Catching Up With Ava

Despite this blog's lengthy silence, Ava has been very busy over the past several months.

As summer wound down, Ava visited Point Loma and the Cabrillo National Monument for the first time, and we went apple and raspberry picking.  

Perhaps the biggest excitement was the start of second grade.  Ava has really enjoyed the new school year and lists math as her favorite subject.

Ava's athletic endeavors have continued.  She's been at Wildfire for four years, and has moved up to the Devo level.  After a brief hiatus from soccer, Ava came back strong and scored tons of goals for the Lucky Charms.

One of Ava's biggest extracurriculars is Girl Scouts.  The girls moved up from Daisies to Brownies this year, and have enjoyed lots of great community service projects like helping out at the food bank, beach cleanup, and baking for the families at our local Ronald McDonald House.

Halloween has always been one of Ava's favorite holidays, and the festivities lasted all month with pumpkin picking, a special visit to Disneyland, and trick or treating with friends in our neighborhood.

Ava got to spend the entire week of Thanksgiving in Oakland staying with Grandma and Grandpa.  We had plenty of good food and family time, including getting to see cousin Gil, Great Grandaddy, and a performance of Mary Poppins. 

Back home, Ava got to spend some time with cousin Anthony and saw a performance of the Nutcracker here in Irvine.

In addition to the Nutcracker, Ava prepped for Christmas with visits to Santa, cookie baking, gingerbread house making.

We celebrated Christmas with Grammy and Poppy, and Ava got to have fun with her presents after that.

We ushered in the new year on east coast time with Martinelli's and poppers. 

On New Year's Day, we visited the beach where it was just warm enough to dip out toes into the water.

2015 has gotten off to a great start, and has included Ava's first trip to Din Tai Fung.