New Years Eve at the San Diego Zoo. Ella was very interested in the zebras. Ethan was most concerned about ice cream. Although, Ethan did pass the test…Pandas eat bamboo and Koalas eat eucalyptus.

Your vote counts…which one to be framed and mounted for Ethan’s room?

Zebras and their stripes have such a great design asthetic…

The eye, caught my eye. Such a unique color.

Peek-a-boo…lions and tigers, oh my…

I didn’t realize how much I love pink flamingos, until today…

From down under…

How much sugar? Two lumps please.

This lil’ guy was just cool…

We had a nice afternoon in Pasadena strolling through The Huntington Gardens. Ethan especially enjoyed it, as one of the volunteers spent some time with him educating him on a rock that dated back to the dinasaur age. I downloaded and archived the pics of the kids first…will have to post some of the garden variety later!

Ella with her sultry “fashion model” look.

Ethan singing U2 songs

Tea time in the Zen garden

Mother + Daughter…a moment.

Ethan takes a breather…and parks his train (look to his right) for a “brief” second

…and the camera was close by.

This image was in the running for our family Holiday Card…and made a good showing when viewed by by the judges (i.e., Gia and the kids). However, didn’t quite make the cut (but fun designing, none-the-less).

It’s fun this time of year seeing families gather at the beach and in the parks – often in matching shirts, with cameras on tripods – in pursuit of the annual Family Holiday Card. We join in the fun (often guilty of the matching shirts), and have learned over the years that getting a useable image can certainly be a challenge.

Although we got a bit of a late start, we did manage to drag the kids along to a couple “2006 Anderson Family Holiday Card” shoots today. And, upon returning home and reviewing the images, it dawned on me that many of the “outtakes” normally go unseen. In fact, each year we have at least a dozen or so Holiday-Card-Attempts that never see the light of day. But now….with the blog….well, enjoy some outtakes (more to come over the next few days).