The L.A. Dime

Brad and I love having family and friends come to visit. It’s so wonderful to catch up in person, have the house full of voices and it seems that those are the times we tend to take full advantage of what wonderful sights and experiences LA has to offer. With Mom-Mom and Pops spending the last 10 days here, we had a beach day (Clays’ first and he really loved the ocean sounds and fresh air), a Sunday brunch at the “Inn of the Seventh Ray” to celebrate their 40th wedding anniversary, a really fun dinner at Bubba Gump and a whole lot of hanging out at home and the pool just chatting or being silly with the kiddos. Thanks for the visit you two!!

Last Saturday we celebrated Sophie’s 3rd birthday at Underwood Farms. We’d reserved the morning session thinking that late August in LA would be hot, however we got very lucky and had a wonderful overcast morning with the sun starting to peek through just as we were packing up. Sophie and her friends were able to enjoy a horse-drawn wagon ride, feed various farm animals, ride ponies, jump in a bounce house and run free throughout the farm’s beautiful grassy areas. Mom-Mom and Pops were still in town to celebrate this special day and were especially helpful with getting the food set up and Clay entertained. The one request Sophie had for her birthday was purple cupcakes…and purple cupcakes she got….and some purple nails too.

Dear L.A. Dime readers, very soon this blog will be migrating to www.riddellfamilyblog.com. Nothing will change other than the address. Brad has decided to use the www.bradriddell.com address to build a professional(ish) website about his writing, teaching and other projects. This new site for Brad won’t be a blog, per say, but he is exploring using the very cool website Tumblr to start his own, more personal microblog.

Sound complicated? It’s not. Bookmark www.riddellfamilyblog.com now, so that when you run up against Brad’s new site, you’ll know where to go. He’ll post a link if he gets the Tumblr thing going, too, just in case you haven’t gotten enough of us!

Thanks for reading!

We have reached the week 3 mark of Clay’s life and here are his latest stats: he’s at 8lbs, 8oz; has outgrown newborn diapers and newborn clothes; drinking up to 6oz per feeding; sleeping about 3 hours at a time at night and takes several long naps throughout the day. Most importantly though is the wonderful sibling bonding happening – Sophie still asks where he is as soon as she wakes up in the morning and loves it when I bring him along to pick her up from camp. And vice versa, Clay doesn’t mind her hugging, kissing and tugging on him whenever she’s around. His favorite sleeping position is on his belly, on my chest.

Note: For some reason I can’t get the “picture labeling option” to work today so the first 2 pics (in the brown outfit) are week 2, the next 2 pics are from week 3, then there’s a food coma shot after Dada fed him and then there’s Miss Sophie Bophie showing us her silly faces and gestures.

We’ve been a Netflix family for many years now. We love the convenience of being able to choose which movie we’d like to see and not be tied to movie times that might not always mesh with what’s happening in our lives at that moment. Furthermore, it saves us a ton of money as we can get unlimited movies for only $15/month, while one movie ticket out here can run you about $12.

While we have 2 separate queues, since our movie preferences are quite different, I did convince Brad to watch my latest selection – “Food, Inc.” with me last night. His initial response (which I actually also heard from quite a few others that I asked if they’d seen this flick) was: “I’d rather not know”.

Having read that the movie was a realistic and therefore frightful look into how our food is made and what it’s actually composed of, did indeed seem like it might leave us never wanting to eat again – but the way I look at it, being uninformed/ignorant about it might be even worse.

So, last night we took a chance and watched it. And we were shocked. And saddened. And angry. And enlightened. I won’t spoil it for you because I’d really encourage you to watch it yourself but here’s what we’ve committed to doing:
- Eat less meat
- Buy more at local Farmer’s Markets
- Read even more food labels

So, check it out yourself….you owe it to your health….and the agricultural future depends on you to take a stand.

On a different note….I am soooo excited and looking forward to “Eat, Pray, Love” coming out soon!! I absolutely loved the book and of course, Julia being my favorite actress, this one I am going to have to break my own rules and see it as soon as it’s released…in the movie theater…with a box of Bon-Bons in hand:)