Tortuga!

Got lucky on our second day in Kauai!

ABCs really fast!

Jory's proposal for the SuperBowl halftime show: (eat your heart out, Red Hot Chili Peppers)

This is why we don't co-sleep

 The 150th Anniversary Celebration for the Caltrain really wore that kid out.

De Plane!

Jory asked to go to the Palo Alto airport yesterday afternoon, and we arrived a bit before sunset. Fortunately there were LOTS and LOTS of planes!

It did get a little windy ...

And a bit loud at times ...

But the light was lovely and we all had a great time!

And yes, Jory's wearing a bindi. He gets really excited about bindis. And planes. Especially planes.

Hai ya!

Jory showing off his kung fu skills today!

Jory at Curiodyssey (meep meep)

I took Jory to a kids zoo/science museum called Curiodyssey, where Jory got to see otters up close (as you may recall, Jory was enthralled by this Youtube video of an otter playing basketball...

Jory was also intensely amused by the roadrunner that hides in the back of the aviary:

I bought him a kit at the gift shop where you make trucks from a mold out of plaster-of-paris, and he has been exploring his inner Jackson Pollock:

And then just for good measure, here's his best He-Man impersonation:

New Orleans, Part 2

Grandpa and I took Jory to the New Orleans Zoo, where Jory was fascinated by the Komodo Dragon exhibit. There was actually a real Komodo, but Jory loved the brass one outside...

Continuing the statue theme, here's Jory with another little monkey:

Not sure what a Kid Trap is, but we could use one at home!

Jory also loved the elephant fountain:

 These are us waiting for the plane at the airport:

He was very sad to have to go home again and leave Grandpa!

New Orleans, Part I

Daddy went to a conference in New Orleans in mid-December, and Mommy and Jory came along to eat some Cajun food. This was Jory's first trip as a paying airline passenger, so he got his own seat!

We also got him a "puppy pillow" to fall asleep on, which you can see was quite successful (for both him and Mommy!)

Grandpa was nice enough to come to New Orleans to help take care of Jory, and on our first night we were greeted by a local animal:

The next day, Jory found some beads at the market that he liked, with predictable themes: 

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo

Jory and Daddy went up to Merced to see Uncle Ajay, Auntie Sai, and Jory's favorite person in the world: Anika.

We took a trip to the Fremont Zoo, which was much bigger than I expected. One of the first things Jory did there was to feed the giraffes:

... which he did not find to be as interesting as the yellow bulldozer nearby.

Here's Jory brandishing a weapon:

and he managed to find an animal in the petting area calm enough to sit through his attack:

He also wanted to sit on a lot of the animals (we vetoed the alligator):

and even in California there are snowmen! Hope everyone had a happy holidays!

Groucho, Chico, Harpo, and Jory

The Stanford Theater was doing a special Marx Brothers festival, so I took Tiffany to see Animal Crackers ("... I shot an elephant in my pyjamas. How that elephant got into my pyjamas I don't know.") and Monkey Business ("If a nightingale could sing like you...")

On Boxing Day, we didn't have a babysitter, so we decided to see if Jory could do a good Harpo impersonation and sit quietly through a whole movie. In case you're wondering the answer is no, but we did get some good photos before the movie started.

and he did enjoy the popcorn!

Where's Jory? San Diego!

Happy New Year!

As you may have guessed, we've found ourselves distracted from blogging for the last few months. So as not to have it seem like Jory was in suspended animation for this period when we look back on his blog, I've made it my New Year's resolution to work backwards through my photos and actually post all the pics that I took with the intention of posting them.

So, for those of you who are still reading, I promise that I will make one post a day, for at least the next 2 weeks. However, they will be going backward in time, in an attempt to not skip over anything.

Here goes...

We just got back from our annual post Christmas trip; this year we flew to San Diego. This is Jory trying to figure out the buckle on his very own airplane seat. By far the most exciting thing about this plane trip was that he saw a digger from the plane as we were landing in San Diego - the entire plane now knows how excited he gets about diggers!

We stayed with Aunt Virginia and Uncle Chris (below), who was happy that the Ducks won their bowl game.

We also saw Uncle Toby, who made Jory's 2013 by giving him a slew of Thomas the Tank engine gifts!

Jory loved the beach, where his most exciting sighting was a helicopter flying overhead.

We managed to go to Hash House-a-Go-Go, Daddy's favorite restaurant in San Diego, where he had a crabcake-stuffed burger, mmm mmm!

But mostly we stayed at home, building towers...

talking on the phone...

or wearing Christmas undies... sort of.

Somewhere along the way we managed to take a bath:

And after that exhausting vacation, Jory needed a cuddle from Mommy: