Batman and Robin, Universal Studios, Zoo day and Harvesting Olives

Well, Let's start at the beginning;

Friday the 26th of October - Caltech family picnic, Free food and helium balloons kept us all happy. Oh, and of course the Disney Princesses were in attendance!!!

Later this night we head to the Astronomy dept Halloween party dressed as Batman Characters in the costumes I made (I'm especially proud of Aimee's which I sewed from scrtch without a pattern- Batman, Robin, Cat woman and Poison Ivy (we won 1st place in the halloween costume contest, too :)

Laura and Walter (aka "The Chileans") came as Dora and Diego.

We all had a good night in our own respective ways. The next morning Matthew awakes to discover that his hand is, well, paralyzed. I google the condition and find he has 'Saturday Night palsy', he passed out with his arm over the back of a chair and has damaged the nerves in his arm. He will have to wait while they repair themselves before he regains use of his right hand. 5 hours later, the doctor at the clinic hands us a print out of THE EXACT web article I'd read about Saturday Night palsy and declares his diagnosis. Ahhh, good times at the clinic. Actually, it was pretty fun because our friends Laura and Walter were there - Laura fell off her bike on the way home from the party last night and has fractured her foot. So maybe she didn't enjoy the clinic wait as we did, but it was nice to laugh at Matthew. This was a Pasadena clinic, not even a Caltech clinic, so meeting them there was pretty odd.




Matthew's hand is doing better everyday, but not nearly completely functional yet. He wears a splint and has sworn off drinking. He can do (and does) 1/2 a thumbs up. He's in no pain at all, just can't really type or write, or do the dishes or bathe Bronson.

But seriously, he's taking this well and laughing it off. We expect a full recovery in a week or two.









On Sunday we went to Universal Studios for the day - all 4 of us. Bronson thought it was strange but as long as he was cuddling with mom on the rides and during the shows, he was happy enough to be there. It was alot of fun - we did the tram tour which showed us where the geniuses from Reveille write scripts for the 2nd best show ever "The Office" (2nd to 'Arrested Development') and we saw King Kong and lots of special effects and filming areas. Aimee and I did the Jurassic Park ride (yay!), we saw a couple shows and Matthew and Aimee experienced "The intense heat" of Backdraft. We also met many characters, all of whom Bronson was afraid of.









Last Friday (the 2nd) we had the First Annual Olive Harvest at Caltech! It was great, we spent a few hours picking olives and then we went to a really yummy (free) Harvest Dinner and ate our fill. When you pick olives off a tree they are not edible, however they were constantly serving prepared olives and olive oil in all it's various forms (i.e. dessert was Citrus Olive Oil cake with Olive Oil sorbet - which pretty much tastes as it sounds - I came home and got myself some good old fashioned chocolate).




Aimee did alot of picking (oooh, look how high she was mom!) and Bronson did alot of goofing off with our friends Thomas and Elizabeth (and their mom) who were also there.









AND THEN, yesterday Matthew had his first Glee Club performance for Caltech parent's day - I snuck in to watch him, they were pretty good. We then took the kid and the sister to the LA Zoo where we saw assorted wildlife doing wild things. Bronson reacted much differently this time than the last - he really noticed the animals this time and pointed and hooted at them all. After the zoo we invited the astro board game group (which Matthew started) over for a few games. Played some board games and then went crashed after a busy day.