An Indian Sunday

A few years ago, Claron's labmate at the time, Lauren, went to India for a conference. She very sweetly brought us a dress for Eliza. As I was packing, I found it, and it fit!!! Eliza wore it to church this week. When we went outside to take pictures, Eliza thought it warranted a dance. Doesn't it look like she's doing a Bollywood number?

Or maybe a ballet?

Here are some of my other favorites of the day:

Thanks for the dress, Lauren!!

Reality Check

We've sold our car. I miss her already. She was a great car. Sigh. Bye bye, little hybrid. I hope your new family loves you!

For now until we leave, we'll be rocking around in this lady:

 

That's right! A real deal police interceptor! She's even bulletproof with working spotlights. She was graciously loaned to us by some friends at church. It's been fun driving her around. Let's just say, people slow down!

Braids!

I've been doing Eliza's hair each day, and we've been having so much fun with it. My mom has been able to braid her hair for quite some time, but here is some proof that I've finally caught up.

She chose this whole outfit herself (including the sunglasses!).

Blanca

This is Blanca. She is a beautiful pointed mini-rex rabbit at the BUNS shelter here in Santa Barbara. She is the sweetest rabbit, and I would take her home in a heartbeat if I could.

Eliza loves her too.

We will miss her when we move to Munich. :(

Someone, take her home. She is the best! Here is her petfinder ad.

Houston, we have a problem

The other day we went for a hike to the Coronado Butterfly Preserve on the Ellwood Mesa. Imagine my surprise when I took a picture and got this:

This was on an automatic setting. I took this next one in manual. See the difference?

Same exact scene. Uhoh. I knew I had a problem. Shortly thereafter, I got an error message: Error 01, Communications between the camera and lens is faulty. Clean the lens contacts. I cleaned the lens contacts and still the error message.

I took these the day before:

Confused, I google'd the error. I got everything from faulty lens connectors to a blown motherboard in the camera. To test the camera, I tried on another lens. Here is the result:

"Good" news. It is only my one lens. Sigh. Anyone else ever lose a lens? I can't figure out what changed from one day to another. Strange.

Too Soon

The countdown to Munich has definitely begun. I can't tell you how much I will miss days like this.

Ridge 2010 Year in Review

Christmas Pageant

Eliza participated in our Church's Christmas Pageant this year. We thought that she would want to be an angel, but nope. Here she is. She was a wise woman. This is her "game face."

Our Last Santa Barbara Christmas

Merry Christmas! We had a great day. Eliza got up around 9 a.m. We took some pictures and skype'd my parents. She loved opening presents.

 Her favorite presents were her "Suzy" pets (Zhu Zhu pets), her "science" (a chemistry set), her book from Grandpa that reads to her in his voice and this horrible, obnoxious princess laptop.

She liked opening presents but definitely took her time.

She liked her stocking. It contained the Ridge stocking prescription.

A Ridge stocking contains:
-Something to Eat
-Something to Read
-Something to Play With (and)
-Something You Need

For dinner, we had our friends, the Argyles, over. They have a baby, Lydia, who is 4 months. We had salad, ham, funeral potatoes and green beans. We ate on my legacy china. (I can't believe I didn't take a picture!! I also didn't take any pictures of us in our Christmas wear.) After dinner, we talked to family and then went to the Argyles' home to play games. We played a great game about trains. It poured rain part of the day. It was a great day!

O Christmas Tree

I love our Christmas tree. I found a good one this year. Believe it or not, I bought it at the Home Despot. I know, classy. Claron told me last year that he was never shopping for trees with me again, and he held to it. He swears that I am "too picky." I blame this on my dad. I remember one year Dad and I went all over the state of Pennsylvania looking for just the right tree. I digress. So, Eliza and I went to the Home Despot. We arrived at 3:30 p.m. The tree was unwrapped on our back patio by 4 p.m. Claron was in a state of disbelief.

The reason I love our tree is the ornaments. They all have a story. They were either bought overseas, made by us or given to us by someone special. We have this color changing angel that Eliza HAD to have at an ornament exchange one year. People tried to "steal" and she would cry! She still loves that angel.

I'm debating whether I want a garland. Also, I cant decide whether I'm taking ornaments to Germany. And, if so, how do I decide?!