Our Life, under construction

Food, biking, movies, and party hats

2012-01-02T11:28:00.000-08:00

Laura's parents offered to take the kids for New Years. So, Saturday morning we dropped them off, and Laura and I had the weekend to ourselves.

First, we went out to lunch — eating at Vik's Chaat Corner, our favorite place for Indian Chaat in the bay area. You'll enjoy everything you order here, but Laura & I particularly love the Bhatura Chole.

Then, we were off for dessert in Oakland, stopping by Fenton's, Laura's favorite ice cream shop.

After napping off the delicious food, we took a short bike ride around Coyote Hills. I'm way out of shape, so I held us back. Laura mentioned how she didn't even break a sweat while I, on the other hand, was seeing black spots every time we stopped moving. We saw a fantastic sunset, though. I grabbed a few good shots with my phone.

We then went to a movie and watched Tom Cruise jump across the tallest building in the world and, then, bang his head. Best part of the movie.

Finally, we stopped at a few friends homes, caught up with them and played some card games, ringing in the new year with noise makers and party hats.

Unwrapping

2011-12-24T23:09:00.000-08:00

Christmas was great. We spent the traditional Christmas Eve with the rest of the Headleys, enjoying all our family traditions.

On Christmas day, we opened presents. Laura and I hosted a Christmas dinner, making only the second turkey of our married lives. The Souths, friends of ours, made Christmas dinner complete — great food and great company.

Laura, the chief elf in our household, loves to see the kids open lots of presents. As you can see, she made sure that happened this Christmas.

The "Welcome Home" sign is left over from our house sitter after our return from Disneyland.

Fear and no fear, plus the blue knight

2011-12-03T22:16:00.000-08:00

For Saturday, we spent a lot of time at California Adventure. Abigail showed no fear and took Mom and Dad (separately) on the fast roller coaster — Screamin'. And, Laura showed some guts by following everyone else on the ferris wheel. Apparently, there are only some scary rides she likes to go on. We went on a swinging cage. The first time it swung, Laura crawled up into a ball, leaving the boys to slide off from their seats. She caught one, but missed the other. I think the whole family was laughing very hard during that ride. We all enjoyed it, but Laura.

It was fun to go on rides together. We all went on the together. Unfortunately, Gabriel is out of view on these pics, but is sitting next to Laura.

That evening we had dinner at Medieval Times, which was a blast. The kids loved cheering for the blue knight. He came in second place, doing a pretty good job, overall. But, for Laura and I, it was really great seeing the kids get into the performance and cheer for the blue night.

The picture of Benjamin with his blue flag exemplifies how all the kids got into the cheering. I don't know what was happening with Gabriel here, but I love that Collette is ready to smile for any picture.

Family picture at the event:

Genies, water shows, & night sights

2011-12-02T22:45:00.000-08:00

Day 2 in Disneyland

Friday, we spent our time at Disneyland & California Adventures. The kids favorite ride (except Gabriel, because he didn't quality), was Soarin'. It was always good to have a ride that everyone agreed to. While the other kids were at Soarin', Gabriel and I watched a Monsters Inc. parade and went on the Monters Inc ride a few times.

We also saw a few other shows, including Aladdin and Playhouse Disney. Aladdin was great, despite the magic carpet ride not working. All the kids really loved it.

We took a break from the park at dinnertime and came back to watch the water show. We tried to race over to see the fireworks, but the line was too long to get back into Disneyland. So, we took the kids, once more, on Soarin'.

A bit from the World of Color water show:

Then, we went over to see the night lights at the castle and decided to spend a late night getting onto Small World.

It was a slow moving line. They were doing some recording of the characters with what looked like a news reporter. Then, there was also a line held up so that a celebrity (Chaz Bono and his former girlfriend). Apparently, if you're a celebrity, you get to get a boat to yourself. Well, we probably should have gone on a different ride, since the line here was so long. But we got a good family shot out of it.

Jedi Training

2011-12-02T09:36:00.001-08:00

Some time ago, Laura introduced the Good Deed Jar, which we've been adding beans to for a good deed done in the family. We told the kids that at 500 deeds, we'd take them to Disneyland. So, Wednesday, after school, we picked up the girls. They were surprised to see me in the car, since I'm usually at work. Then, Laura mentioned I counted the beans before going off to work, found more than 500, so we packed the car and started driving directly to Disneyland.

Yesterday, Laura & I loved watching Collette and Abigail battle it out in the Jedi training. We took Abigail, Ben, and Gabriel on the Matterhorn. Did all the Fantasyland rides, and overall had a great time.

Off to run for the bus! We'll add more pictures later.

Favorite moments of the kids:

Gabe: Matterhorn

Collette: Star Tours

Abigail: Jedi training

Ben: Buzz Lightyear shooting

Abigail's Baptism

2011-11-27T19:30:00.000-08:00

Abigail was baptized today. We had cousins come and friends come to support her. Uncles and grandfathers participated in the ordinances with Grandma talking about the gift of the Holy Ghost and G-ma giving the closing prayer.

She was baptized with her friend, Hailey, who has a musical family, and was able to share a lovely musical number. Plus, Hailey's uncle gave the talk on baptism.

The day of her Baptism with Hailey:

The day with me:

Abigail was so happy to be surrounded by her cousins.

We also did pre-baptismal photos for the program. Here's one of my favorites:

Here's a little slideshow we put together for the event. In part, we used it between the baptism and confirmation.

Pumpkin Patch

2011-11-21T09:42:00.009-08:00

I am so behind that I'm just now blogging about going to a pumpkin patch just before Halloween. I took the kids up to Half Moon Bay since I had never been there for pumpkin patches and had heard how fun they are. I had also heard how crazy it is to go on the weekends. So, I ditched Joel and battled the four kids alone so I didn't have to worry about the crowds.

Ben had tons of fun on the horse ride. Go ahead. Click on the picture. See that happy face blown up.

Then there's Gabe, who is so hard to please

It's hard to beat Collette's love for animals, though

However, we might have a winner

After pony rides we saw the petting zoo. Happy kids there. Even Ben.

Collette was in HEAVEN (sing it with me... I'm in heaven...)

Gabe was happy at this distance

And Abigail was just as happy here as with the ponies

They went on a train ride. A lot.

Played in the pumpkin patch

And on the hay bales. It was fun!

Ragnar 2011 (and possibly the longest post I've ever done)

2011-10-22T16:28:00.022-07:00

RUN. DRIVE. SLEEP? REPEAT.

I was lucky enough to have 11 good friends that love to run. Or at least love to be involved in a 36 hour, 200 mile, get max 3 hours of sleep, car full of girlfriends that inspire, laugh, and love an overall amazing time. Yes, talking about Ragnar. There are a number of Ragnar's across the country and for the first time, they came to Northern California for the best launch race they have ever had. We raced against 333 other teams. I can't remember how many all girl teams but there weren't too many.
I had the best time ever on this race. I much prefer racing with a team for a bigger purpose than just racing by myself. And I had a blast being in a car full of good girlfriends for almost 2 days.
I want to do this again. Southern California Ragnar is mid April. I plan on running that one as well. You even get a special race medal if you've raced in both Northern and Southern California Ragnar. This will be a picture heavy blog. It's mostly for me. I have a horrible memory and hopefully, if I blog this well, I'll keep those memories :)

Our team was Victorious Secrets and we wore pink. We wore pink like no tomorrow. I was in heaven. I was lucky enough to be in Van #1. I didn't realize it would be a lucky thing. More on that later. In Van #1 was Jessica Kazmucha, Liz Boyd, Elaine Guthrie, Afton Parker, and Chelsea Ham. Van #2, who we didn't really get to see very much of, which was disappointing to say the least, consisted of Whitney Shafer, Lindsey Harman, Laura Long, Julianne Geddes, Heidi Beckstead, and Sarah Collins.

Up at 5am. Leaving Sunnyvale with a car full of girls ready to run!

San Francisco Ragnar welcomes us!

Van 1 before go time!

Afton is our first runner up and she's super ready to go

Photo op while waiting for Afton to get in

Chelsea was set to go but we did take a second for another quick photo op before she was off. She is such an amazing runner, she still beat her expected time. By far. Our van, however, *may* have gotten a bit off track in our effort to get to exchange 3. Sorry, again, Chels!

Here's me starting on my first leg (see the pink shirt running away?). It was a long one. And unexpectedly long. *Maybe* because the course was not marked well and I *maybe* got lost for a little bit, but all in all, I only went about 1 mile out of my way. My mileage on my first run ended up being 9.6. It was suppose to be 7.

See, here's me when I was still in good spirits (even AFTER I recovered from my missed turn) But before I was realizing that this was NEVER going to end. And the hills. I hadn't yet gotten to the hills at this point.

There was a lot of this in the car in between runs. Don't mistake this for sleep. It's just moments of exhaustion.

So here is Van 1 again, ready to take over. We've completed our first round, tried to rest at the hotel, which was a loss on the runners (too much adrenaline to calm down enough to rest) and we're ready to get started on our second runs. It's about 6:30pm as we begin our second sets.

Afton started out in the evening hours but it quickly turned to dark. Here is our official start of the night runs :)

Here is Elaine, our 6th and final runner in van 1. She was bringing in our second legs around 12:15am. We passed off to van 2 and made our way back to the hotel as fast we could. We knew we had limited time to rest and we were all getting a little delirious by this point. *This is the first point where it was advantageous to be in van 1. To not have to run the middle of the night shift and get *some* amount of sleep.

We got to the hotel room, and I barely was alert enough to get out of my running clothes, throw on some pajamas, and lay as close to the edge of a queen size bed as possible so that Jessica and Chelsea could also fit. Did you know 6 girls could fit on two queen size beds? It's true. Last time I saw the clock, it was just after 1am. I had been up since 4:45am the morning before. So far, I've run a total of 15.1 miles. Laura Long lovingly called us at 3:45am to tell us when they would be in. Why, Laura?? Why didn't you text?? :) Some of us fell back asleep, like me. Others couldn't. The alarm went off at 4:15am. I was up, in the shower, and back into running clothes, yes clean ones, and out the door with van 1 by 5:15am. This was the last time we were to be in the hotel, so we packed up and headed back out to start our last legs.

Here is Afton, around 6:30am running leg 3. The funny part with Afton is that she got lost. Every leg. Every. Leg. But, we followed her for awhile on leg 3 and drove the course, and figured there was NO WAY she could get lost on this course. It was marked well and there were plenty of runners around. Side note: for such a HUGE race, you often run alone. Teams are staggered and rarely are you keeping pace with runners around you. You either run slower or faster and end up running solo for most of the time. BUT, this time, we saw lots of runners around Afton, so we thought she was good to go. Nope.

Here's where we last saw Afton in the early morning hours:

We were at exchange 25, waiting for Afton to come in. Then we saw a woman that Afton had passed. And we knew there was no way Afton would have let her pass her to come in first. So, here's Elaine's face as they raced into the car to find missing Afton.

Elaine and Jessica found and picked up Afton. As well as another runner, who she was following and blamed for her poor sign following skills. They were 1? 2? miles out. I can't remember which. So, Elaine and Jessica threw them in the van and dropped them back off where they took their wrong turn. Here they come, racing their butts off to make up time

Here's Afton and ??? (we knew his name once, and my case in point why I need to write this stuff down, my memory is broken).

Side notes:
While they were gone picking up Afton, Liz, Chelsea, and I sat making fun of a volunteer, who was barking orders at runners, which we hadn't seen happen up to this point and we found it funny. But we were entertained for awhile. She was wearing mom jeans and a really old sweater. Why do I put this in my blog? Because it was hilarious at the time. It was also hilarious when Liz was running her night run and we drove up along side of her honking our horn and screaming to encourage her. She turned to us, waved, and proceeded to fall off the edge of the asphalt into a ditch. That was funny, people. We felt badly, of course. And we made sure she was ok. But, really, it was funny. It was also funny to me when I laid down at 1am to sleep to stay sane. Jessica was laying right next to me. We just hit the pillow. It was totally quiet in the room. We both sat straight up at the same time and yelled, "the alarm!" It was funny when Jessica and her magic smelly essential oils (which smelled like a Christmas candle) were smelling up my van. Many of used them to see if they would help our sore muscles. But it somehow became a joke that if someone drank these, would there poop smell like Christmas? I know it's not funny now, but in our altered states of mind, these things were hilarious and kept us going. It was NOT funny when we had finished our final legs and stood in front of our van to take a 1/2 team picture when a guy came up and said he LOVED our team name and could he take a picture with us. Could he? Sure...why not. He stood right in the middle of us and right before his camera clicked, he dropped his shorts. Really? Yes. Really.

Almost done with the race...

Afton is done. DONE. Chelsea starts her last leg. Her hardest and longest. It is an understatement to write that this girl ROCKED her last leg like nobody's business. She ran/paced along side a guy who was in a team of 4. FOUR! He was running every fourth leg. Insane. He was a crazy good runner and our girl was pacing him! Here they come as we sit in the van around mile 5.

And she's in good spirits, too!

And here's us. Again. In, what I imagine, has to be the prettiest setting for a race. Seriously, Golden Gate Bridge to wine country? Amazing. (Note: see the bright yellow/black bag in the middle seat? That's a breast pump. There was a lot of pumping going on in van 1. Two ladies who were running this were still nursing babies! That is also amazing).

Waiting for Chelsea to get in there was a makeshift, spur of the moment dance in the little parking lot. Some van decided we all needed a little running break and it was time to DANCE. Elaine agreed and hit the floor!
Chelsea finished with a ridiculous time for 9 miles and a bunch of serious hills. Chelsea is done.

Liz took off for her last leg and we snagged this picture of her coming in getting ready to hand off to me. Liz's goal during this race was, "to not die." She did it. She finished all three legs, sometimes she might have been in a ditch, but she did not die. Rock it, Liz. Liz is done.

Liz just passed off to me. I'm JUST starting out my last run. The face? I was in SO. MUCH. PAIN. I managed to pull a muscle in my ankle on my first long, hilly run. That hurt. But with ice and lots and lots of ibuprofen, it was manageable. However, my knee started hurting during my training. About the last week I noticed it causing me pain when I would run over 3 miles. But, after pounding the crap out of it running hills and not resting and doing whatever else to it that made it start in the first place, it was killing me the second I started out on this run. Killing me. I wasn't sure how I was going to finish but there was no way I wasn't going to finish the last leg of this race. So I was trying my best to run limping. I felt like the pace of a turtle and felt so guilty that I was going to slow the pace of the whole team down with however long it was going to take me to finish. And then, while listening to my music, the voice on my running app came in to tell me I had gone 1 mile in 8:52! I was shocked and so excited that even though I felt like a turtle, I was actually moving! Around the same time, the pain left me and as long as I kept moving, I was pain free. It was only when I stopped that the reminder of the pain returned.

I finished my last leg with a decent time. 3.6 miles in just under 33 minutes. Total running mileage= 18.7. I am done.

I pass off to Jessica. We then lost Jessica. We thought she didn't run past us. We apparently didn't see her run past us. We waited for awhile to try to wait for her. Meanwhile, Jessica was sitting at exchange 30 for 10 minutes waiting on us. Nice job van 1. Jessica is done.
Elaine takes off to tackle these fun hills, which she handled so well!

Elaine is done. Van 1 is DONE. It was around 12pm on the second day and we were finished. (this was seconds before indecent exposure boy came along)

We wanted to eat. A lot. Not bananas. Not muffins. Not energy bars. Not almonds. We wanted to EAT. But FIRST, we found a giant cow print chair. And what else is there to do but stop and take a picture in it?! So we did. And then we ate...

Then we headed up towards the finish line. We were hopeful to see van 2 runners. I took a few turns and sure enough, we found Ragnar runners. And then, in the not too far distance, a bright pink shirt! It was a van 2 runner! Julianne was at the tail end of her 7 mile, asphalt only, burning hot sun beating down on her, run. It was getting REALLY hot. (insert second big reason why I lucked out being in van 1. It was so freaking hot by this time and only got worse as runners 10, 11, and 12 finished up our race.) We didn't want to scare Julianne into the ditch off the side of the road, so we passed her just enough to not scare her and honked and yelled and screamed and sent our love to her. Apparently, she told us later, that she was just about to start walking. It was all getting to be too much for her (van 2 didn't get the three hours of sleep we did, they were running on empty) but seeing us and hearing us yell for her and honk for her, gave her enough energy to finish that last half mile running. What a CHAMP! We pulled over at exchange 34, saw van 2, and then van 2 was off to catch their next runner. We drove up to the finish line and waited for van 2 to come in.

We made it!!

Joel was volunteering at the last exchange. When his time was up, he waited for us to make it up there. It was fun to see my husband at the end of such a long, hard race!

Here's our last runner coming in! Go Sarah!

Van 1 and Van 2 are DONE. We ran Ragnar!

Official now with race medals and all :)

And a silly face one for good measure

Sugar Cookie FHE

2011-10-22T16:03:00.006-07:00

Last Monday night, our family home evening activity was decorating Halloween sugar cookies. My kids came up with quite the detailed cookies. Or, some might say, piled on heaps of sprinkles. But, since Fall is my favorite time of year and since I LOVE Halloween, it seems too festive not to show the pictures, even if it is admitting I let my children eat this junk.

Abigail wouldn't even touch hers to eat it. Says something, right?

Decorating is a messy job. But how cute is that chubby hand?!

If you're bored...or family

2011-10-22T16:01:00.000-07:00

This blog post is a 4 minute video of not a whole lot. You may want to skip it. Or watch like 10 seconds. But to me, it's something I don't want to forget, so up on the blog it goes! So... a couple months back, Gabe had to have a small surgery performed. No biggie, he was in and out in a couple of hours but for those of you who haven't had the pleasure of having your children have a surgery, the dr.'s give them this "sleepy juice" so they can take them out of the room you're in, and get them into the surgery room without all the crying or fear or terrifying screams that may come from them. Ben had it for his surgery and Gabe had it for his. It's hilarious. Here is Gabe on his "sleepy juice" Again, long in video but with it being my son, who doesn't act like this, I think it's hilarious.

Mom/Abigail day at Great America

2011-09-28T14:55:00.006-07:00

Abigail is my daughter at heart. She LOVES roller coasters and is often disappointed when we go over to Great America and we have to hang out in the little kid area. She's so ready for bigger rides. But, I usually don't have the option to do anything about it. We have the other kids who can't/won't go on the bigger rides so it leaves Abigail sitting on the kiddie rides, which she is DONE with. So, one Saturday morning the other three kids went to a birthday party and I took Abigail over to Great America for a little Mom/daughter bonding time on the rides. I also love roller coasters but Abigail put me to shame (if it matters to anyone at all except me, I had just run like 8.5 HILLY miles earlier that morning) so my legs were tired and I hadn't eaten very well.

Regardless of those facts, we set out to have fun and ride as many rides as she could handle or was allowed. Which turned out to be a lot. She is only not tall enough to ride 3 rides there. THREE! That just kinda surprised me. She's so little to be on some of those rides! But, she was happy and excited and ready to go. We started out on the big swings at the front. That was no where near the thrill she was looking for so we headed over to the Demon. She was nervous but she did it without hesitation. After the Demon was the Grizzly, which she LOVED. She was unfortunately, ok, not UNfortunate for me at all, too small to go on Drop Zone, which she whole heartedly wanted to do. After that was some Tiki Ride, which scared the crap out of me. It does NOT seem scary when you see it. It seemed like a more tame ride but I PROMISE you, you feel like you're going to get thrown like a frisbee off the ride. Holy crap I wanted off that ride. She, again, was in heaven. Then we went off to two, yes two, in a row, super duper spinny rides. Something called Centrifuge and something that should be named likewise but I have no idea what it really was cause I could barely see after all the spinning. Blech! Abigail decided after those two rides, it was time for lunch. And why shouldn't it be?? So we ate.

And after we ate, we headed over to Delirium. If it explains anything, during the ride at one point, Abigail looks over at me and calmly yells, "why are you screaming, Mom?" Then we walked over to the Revolution. Which apparently has a new name now. But that's what I grew up calling it so that's what I will call it for this post. The giant ship that goes around and makes you hang at the top. I could normally handle this but my stomach was not doing well after lunch and more spinning and twirling. No worries, readers, I hung in there. But I totally thought the little girl screaming was going to come from Abigail. Not from me. It's been awhile since I've been on some scary roller coasters---somehow my "love" of these things has shape shifted into "the mom who's afraid to die on rides and leave her children motherless the rest of their lives". Weird.

We ended on one last ride on the big swings only AFTER me turning her down to do some crazy human slingshot ride that costs $35! After paying for 5 people's season passes, we should be allowed to not pay for ANYTHING but apparently Great America doesn't agree with me. But, I was glad for the price. It gave me a good reason to say No. I was shocked, really, that she could go on this human slingshot but not allowed on Top Flight or Vortex. Again, weird.

All in all, we hung out for about 3 hours riding and playing. It was a fun day and I would totally do it again...even if it means my 7 year old making fun of me again. We didn't get many pictures, or even great shots, but here are 3 pics from our day:

Us in the car ready to head in

After lunch, she got a picture with...ummm...?? not Charlie Brown. Linus?

Getting ready for our last swing ride

Abigail's getting older

2011-09-28T14:40:00.005-07:00

So Joel and I never put a set age on when we would allow our girls to pierce their ears. I just wanted them to be old enough to take care of their ears themselves once they did it. I didn't want to have to clean, disinfect, deal with an infection, twist, turn, or have anything to do with it, really. I've got enough on my plate to remember earrings. SO, we unofficially told Abigail 8. She turns 8 in about 2 months and was asking us if she could get them pierced a little early. We had no objections since she's pretty responsible with stuff. She asked us on a Sunday and we went over on Monday after school to transform her into a "older" girl. She was so excited to get it done and I have to say, it's been a very easy experience. She loves it and I don't have to do anything about it! Perfect!

Before and After: (I know, you can barely tell...but hang in there, I'm sure there will be more to come)

She's already very excited to change her earrings right before Halloween to something more "festive" :)

Ten years ago

2011-09-11T19:06:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago, I woke up suddenly, but stayed still, lying in bed.

In the room next door, my housemate had his television on — unusually early for him. I didn't hear anything specific, but the noise was enough to give me a sinking feeling. I remember lying in bed, not wanting to flip on my television, because I knew something horrible had happened. I lay there for minutes, trying to second guess my gut, hoping the slow panic filling my stomach was imagined.

When the feeling wouldn't go away, I sat up, finding the remote, and flipped on the television and watched the horror of 9/11 unfold.

I was stunned — numb. I can't remember when I woke or what I saw on TV. I remember the news outlets confirming we were under attack. The towers hadn't come down yet and full tragedy of the day hadn't unfolded.

I remember talking to Laura that day. I asked her not to cross the bridge to get to school. She lived in Berkeley at the time, attending SFSU. Crossing the bridge was part of her normal commute. I think she eventually went to class, but no one else did.

I went into the lab having just started graduate school at the University of Arizona. Everyone was at work, but no one was working. I was glued to my laptop, watching CNN online trying to understand what was happening and where.

I don't remember the full events of the day. I was shocked, to say the least. And I was very apprehensive. My dad sent an ominous email — 9/11, a second day of infamy — was the only message. I knew this meant our country would retaliate. And I knew that meant many would die that never deserved that fate, just like those who had died this day.

What a strange time. Only days before, Laura and I had purchased tickets for a mid-October trip to Las Vegas. We ended up getting married on that trip. We were traveling often between Tucson and Alameda in those days. The airports were mostly empty save for a few frequent fliers and the new security provided, in part, by the national guard.

It is a sad day to relive. A sad day to remember. A sad inflection point in the history of our country and the world. I'll be honest, though.

I don't consciously remember this event everyday (no, I'm not Oprah). Though, I won't forget the day. The impact of those events have changed world events. But, I'm not sure if they've changed me. My life has changed — I have changed. I can't say that I would have made different decisions in my life as a result of this catastrophe. Are you a different person as a result of 9/11?

Walking to lunch

2011-09-10T18:19:00.000-07:00

Just can't help to love my family, walking across the street on the way to lunch on Labor Day. Everyone is holding hands while crossing the street, as we should.

Collette & Joel's first photowalk

2011-09-05T11:33:00.000-07:00

Collette and I, for our night out, took advantage of a special event – a Google+ photowalk at Cal. I've been trying a little photography here and there - still don't really know how to use my camera. So, I thought it was a good time to meet some photographers, and hopefully learn something. Plus, since Collette loves the 'train' rides, I thought taking her on BART up to Berkeley would be fun. Also, all my kids love using our cameras to take pictures.

The BART ride was great. After getting off BART, and making a quick potty stop, we trekked up to the campanile where the group was meeting. I shortened the strap on the Leica and let Collette have free range taking pictures. I think she actually took some amazing shots. Probably better than any of mine. Seriously, I was a bit disappointed with my inability to take good pictures.

Here's some of Collette's pics:

From Berkeley photowalk (Collette's pictures)

My photo of her:

From Berkeley photowalk

Inside of the mining building:

And at the reflecting pool:

She also loved to take self-portraits.

Unfortunately, the Leica ran out of batteries soon after we started the walk. So, I gave her my phone so she could keep up the picture taking. That second self-portrait is with the phone. You'll notice the other low-quality pics are from the phone too.

After the mining building, we went to the Biology building to check out the dinosaur. Collette really loved looking at the bones of these old creatures. What's the first thing she did when she saw it? Of course, she ran past the 'don't enter' marks and touched the toe of the T-Rex. Here's my snapshot of the bones, followed by Collette's:

After looking at the dinosaur, we split from the group and went to get some food. It was getting late, and Collette hadn't eaten much, except for an energy bar brought by a Google+ community manager. On the way out, we saw some drum rehearsal in Sproul Plaza. We stopped off to get crepes and then hopped on BART to take the long ride home to Fremont.

Everyone loved having Collette around. I met a few people in person that I had only known online previously. It was good fun for us both. I think I need to hand my kids the camera more often. They can take some great pictures. It was a late night, but ultimately worth it. Plus I could talk up what a great university Cal is and how she should go there someday. Go Bears!

Sound alike

2011-09-04T21:53:00.001-07:00

As Laura was walking through the maze of IKEA, Collette was getting tired, but Abigail tried to encourage her to the kids section.

Abigail: "Collette, it is just a couple of more steps to the kids' section. C'mon!"
Collette: (taking two steps) "One, two — we're not there yet."
Abigail: "By 'a couple' I mean just a few. We're almost there."

This is a conversation repeated multiple times between Laura and myself. A 'couple' has a very precise meaning. I'm glad at least Collette knows that. I'll have to keep working on Laura and hopefully it will trickle down to Abigail.

First day of school

2011-08-31T20:08:00.001-07:00

Laura made all the preparations. She went shopping for school supplies and new clothes. Making lunches and packing backpacks, Laura stayed up late making sure everything would go smoothly the next day. The girls kept chanting and squealing how excited they were for the first day of school.

We walked to school, dropped the kids off at their new classes and even got a short orientation from the principal.

After work, the girls reported about their days. They both like their teachers and have familiar faces in their classrooms. Abigail is excited to learn cursive. And Collette was happy her teacher gave her a treat.

One thing could have gone a bit better. We need to remember to get those lunches out of the refrigerator before we walk to school. Hot lunches have their place for our kids on occasion.

Our days with the Eccles!

2011-08-31T11:21:00.011-07:00

My girlfriend Amanda and I made for super fast friends when we met at summer girls camp 17ish years ago. We have the same dorky, silly, goofy, and yet sarcastic humor. I could live right next door to her and never tire. So, we decided that this year we were going to get our families together and let all 10 kids play and go to town while we got to chat and catch up. I didn't know if we were crazy or if we had the best plan ever. I was betting on crazy but it turned out, the kids totally kept themselves busy almost ALL the time and we got to chat and catch up! It was a super time at their house!!

I missed taking pictures almost the whole first full day we were there. We went swimming at a friends house but you can see from a few posts down how that went with Abigail and Kael finding a fun way to keep them busy with the floatie dive. After missing out on some of those pics, I tried to make sure we caught other fun stuff on camera! I will higlight now:

After a full day in the pool, we came home and Amanda set up her water blow up slide. The kids had so much fun!

I know Ben's face looks terrified. And maybe he was. But he did keep going and going.

The next day we went to the local "country" swimming pool. Amanda and Tyler often refer to their town as "the country". It makes me laugh. Anyway, here are some shots of our time there-

This picture makes me laugh. It's Amanda with the youngest boys but Gabe cracks me up. He had his eyes closed a lot of the time, telling me it's "too bright" to open them.

Just because she's cute:

These guys had fun on the little water slides. In order: Abigail, Kael, and Collette coming down.

7 of 10 kids on a car at the park

10 kiddos before church. 10 doesn't look that bad, right? Such a cute bunch of kids!! This picture only took 50 shots to get one right :) (literally 50 shots)

The rest looked a lot like this:

And the reason why I went. I love this girl. My secret sister! (We seriously can't even take a picture together without cracking up)

Why??

2011-08-31T11:16:00.001-07:00

Why is this the way my son eats his hot dog?

Summer updates continue

2011-08-28T16:28:00.014-07:00

Jellystone camping. It's not really camping. It's kind of like a mini resort camping for kids. But it was super fun. The kids loved it and would love to go again, I'm sure. My mom set up a camping trip during the time she was going to be watching my sister's kids. So all the cousins could have some time to play and catch up. We only get to see them about twice a year.

This place has tons of fun stuff for kids to do. I think the only thing I couldn't really get a picture of was the pedal boats and the kayaks. They had a little pondish area for that and my kids were constantly going over there to row around. They learned quickly how to manuever a kayak and did really well. So we spent lots of time out there. This place also had a small miniature golf area which we didn't even have time to get to. AND, they have a movie at nights. The kids watched Rio while we were there.

As for some highlights that I was able to catch on camera, here's what we did:

They have a hay ride every night.

Yogi Bear and The Ranger? walk around the park every evening. Sometimes it's BooBoo as well.

A few photo op stops:

They have these fun little pedal cars:

Here is the pedal boat/kayak area: (Seconds after this photo was taken, Gabe fell into the pedal boat area water. He wasn't so quick to learn that he could only walk on the wood). AND, notice the cool little play structure in the background.

The cabin all the kids slept in. And me.

And evidence of kids who have been camping :)

And my niece, who when she woke up in the morning, just threw on her cowgirl boots and went walkin'

Cute & Crying? No Problem

2011-08-25T22:39:00.001-07:00

Tonight, it was night out with Abigail. We had dinner at Red Robin, enjoying our time together. Abigail is so sweet on our nights out, and I love spending the time with her.

Before we left and by the time we got home, Ben was begging to have his 'hideout' with Dad. So, I asked Laura if there was anything she needed from the store so I could placate Ben. She did, and we went to Target for school supplies. Of course, by going to Target, Ben wanted to get toys. I told him if he could find something for less than $2, we would get it.

Nothing at the store is less than $2. I got in line to buy the school supplies. Ben walked up with a toy, and I told him it was probably too much. He started to cry. The lady at the register said how cute Ben is and that he shouldn't cry. She took the toy and asked me how much I said we could spend. I told her, and she changed the price to $1.99 from $6.99.

What? Crying cuteness is the path to 70% discounts? Here's hoping to meeting that lady at Target more often with more expensive items and more crying kids.

Diving through hoops

2011-08-20T11:43:00.001-07:00

On our vacation in Live Oak, we went swimming with our kids and our host family - the Eccles. Abigail and Kael started jumping through this floatie. I think they did pretty well.

Repeating the past

2011-08-20T08:39:00.001-07:00

On Sunday afternoon, we visited my parents. I took a look at some of their photo albums and was struck by the similarities. Particularly, the picture of my Dad, Jacob, and me in this amusement park ride.

From Vintage

On Saturday, I took Benjamin on the same ride at Great America. The 'eagle ride' (aka, Flying Eagles) had Ben's attention before even getting to the park. All morning he was begging me to take him. We finally found a time that I could go on the ride while Laura watched the rest of the kids. He was so excited, standing in the busy line. We saw people get on five or six times, and he kept his excitement up. The moment he got in I tried to take a picture to commemorate the event. He started to whine (almost cry) saying he didn't want to be on the ride. He was too scared. I stopped trying to take a picture and climbed in. I tried to reassure him that it would be fine. Once the ride started, he continued to complain about how he was scared. It went too high and too fast. I did my best to calm him and keep the ride from being too jarring for him. He kept that pouty face on for most of the ride. Once we started to slow down, I was telling him to hang in there, because it was almost over. Then, when the ride stopped moving, and I told him it was time to get out, how do you think he responded? Of course, he wanted to go again! However, one spinning ride is my limit. We went off to find the rest of the family.

It was hard to convince him at the beginning of the ride, but I was able to get a snapshot of Ben and me in the ride.

Back to Sunday night, where I was looking at the pictures and found some of a family beach trip when I was a kid. Of course, kids were buried in sand. I'm just starting to break out (in the middle):

We all start to breakout:

Abigail and Benjamin also buried themselves on a recent beach trip. Abigail helped Benjamin get buried.

And she was proud of her handy work.

She also buried herself in the sand, not wanting to miss the fun.

Naturally, at my parents, Abigail & Collette climbed up the playhouse and slid down the firehouse-style pole.

Just like we did when we were kids. Here are a couple shots. One with Korynne and the other with Jacob ~~John Paul (I think)~~.

Edit: s/John Paul/Jacob

Beach Camping

2011-08-11T08:59:00.007-07:00

A few weeks ago I took the kids with me to go meet up with a sister in law and a LARGE group of people to go beach camping. I was a little nervous because I hadn't taken 4 kids camping alone ever before. I wasn't even really sure how to set up the tent alone. But, I was willing to give it a shot...why not, right?!

It turned out GREAT! I did need some help from some husbands around the campground to set up the tent. And after the first whole day at the beach where I didn't reapply enough sunscreen to Gabe's back which lead to a very uncomfortable sleep- And a slight scare that I had completely lost my car keys somewhere in the campground-- we enjoyed ourselves entirely! :)

It pretty much sums up the trip to say we ate, played at the beach, showered, and ate again. Repeat. I had a great time and would love to go again next year!

The nice part was there were TONS of kids there. It took my kids no time at all to make a group of friends and have fun. Here are the young boys' group. They had so much fun digging holes!

As you can see all of my kids, at one point, decided burying themselves in sand was a great idea~

Here's Ben and Nate on a lunch break~

I like this set of pictures. It shows the girls playing the water, jumping waves, and then running from the water

And here's what happens on the ride home after three days of beach camping :)

Married in Mexico!

2011-08-08T17:03:00.005-07:00

I have been horrible about keeping up on the blog this summer. We've been so busy it's taken me by surprise! I will probably not even make an attempt at chronologically catching up. But, there may be quite a few catch up posts in the next week or so. We're around this week, so I'm going to try!

Now for the title...No, Joel and I were not married in Mexico. Clearly. But, my cousin (not blood) recently got married in Mexico and I was asked to be part of the wedding. So, Joel and I were off for a long weekend to San Diego and Mexico.

I am fortunate that I have one of my life long friends who currently lives in San Diego. And we don't get much of a chance to see each other so it made for a perfect reason to go a day early to the wedding and stay with her in San Diego. It was such a great visit and good time with her! It really made me appreciate and miss my childhood friends. And then kinda appreciate that distance can be a good thing when she was reminding me, and informing Joel, of my trouble making teenage days. Sometimes those old friends are wonderful for all the memories and then there are the embarrassing parts! I can't believe it but we didn't take one picture the whole time we were together! We stayed again with Corey on our way back from Mexico before we had to get on our flight the next day. We must meet up again, Corey, just so we can take a picture!! Thanks! Xoxoxoxo

Friday we had some time to ourselves before we had to head down to Mexico to meet up with everyone. It was really nice. Joel and I shopped, had lunch, and enjoyed our time alone! We finally headed down to Mexico and after quite a nice scare trying to get across the border (some shady looking guys were hearding cars off the freeway entrance...which in my mind, I immediately thought we were getting robbed, stolen, and sold for body parts). But, we survived. Narrowly. :)

It was a nice retreat but went quickly. We had a nice wedding party dinner on Friday night. Pool time Saturday before the late afternoon wedding. Got ready with all the girls. And watched my dear cousin, Kami, marry a wonderful guy. We then danced the night away (ok, till midnight but for an old married couple with a bunch of kids, that IS all night long!) Sunday we tried to get out with some urgency as we learned that it takes 3 hours typically to get across the border. Good times. We went to a few little shops to bring some little trinkets back for the kids and then headed out to get back to San Diego.

Here are a few highlights from our trip:

This is a cute little restaurant where we had dinner the first night-- really cute place with a cool view

See, cool view, huh? It just kinda hangs out over the ocean. That's us inside :)

Here's the view from our hotel room. Aaahhhh...

Have you ever been in pain when looking into the sun to take a picture? I am here. All I could think about was blinking 40,000 times to feel better. But I tried. And, the wind was ridiculous! This may be one of the only pictures where my hair isn't flying in every direction possible.

And here is proof positive of the crazy wind. Though, to me, this picture seems tame. But here's the bride and the bridesmaid. Oh yeah...and the groom :)