Tahoe Getaway

After a fun birthday party for the kids (pictures to come soon) we went to Tahoe with Bryan's family for a few days. The kids had a great time running around in the trees, on the beach at Lake Tahoe, hiking around Emerald Bay and hanging out around the house. Turns out Dani loves the beach and Chris was a huge fan of hiking in the mountains.

having some good laughs with auntie brooke

classic self portrait

dad & chris and what is left of "big tree"

dani enjoys her first bite of ice cream

fun at commons beach

did you say something mom?

i think i look better in the hat mom

all four of us enjoying the view at emerald bay

Trip to the pool

Yesterday was spent poolside with the Benson's in Moraga. Dani enjoyed her first time in the pool while Chris and Hailey had a blast running around the kiddie pool. It was the perfect way to spend a very hot day.

I really don't think you can get much cutter than this!

She is ready for the pool

Happy 30th Birthday Alison.

For those keeping track, yes Alison did turn 30 last month on April 8th, but we needed to wait a little bit so she could celebrate with her good friend Sara who turns 30 this month. Last Friday we gathered at Superfrank's Fun Adventure with 75-80 of our good friends and family to celebrate. What 30 year old wouldn't want to spend their party playing dodgeball, air hockey, wack-a-duck, and skeet ball. This was a perfect fit for Sara and Alison.

The birthday girls!

Our AMAZING cake!

Everyone loves sparkling candles.

Sheree, Alison and Joanna (friends from church.)

Krista and Ali in an intense air hockey game.

Alison, her mom and sister Amy

Krista, Alison and Amy....these girls have been friends through it all for 2 decades now!

Fun at the Asparagus Festival

Yet another benefit to living in T-town is that we are close to Stockton so we can go to Annual Asparagus Festival. The kids had a great time walking around and then enjoying the dozens of different bounce houses. This was a dream for Chris...he did not know what one to jump in first. Believe it or not we were able to get him out of the houses long enough to go on a few rides. Dani just hung out with us while we walked around watching everyone munch on their deep fried asparagus and washing it down with asparagus margaritas.

A little ghetto in our life.

I don't know how many people are aware of the massive city wide event that takes place in Tracy twice a year. This is a day that the town comes together....we all seem to end up sharing items we never thought we would share. Trash Day. This is not any ordinary trash day....no, this is the day when you are allowed to put anything (and I mean anything) out on the curb and they will come by and pick it up. I think we were a little shocked the first year we lived here butt his is quickly becoming a day we look forward to. Not only can we get rid of all the random things sitting on the side of the house, but also it is sheer entertainment.

For our neighborhood the trash gets picked up on Fridays, this means the fun begin Thursday. People are slowly starting to move things to the curb, as this process begins the creepers emerge. These are the dozens and dozens of people that will drive though the neighborhoods with pickups, vans, trailer and box trucks looking to see if one mans trash can become another mans treasure. So last night Bryan and I started to go through the house, the yard and the garage to see what we could add to our pile. The first things to go out was our old BBQ. Chris and I were in the yard cutting flowers while Bryan took the BBQ to the curb. In the time that it took Bryan to walk back in to the yard we heard a strange squeaking noise. Bryan peaked over our side fence to see our neighbors little girl quickly dragging our BBQ back to her dad sitting in a lawn chair in their garage. Classic, this thing was not on the curb for more then 2 minutes before it got snatched. Later that evening we even saw him testing it out in his gargae to see if it worked. Well the rest of the night we spent dragging things one by one out to the curb. All night there was a steady stream of people driving by with their trucks to see what they could find.

This morning I was getting the kids ready to leave when I noticed something in front of another house on our street. It was our BBQ, but it looked a little different. Seems as though the neighbors that took it did not need the whole thing, so they just took the parts they needed and put it on the curb....but not theirs. I guess they did not want to seem rude so they put it in front of the house that was vacant next to them. Only in Tracy can you get entertainment like this. I think the best was seeing things that we put in our pile in others peoples piles as I drove down the street. Would you call that buyers remorse maybe? Who knows! All I know is that Bryan and I have decided that we really do need a little bit of ghetto in our lives, Tracy gives us just the right amount!

This is what was left of our poor BBQ

fun pictrues of the kiddos...

Chris doing a little sleep reading....notice the giant drool mark.

Modeling moms sunglasses

Pretty girl and her bow


I think I like this park thing.

Here is the scooter king doing a little one foot action

I love the stroller!

Time flies...

Man does time fly...I feel bad looking at the last post realizing that it was over two months ago. I think all the excuses are now invalid. We finally have our wireless Internet and cameras fixed. Now we just have the task of updating everyone on the last few months.

Dani is fast approaching the 1 year mark. She is continuing to be a sweet mellow baby ( I think God knew what kind of brother she had.) Just this week she started walking. I think she got up to 10 steps today at church. Kids seem to know when their parents are not there, and then they do all the cool things. Dani is opposite of Chris who walked first and then got his balance and figured out how to stand up. Whereas Dani will stand all day long doing knee bends with the occasional step. The crawling is still the preferred method of travel in the house though. She seems to think she is aero dynamic and puts her head down when she wants to go faster. It is hilarious to watch.

As for Chris he is also getting close to a birthday...believe it or not he will be 4 at the end of May. Chris seems to always keep things exciting in our house. Thankfully we have actually been able to avoid the ER since January. Something tells me that as he gets more and more daring on the scooter....we may be there soon. He still loves playing baseball, going to the park with Sierra, and most recently playing policeman. He seems to think that as soon as he puts on Bryan's old work boots that he is instantly a policeman. Don't worry unlike Chris, Bryan actually does where pants to work. Somehow Dani is always the one that he ends up putting in jail. I think this is just the beginning of the torture that a big brother somehow feels obligated to put a younger sibling through.

The ever changing life we seem to have as parents is great though.... Bryan and I realize that no 2 days are ever the same around here. We actually got away for a weekend to in March for a good friends wedding. It is always nice to remember who you were before we had kids, plus the benefit of seeing all my old college friends. It had been way too long.

Hopefully the posts and pictures will be more frequent now a the next new , gross, fun or random thing occurs at our house.

Happy Valentine's Day

This year I took the kids to get some pictures done for Daddy on Valentine's Day, they were a hit of course. Dani is 9 months old now and Chris is rapidly approaching 4. We are happy to report that after some stubbornness and a lot of patience...Chris has mastered the potty and has been accident free with the big boy undies for a week now. Dani is the queen of crawling and standing up, walking is just around the corner.