Two Weeks in L.A.

A few highlights of our most recent time in Southern California:

This is what it's like to sit behind me and Abe on an airplane. Yes, I asked the guy sitting behind us to take this picture. He basically made faces at Abe the whole flight to Sacramento.

Our first night in town, we got to have dinner with these people, whom I have described in the past as "the gods of parenthood." As Keri says, "My kids aren't angels--they're just civilized." I plan to email them often when questions arise.

We always want to see Staci when we're in L.A. She teaches Abe cool tricks like the one above.
On Ted's birthday, we went again to Porto's, where Obama is winning the cookie-war.

And in North Hollywood, he's winning on the picket fences.

Abe charmed some ladies on a slasher-zombie movie set. He was dressed in his Ethiopian outfit since we were on our way to the streetfair in Little Ethiopia to visit Steven and Julie.

I got to splurge on a brand-new outfit for Abe at H&M (we usually buy from consignment stores, but this was too cute to pass up).

Abe met a few more relatives, here his great-aunt and second cousin.

Chris and Heather had us over last Sunday where we got to see Angie, Anil and Noah again...

...along with Steven and Julie

Julie saves the day while Mom chooses to take a photo of her son falling over rather than help out.

Abe practices his camera mugging skills with Heather.

Why we don't have many "family portraits." We all end up looking sort of dorky (not that we're anything but).

In the Sacramento airport on the way home, this lovely women from Senegal "stole" our baby from us for a little while (her words).

By Ted's birthday, generous friends and family had helped us to surpass our goal of $2,000 to build half a well in Ethiopia with Charity: Water. Thank you, thank you, thank you to all who gave.

Now we're happy to be back in Oregon for a while and are taking Abe on his first camping trip this evening. That should be interesting.

...and stay tuned for a big Abe-announcement