

Since Ethan's birthday fell on Thanksgiving, he didn't have a party then. So this weekend we took five of his close friends to Santa Monica pier. The weather was fantastic, and the boys had a great time -- without a computer or an iPod in the entire group. Amazing.