Happy Birthday Edna!

My Dad's aunt Edna had a birthday today, and we went to help her celebrate. Jay was on hand to provide good cheer, along with my parents, and the kids. And Mark, of course (Dad's uncle, her husband.) Julia and Andrew's antics were entertaining and hopefully made the birthday more special for Edna. Mark very sweetly gave a gift to each of the kids: a dollar for Andrew, because he is one, and three for Julia, because she's three. Andrew immediately put the dollar in his mouth (it's still soggy...). I wasn't sure if Julia was too familiar with money yet either, so I asked her if she knew what they were, and she said "Credit cards?" Very funny. Top it all off with chocolate cupcakes, and it was a very nice party all in all. Happy Birthday Edna!

Big Bear Vacation

We've just returned from a week's vacation at Susan & Paul's lake house in Big Bear. We arrived to a welcome that got us in the spirit right away:


We had a marvelous time. We went out on the boat, swam in the lake, rode a pony, took a trip to the zoo where Julia adopted Navarro the Wolf, went to the park, brushed and fed goats and pigs at the petting zoo, roasted hot dogs and made s'mores, watched birds, played horseshoes, took walks, and on and on. As Julia pointed out, Big Bear "is a beautiful place!"

Brad, Kim and Kira joined us the last day and we took this picture of everybody together (including the moose and bears, of course!)


There were many memorable moments and funny comments from the kids. We got a lot of mileage out of the following comment by Julia, when I accidentally referred to Grumps as "Grandpa". She said: "Not Grandpa! I already have one of those -- at Benne's house!"

There were lots of laughs and relaxing moments. Just what Jeff and I needed after facing lots of stresses at work this summer. Many many thanks to Susan and Paul for hosting us so generously and graciously all week. We love you!

Jeff's Backpacking Trip to Kearsarge Lakes

Guest post from Jeff: Here are a few images from my recent Eastern Sierra backpacking trip with three friends (two of whom were old investment banking buddies from my days with J.P. Morgan in New York). We were gone for 3 nights, spending most of the time up around 11,000 feet...one of my favorite places to be!

Wendy's photoshoot

Wendy took these pictures back in June for a Father's Day gift she put together for Jeff. I borrowed her camera today and downloaded them so that I could post them here.

Happy 3rd Birthday, Julia!

Julia turned three last week on Tuesday (the 17th) and we had her birthday party yesterday. Just a simple backyard affair, but lots of fun. Julia's friends from the neighborhood and various playgroups were there. The kids seemed to have a blast. Here is what the scene looked like:













The cupcake eating was, as always, a highlight, with Andrew really getting into it.



























And speaking of Andrew, he was the entertainment highlight of the party, running around like a drunken sailor. He really did look like a drunken sailor, it was quite funny. We did not stage the picture with the beer bottle, by the way... he picked it up and we snapped a quick one before pulling it out of his happy hands.

































Finally, here's Julia showing off her new dress-up dress and fluffy heeled slippers, a gift from Nathan and Hannah. She loves it!

The Moms get a girly break

Andrea and I have a bit of a tradition to go away for a pampering weekend once we have both weaned our babies. With Andrew and Hannah over a year and both well weaned, we left the kids in their daddies capable hands this weekend and took off for some decidedly girly fun. We didn't go far, but it turns out we didn't need to, to have a great time.

I picked Andrea up early and we took a nice refreshing walk on a pretty trail near her house. From there, we headed to Santana Row and found a restaurant serving brunch. Then, we checked into the Hotel Valencia right in the Row. It was a short stroll out the door for some shopping. A stop at the makeup counter yeilded good results. Here we are showing off the results:

Then, off to more shopping. Look at these FABULOUS shoes Andrea found!
Shopped out, we headed back to the hotel where we stopped in at the spa for a couple of massages. Finally, it was off to cocktail hour and dinner. Here's Andrea at Tanglewood, the place we had dinner. We tried to party late, but by 9:30 we were yawning, so back to the hotel we went for a blissful night sleep in complete uninterrupted quiet. A leisurely morning breakfast completed our getaway, and off we went back home. Thank you to Jeff and Craig for giving us the gift of this getaway, and thank you to Andrea, for sharing it with me!

Quilting again!

I completed a quick little quilting project to get myself back in practice, inspired by Cheri's gift of the I-Spy quilt. More details on my quilting blog, but here is the finished product, a gift for a 3 year old neighbor girl, named, obviously, Emma.

Andrew in the sandbox

Andrew just loves the sandbox. He's a very happy baby and has a smile on his face most of the time. Here are some examples!

Julia at the beach

Back in May we took the kids to the beach and snapped some darling photos, that we managed to not download until now. I just love this one of Julia, and I decided to play with it in Picassa. I think I like this sepia effect. What do you think?

Camping trip a success!

Last weekend we went camping with our friends in Big Basin, where I used to camp as a kid growing up. It lived up to my memories. We had a great time, and the kids loved it! We went with the Staas family, who we became friends with back in business school in North Carolina (before they were even married, or had kids.) Now, by some miracle coincidence, they live right across the street from us, and have two girls, Emma (one day younger than Julia), and Katie (5.) We are so fortunate to have such great friends, with kids of similar ages, right across the street. Here are a few of my favorites from the weekend:(Above, from left: Katie, Andrew, Julia, and Emma.)