Roly’s simple costume.  A young boy at Vons asked me if Roly was dressed as a monkey.

The Marine and the Angel with their jack-o-lanterns

Just chillin’ in the pleather jacket from Uncle Dave and the little tykes car from Aunt Monya.

Always goofing around.

The brothers

Super – Roly!  This was his third costume of Halloween 2011.

Lookin’ good after his first haircut.

I sometimes let the kids use the camera on my phone.  Below are some shots I found.  I either forgot I took the pictures, or one of the kids took the pictures.

Lucy (right) and her best friend Emma conquer the climbing wall at the Avocado Festival, October 2011.

Max likes soccer, but he likes Gatorade more.  Look at all that fog.

Guess who. . .

I’m pretty sure this is a self-portrait.

On the day before Halloween, the local businesses in downtown Carpinteria open their doors for trick-or-treaters.  This is Lucy, and her best friend, Emma, and Emma’s younger brother, Nathan, before heading out to hit up the businesses.  Lucy and Emma did their own makeup.

We took a trip to the California Science Center on Sunday, 16 September 2011.  It was a great trip for many reasons, but it was a looooong trip as well.

The first reason that it was a great trip was that everyone had a fun time learning about science.  The next reason that it was a great trip was that our foreign exchange student, ZeeZee got to join us.  Next, we we joined by Em & Nate for the day.  Next, we were on time (or early) to every thing we wanted to see or everyone we wanted to meet (that doesn’t happen very often for our family).  Last but certainly not least, Jeff & Jan (and YaYa for a bit) had Ro so that we were able to focus on the exhibits, knowing he was in good hands (not ours!).

While at the museum, we saw 2 IMAX 3D movies.  I would recommend them both to anyone.

After the first movie, Aunt Jan sent me a message to let me know that Ro was having a good time.

The kids especially liked the dominos table where a whole bunch of domino trains could be constructed.  We went back here at the end of the day at the kids’ request.

Waiting for the 3D movie to start.  Em is being super cool with her ‘shades’ on.

Like I said, it was a long trip.  Google calculates it at 228 miles, round trip, in 4.5 hours.  We left home at about 7:45a, and got back at about 8:30p.  Glad to have made the trip, and especially glad to be back home safe and sound.

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Roly discovered that he is bi-pedal a few days ago.  If he can find something to pull himself up on, he will walk for as long as he can.  Below is a compilation of a bunch of short videos that Max took with his FlipCam.  Please ignore the strawberry stains on Roly’s shorts.  He loves his strawberries.

Roly Bouncin’ Around from Matt Theule on Vimeo.

The older kids are having a great time ‘encouraging’ Roly in his walking.  As you probably noticed, one way they ‘encourage’ him is to hold his bottle just out of reach.  I guess that is what older siblings are for.  Also, Max thinks it is artistic to get video of just the knees and feet.  I had to order Max to get footage with Roly’s whole body in the frame.

This summer, I borrowed a kayak from a friend at work.  Lucy was the first to ride with me and we had a great time.   Emily got in, but I dumped her trying to get past the (barely there) Carpinterian surf.  Nate was also dumped into the knee-deep water (his knees, not mine) when the kayak went parallel to the surf.  He cried so hard and so loud that the life guard came over and asked if he was OK.  I think YaYa was a little embarrassed.

On other days, Max and I have cruised out.  We have kayak’d up to Padaro Beach Grill an down to the Venoco pier.  I took my phone with us on the most recent trip and used GPS to record our tracks.  Uploading this information to Google Maps was pretty cool.

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