Blog moving!

Attention all followers of Bissell-Hall Days!!!!

We have found that posting updates to Blogger is taking more effort than we seem prepared to sustain, so we have migrated everything over to the Posterous platform.

Find the new blog at http://bissell-hall-days.posterous.com/

Posterous has a number of nice features, including the ability to post directly from email. We will try to get into the habit of throwing up random pictures and observations as they come to us, rather than waiting till we have time to post more substantially.

Update your feeds, bookmarks, etc. Happy reading!

-Ahrash, Megan, Dahrius, and Ranier

Re: Dahrius skiing!!

Well, this is now nearly 2 weeks past, but Dahrius took his first skiing lesson (in a blizzard, no less) and did great!



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvnBqUknc-s


He's the little guy in the blue jacket--skiing with his tall baba in red jacket.

Ranier-isms

Figured I'd better document some of the things Ranier says before he grows up!

When asked where we could get some good apples & pears, Ranier responded,
"at Montemerry Market!"

Dahrius: When is daddy's birthday, Ranier?
Ranier: in Sectember

When trying to help Ranier wash his face and brush his teeth after dinner, he was being rambunctious and throwing the toothpaste into the sink and generally not cooperated.
Me: Ranier, you need to cooperate.
Ranier: Mommy, I just want to be crazy!!
Me: OK, you can be crazy after washup. (I'm not much fun)

Halloween 2010..the year of the dragon (and lion)

First, some warm-up to the Halloween. Here's a shot of an Oct. full moon early in the morning--view from our deck. Of course it looked much cooler than the photo, but oh well!

Here's Ranier one morning hamming it up. He was dancing, helping with laundry, and of course, wearing his favorite fun shoes! (dancing shoes....)




Again, it is so hard to capture all of the beauty we see in our views. This one of fog rolling in through the gap past the Golden Gate Bridge.



Now for the Halloween warm-up. Nana came to visit bringing these fun capes, which the boys wore non-stop!
watching pre-world series baseball. Go giants!!


Now for some Halloween costume shots. My little dragon refused to cooperate for a good photo, so I have a lot of random ones (mostly of Dahrius running away from me!) It was a little disappointing, since I worked so hard to make the costume. But I think he really liked it, and it was pretty sleek and fun. Here's one where you can sort of see the wings in the light.


The tail...and the colorful scales down the back. He mostly refused to wear the hood, but that's OK.
Running away!! We went to friend's ReCheng & Jonathan's house for Halloween parade, potluck & trick-or-treating. The kids had a great time out in en masse.


Preparing the lion's whiskers & black nose.


Ranier worked REALLY hard on his growl, complete with the very critical claws. Very fierce..



One with the hood. Who took this backlit photo??





Off with the hood for now..






Dahrius with his friend's Sam (minuteman) & Avi (elf)




Ranier and his friend, Maeve, the sullen princess. She did eventually break into a sweet smile. (sorry for random duplicate photos).




Sam & Maeve's little gypsy sister, Harper. cute!


My favorite dragon..in action.

Busy collecting candy! Ranier was marching along having no trouble keeping up with the big kids and he was singing along, "Let's go Giants!" We actually never even sung that, but we have been watching lots of Giants baseball...careful what you watch, the kids will pick up everything! In this case it was fine, of course!
Ranier particularly liked this big pumpkin..

Happy 10th anniversary!

Here are the little munchkins hiding in one of their little "houses." Cute! For our 10th wedding anniversary, Ahrash & I were fortunate enough to be visited by Nana, Uncle Joshie & Auntie Jojo who stayed and watched the boys so we could go off and have a lovely weekend in the mountains. It was a little hard to leave everyone, but we had an incredible time. Peak fall colors at Sorensen's, a couple of lovely hikes, but mostly very low-key and relaxing. We even got rainy weather for most of it, which seemed appropriate.

See the amazing aspens!
The love of my life...Ahrash.




It was pretty cool, and we went hiking without any water. We ended up hiking for a few hours, and even though it was sprinkly wet at first, I got thirsty and

September camping--Sonoma coast + Ahrash's bday

We had a fun surprise visit from Papi in mid-September...just in time for Ahrash's birthday celebration. We had a nice meal, a few fun gifts, and cake!! lots of helpers to blow out candles i our household.

We had a lot of camping this summer, and had a fun trip to the Sonoma Coast where we met up with Mendocino county friends, Jess & Brooke...and families. This was the final day on the beach. Ranier was having lots of fun playing in the sand & splashing around.


Jessie & little Max.

The boys were having such fun on this giant log. Here's Ranier, Dahrius & Max in front.

Lovely beach on the last day, just south of Jenner.
Here is the Redwood grove where we camped... a few-mile hike from the coast. And it was a lovely hike!
Here we are at our destination on day one--hike to the beach.
Dahrius & Liam had fun splashing around, but of course they got their pants wet in the surf.
The gang chilling for a picnic lunch. Mark, Megan, Ranier & Brooke in back, with Max & Jessie in front.
View from the hike-stunning!