Pajaro Dunes Weekend

Can't beat the beach as a great setting for pictures. We spent a couple of nights at Pajaro Dunes the last weekend in September, and here are a few of my favorite pics. With the exception of the two dead elephant seals rotting on the beach right in front of our rented house (nature happens!), the weekend was a ton of fun with games taking the starring role for entertainment. Among the favorites for kids: Monster (Grandpa, are you recovered yet?), Preschool, Trains, Dress Up, and Chase; and for the adults: Carcassone, Ticket To Ride, Lost Cities. Great times!

A hot chocolate morning

Fall is here! One chilly morning we decided to wrap up and drink hot chocolate on the back deck.

Julia's first day of school

I finally downloaded pictures from my camera, and found this one of Julia that I took on her first day of school in September. She looks like such a big girl! She is a Butterfly now at her preschool, Footsteps.

Girls Weekend in Florida

My longtime girlfriends from graduate school gather once a year, this time in Florida. We had a great time!

Vacation update

Hello, We're on vacation this week, but we have a computer with us, and a camera... so, thought I'd say hello via the blog. We started out in Oxnard, where we stayed at a hotel at the beach. It had a great pool, which the kids LOVED. And we had our bikes with us, (Jeff just bought one, with a seat on the back for Andrew), so we had a great time biking along the beach as a family. Julia loves to ride her bike!

With the Holman grandchildren all in one place (Brad and Kim and Kira were at the beach too), it was an opportunity not to be missed. Here are Nana and Grumps with Kira, Julia and Andrew, sitting on a great driftwood log Nana and Grumps found.

And we took the opportunity to get a rare picture of the four of us together. I have so few pictures of the whole family, since one or the other of us is always behind the camera.

We are in Big Bear now, but I haven't downloaded pictures from here yet. We've been having a great time exploring, climbing rocks, biking, boating, board gaming, and napping. Today we're going to try the ski lift which should be a fun new experience for the kids.

So long from here!

Intuit QuickBooks Jingle Generator

I'm very excited about this cool new marketing program my team launched late last week. Check out the video on YouTube. You can also follow Tommy Silk on Twitter (www.twitter.com/tommysilk), or be his friend on Facebook or MySpace. Be sure to create a jingle for your favorite small business and pass it along!

Julia and GG

We spent the morning at the beach yesterday for Julia's 4th birthday party. We had a fanstastic time, got great turnout, and even saw a pod of WHALES go by! There are tons of amazing pictures of all the fun. So many that I'm going to have to share them via shutterfly, or load a slideshow or something. But I'll put a few up here on the blog too, starting with this one of Julia and Jay. We were very glad GG was able to join us at the beach. And I must say she looked fabulous in her red sweater. Here's the birthday girl (complete with princess tiara) and her beautiful Great Grandmother on a driftwood log at the beach:

Happy 4th Birthday to Julia!

Julia is FOUR!

Today was such a fun day. It started with the opening of just one gift in the morning from Nana and Grumps, this darling ballet outfit complete with tiara. She LOVES it and wore it all day long.



This evening after Jeff and I got home from work, we gave her the "big gift", a brand new big girl bike. Here she is giving it a whirl around the driveway. Excited hardly describes it.

Here is the birthday girl with her cake. She put the candles in herself, with a little help from Andrew who added a 5th candle (one to grow on?!) The cake, per her request, was chocolate with pink icing and strawberries on top.

Andrew really enjoyed the cake too.

Today was just the beginning of a series of birthday related events. Tomorrow Benne and Grandpa come over to celebrate and, and then on Saturday we are meeting a bunch of Julia's friends at the beach for a Cinderalla Birthday Beach Bash. Turning four is the best!

Me and Maggie

 

Here she is, my new neice Maggie! Tiny and cute as a button. She was 4 days old in this picture (last Saturday.) So special to be able to hold a baby so young. Welcome to the family little Maggie!

New pictures of the kids

I've been posting everything but pictures of the kids these days, an unusual run for me. So, back to the roots of this blog. Here are some cute pictures Jeff took of the kids recently.