San Francisco Weekend

We got a chance to send my sister off to college in San Francisco, which allowed for some great photo-ops.

Thi sis a classic stand-off between big brother and little brother. Benicio is daring his younger sibling to try and sit on this bench.

This was taken at Ocean Beach, which wasn't my favorite beach while living in San Francisco (I preferred to stay close to home at Baker Beach) but the scenery on this day was perfect.

If you get Julian close to sand he will throw it at you... that is not a threat.

It is amazing how far these little legs can take young Julian.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas, Happy Hannukah, Yea Festivus, and of course Welcome 2009. May the new year bring a whole bunch of accidental 08's on all my signed documents and yours... until July at least. Peace and hopefully I'll have more to say in the Oh Nine.

Hey That's My Bike

I hope that one day Benicio and Julian will look back on their childhood and say, "that was cool" or "dang, my parents really were cool when we were younger and made our childhood... pretty cool" or "man, I can't really remember any bad things when I was young. What about you Julian?' 'Ditto.'"Don't ask what this picture is about... I'm thinking that they just realy liked this goat.

The Curiels and The Cory's after brunch.

I just learned a way to teach kids how to ride a two wheel bike and we may try it come 2009 (Benicio may be ready for the 2-wheeler). First you take a regular 2-wheel bike (no training wheels necessary), take off the pedals and take the seat all the way down. Then the biker-in-training is basically learning to balance the bike and is in total control. The person who told this to me was the proprietor of Flying Pigeon L.A. - a new bike store on Figueroa in Highland Park (across from the best theatre for kids... ever: Highland Theater).

This was the first day of school for Benicio... we really should have done the haircuts before this day. We're still learning. It's really hard to say who is more excited in this picture. Julian: who now has his mornings all to himself or Benicio: who gets to play with kids who can keep up with him.

Summertime Visited

Violet took the kids on a train trip (Metro Gold Line) this past week to Chinatown and Olvera Street. Unfortunately I couldn't make it because of work but after viewing the pictures she took I kind of feel like I was their in spirit. It really looks like these guys had a great time (I only wish they could learn to properly operate a camera so I could have a few pics of Violet).


Some people are starting to say that the bros. are looking alike but I don't see it. Julian's beginning to look like the future running-back of his Varsity Football team, while Benicio's looking like the next Enrique Iglesias or Shila LeBeouf. Looks-wise, to me, they are going in different directions. I just hope those directions translate into intelligent good guys. I can't imagine them growing up to be jerks but you never know; Johnny - from Cobra Kai - was probably a likable little kid and look what happened to him when he got into High School. So now I know my job as pops: don't let my sons grow up to be evil bullies who are really into Karate and like to beat up on new kids from Jersey who's mother moved them out of their hometown because she thought being a hostess at a restaurant in Encino was a step up from Jersey Housewife... With that said, enjoy some summer shots of the boys.

Grandma LoLo makes a cameo on the Blog... We miss you LoLo and we're glad you moved back to the beach.

It's really hard to find a picture of "The Potch" without a sandwich in his hands (and as i write this I realize that the pics above don't have any food in them but trust me, he's hiding some sort of food product in his pocket). The kid likes to eat... a lot. And if he's going to be taking on entire defensive lines, he's going to need all the nourishment he can get. Go on witcha' ba-self Jules!

I Smell...

Summer! Although we, in the Los Angeles area, have the year-round summer weather (save for this past week when it mysteriously dropped into the 60's and rained for a couple days). Today 'the sun is shining, the weather is sweet, make me wanna' move my dancing feet' and I'm about to officially declare it summertime (maybe even get out my flourescent shorts and T-shirts, head to the local b-ball courts bumpin' some DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince, scoping out the honeys).
Here's a five favorite things of summer breakdown to get everybody ready for summer:
1. Schools out. I've been officially out of school for almost 8 years now and I still get excited when May comes around because I feel like the end is near and finals will be over soon... I'm going back to school.
2. Beach time. I've never been a big "beach guy" (I actually spent a lot of time at the beach up in SF but that was because I lived right across the street from it) but with the boys I can't think of anything better than taking the bikes to the beach and riding up and down the boardwalk. It's cheap, kind of a work-out, and makes these dudes very happy.
3. BBQ's. Nothing like the smell of charcoal, a good Hefeweizen, and maybe a leg of lamb or teriyaki chicken or steaks or burgers or hot-dogs or salmon or... you get the idea.
4. No day-light savings... okay, I'm sure I'm way off here (I don't feel like looking it up) but why do we still set the clocks back during the winter? I'm assuming that is the definition of, literally, saving day-light and that there was a time when the majority of the population were farmers and this was helpful for crops or something but can we please just leave the clocks where they're at. The rotation of the earth around the sun should be good enough to save that precious day-light we are saving by setting our clocks back an hour, right? Or maybe I'm wrong and day-light needs saving like the trees and the Aborogines of Australia. Anyways, I like the fact that in summer we don't save day-light and the sun stays out 'til about 8:30 or so at the latest.
5. This kind of goes with number four above but summer night-life. It's like everybody has extra energy during the summer months and feels the need to go out, walk the streets or just be outside (which, by the way, is my conspiracy theory as to why the day-light savings is still in use. Keeps the sheep in their shed at night, if you catch my drift... but that's a topic for my other blog: www.thegovmnttryingtocontrolabrutha.blogspot.com). I like taking the kids to the park when I get home maybe really get into teaching them to play tennis this year or just kick the soccer ball around. This also makes for a happy work week when I can come home and do these things with the little guys.