May 16th

Shari and I took Emma to a store in LA called Play Los Angeles this morning. They have a program called "Messy Art", where kids 5 and under can come in during a set time frame and express their inner artistic abilities without their parents having to worry about them trashing the house. I have quite a bit of art talent on my side of the family (my mother, her father and brother and my paternal great-great grandfather), however the artistic gene seems to have skipped over me; I'm hoping, however, that it didn't skip over Emma. Anyway, Emma was able to paint on the easels that they have set up in the room and draw with chalk on the walls, which have a special chalk board like wall covering. She seemed to enjoy herself, though I definitely think she'll like it more when she's a bit older. She had some help from Shari on the paintings that you see in the pictures, by the way. Our friends Kelley and Geronimo joined us with their 1-1/2 year old, Diego, who seemed to be much more interested in painting.

This afternoon Shari set up Emma's pool in the garage for the second day in a row. Emma was very excited to go "swimming", although the water was much colder than I could have handled. She is very interested in playing with the plastic cups that she got from her Grandma last weekend while down in Dana Point. She was also very interested in getting into and out of the pool multiple times. But she did have a great time, and that's what's important!