LA baby

I'm still in the process of re-capping our fab vacation. I'm still on the LA portion of the trip and in fact still on the beach-part of the LA trip, hence the beachy pictures. Topher's best friend, and Bex's godfather/uncle Colin lives right on the beach just south of Venice so we spent a ton of time on the beach. Bex's favorite thing was to chase the birds on the beach- he got a huge kick out of this. I should have gotten a video, but I was too busy chasing him around. He is at a very fun and very crazy age!! Turns out that a 14 month old has no fear and will run straight toward a downward flight of stairs, at full speed. In LA, we woke up very early due to the time change and ended up eating breakfast at this little place in Venice every morning- with Selma Blair! Yes, she was in Legally Blonde (the bitchy brunette). Her son Arthur is very cute but sounds like a bit of a nightmare baby. I always say- bad fetus = easy baby, good fetus = hard baby. We also hung out briefly with Pink and her baby Willow. Turns out that celebrity babies don't sleep in either! Ha!

Back to Cali

We all headed back, back, back to Cali last week. We had the most amazing trip and are frazzled and exhausted but at last sleeping in our own bed again. Bex was, as usual, an amazing traveler and good little boy. He really loved walking (actually running) all over the airports and in particular loved the moving walkways that we had to go back and forth on countless times. He didn't mind the airplane but didn't quite understand why the person in front of him didn't want to play with him (I didn't understand either- he was trying to blow kisses and play peek-a-boo!) We got back at 1am and I had to be up and at 'em at 8:15am for my first day at Quinnipiac University. We are all very tired but Bex was great with his first day back to school and seems to be pretty much already back on his regular schedule. Here are a few pics of the trip. More trip deets to follow...

Thanks for noticing me

The Keller-Carroll family has been incredibly busy lately with no sign of easing up. I have been at a teaching workshop at Quinnipiac all last week and into this week and Topher has been working like crazy in lab. I think that two assistant professors living in one household with one toddler and one super annoying cat will be an interesting experiment in itself. Here are some pictures of the QU campus (my favorite part of campus is the walkway through the woods). Included also are a few pics of Bex, who has recently been obsessed with his pet donkey from his auntie Mary. He wants to hold it while going to bed every night. It is pretty darn cute.

Prius Time

Topher and I made the biggest purchase of our lives and bought a Prius. We did a ton of internet research about buying cars and went to two different dealerships and ended up feeling really good about the price and the people that we bought it from. It is super fun to drive and every time you brake you can literally see the battery charging. Pretty fun. It says that it gets 600miles to the tank. We'll see if that is true. The other really cool thing is the it connects to your phone via blue tooth so you can play any music/podcasts from your phone and also makes calls from your steering wheel. Pretty fun. Here are some pics of us buying the car. Pardon the movie of me on the car- Topher thought he was taking a picture.

Cheers

Bex has been loving the playground lately. He runs everywhere and plays with all the older kids. Everyone there knows his name. It is like being at Cheers. I will try to post a short movie of him chasing tennis balls with the older kids.

Evolving...

Bex is really evolving as an artist as you will see below. I think that they do art in class at school just about everyday now. It started with just a few rare finger paintings and now he has used crayons and dotting markers and glitter. Needless to say that he still really likes day care. This month of July the school is celebrating Dr. Suess (hence Bex's funny hat and whiskers in one of the pics below).

We are currently in the worst summer storm since we have arrived and apparently there is even a possibility of a tornado. Crazy! I thought that Lia was the only sister that had to deal with tornadoes. I wouldn't normally mind but Topher is at work tonight and the thunder is LOUD! In general the summer storms are awesome and the rain is welcome to cool off the day.

crazy adventures

This weekend was full of fun and excitement. On Saturday we biked to the first concert in the park of the season. Bex walked around everywhere going crazy and clapping at the crowd. On Sunday we played at the playground, drove to the animal farm where Bex ran wild and saw the chickens, went to Toddler Tunes in the park, then stumbled upon a free block party on the street next to ours. Topher ran into someone that he knew from Stanford there (small world!) In all my spare time (when Bex was napping) I made a stuffed mustache that I saw on Pinterest. We are tired but have a great avocado, corn, salad awaiting (a recipe also from Pinterest).