Friday, August 27, 2010

1st Four Families Vacation

Two weekends ago we headed up to Twain Harte with the Cecchins, D'Angelo's and Grochol's for a fabulous weekend full of fun.

Sarah and I packed the kids up and drove up early on Friday to meet up with everyone else (minus Jeff and Tyke who had to drive up later.) Thank goodness Jeff's car fits all three carseats - and all in the same row!

The kids loove it, but I have to say our usual car nappers (Marco and Olive) are usually so thrilled by the full house that they stay awake for the entire ride.

After we found the rental house and unloaded the car we packed the kids back in and drove into town for some Mexican food.

They boys chill on their own side of the table, occupied (for the most part) with coloring mats and togo cups.

Poor Olive, if she could form coherent sentences I am sure she would have uttered one about how I needed to wash her greasy hair. (I think daycare might put a little babyoil in it to so her pigtails are all smooth and flat?)

After lunch we went back to the house and were quickly joined by the D'Angelo's and Grochol's. Since there was still a lot of Friday left we headed over to the lake.

What a great spot! Very clean and kid-friendly.

Olive plays with Jack's ball (I think the devious look is because she stole it from him.)

Brookie and Reesie try out the water.

Baby Jack chills in his bucket.

Olive works on her expressive faces.

Nikos and Marco play in the sand.

After some sand and water fun (and one jammed pinky for me from when I accidentally got trapped catching about 15 kids going down the sliding board into the water...) we headed back to the cabin to kick off the rest of the weekend.

Olive sporting one of Marco's shirts - let's hope this doesn't happen for real for many, many years.

Ryan, Marco and Nikos explore the loft.

We lucked out and were able to plan the trip for the same weekend of Reesie's birthday (just like last year at the cabin!) Robin and Steve let the birthday girl open one of her gifts early - princess shoes! All the kids wanted to wear them - and I do mean ALL of the kids. (There were only 4 pairs so Nikos and Marco did the gentlemanly thing and each wore one yellow Belle heel.)

D'Angelo family pic (- Brooke)

(+ Reese and Ryan)

Sarah and Ryan

Note that Nikos is holding both the Belle heels. Ha!

The PG version of the Steve and Robin pic.

Happy Birthday to Reese!

Last year -
This year -
Last year -

Marco makes sure no one forgets to hook him up with a mini cupcake.

Baby Jack, oblivious to the fact that he is playing with fire.

Group shot! Brookie, Marco, Reese, Nikos, Olive, Ryan and Jack.

Last year -
Such a fun time - we are hoping to make the group vacation an annual one.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Date Night (or Day)

We took the kids to see Toy Story 3 at the speakeasy theatre by our house (sometime in July.) They did really well, Nikos was totally enraptured the whole time - our big mistake was letting him drink this GIANT drink which caused us to have to take him to the bathroom half a billion times.

Olive wasn't as attentive and wanted to crawl around bit, which made the fact that we were on a couch perfect. Afterwards when I was in the bathroom I overheard a woman saying that it was so cute when the baby in the audience (Olive) cooed back to the baby on the screen. Phew!

Raise Your Bat for Five Years

So one of my cameras just spent an extended vacation at the Cecchin house and I am having fun pulling some photos off of it.

Here's a pic of the four of us from the night of our 5th Anniversary. Linda watched the kids while we had a great dinner at a little Italian place in Sausalito.

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Mom of the Year (or So I Have Been Called)

Wow, I am very much behind on blog posts, and not quite sure when I am going to catch up, but here is a cute pic that Sarah caught this weekend in Silverlake.

Yes, Olive is asleep.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Roadtrip

Two weekends away in a row - who do think we are?

The girls headed up early with the kids (do we see a pattern here.) Please see a photo diary of our lunch roadstop - courtesy of Nikos.






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Thursday, August 19, 2010

Three Weeks Until the Walk!

In a little over three weeks Mel and I will be strolling the streets of Santa Barbara to help raise money for breast cancer research. Have no fear, we'll be blogging and tweeting our way through 39.3 miles - so you get to enjoy our fun/pain as well! I'm almost at my required fundraising goal of $1800 (can't believe Mel beat me there!) and need a few more gifts to help me reach the end. Click here to help. Just think - by giving up Starbucks (or Dunkin Donuts) for a week you can make a difference! Thanks for your help and well wishes - I can't wait for the adventure!

PS - I think the next one we will attempt is going to be on the East Coast in a few years - so get ready to join us PA peeps!

Why I Should Be Banned From Watching HGTV

I loooove watching HGTV. So many great shows - so little time to watch them. Of course, for Ms. Grass is Always Greener, the shows on this channel are not helping my condition.

Take for instance, House Hunters International. This show features a couple (or individual) who wants to move abroad (or buy a vacation home) - they look at three properties and eventually settle on one at the end of the show. Can you see why this spells trouble for me? I have already talked myself into the fact that we could easily afford a fixer in Italy, a bed and breakfast in Peru and a vacation bungalow in Figi. Blaaah.

Next up - this one requires some background. Earlier this week I was househunting online for houses we can not afford in my preferred neighborhoods. I found a bunch of great ones in Berkeley and in Oakland, for the not-Heather-and-Taki-budget of between 700-800k. We are talking 3bd either 1 or 2 bath, some that still need work. Flash forward to tonight when Taki and I are working out in our garage and My First Home comes on with a profile of a a young couple buying their first home in...Doylestown, Pennsylvania! Oh fun, what a delightful show to watch while we are burning off a bunch of calories. THINK AGAIN. The first house that they looked at was listed at 407k and was 4bd/3ba. Huh...what? Top it off with a huge yard. They ended up settling for a 3bd/2ba for 367k (needed about 10k of work). Really??!! You can imagine the conversation that I had with Taki after the show wrapped. The following phrases may have been uttered "But our kids can go to school for FREE!" "We can eat at Nat's ALL THE TIME." "Yes, totally, there are jobs in Philadelphia!"

Good times people, good times.

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

Seventeen

So looks like I crashed and burned on the posting of the blog every day. We went out of town for the weekend and were in spotty internet service, and apparently I needed a few days to recover. But I'm back! (Hopefully.)

Olive clocks in for her 17th month (how did this happen?!) photo shoot - only 1 week late!

Say Cheeeese. (Hairdo by daycare.)

Post bath and venue change.

Uh oh, diva's suddenly not so sure that she wants to share the spotlight.

Good thing she makes an exception for her brother!

Friday, August 13, 2010

Happy Friday!

Please enjoy my vacation hat - we are off to the Lake with the Grochols, Cecchins & D'Angelos. Wooohooo!



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Thursday, August 12, 2010

Funny Faces

You know they are good friends when you give them about five minutes notice that you are going to swing by their house after a one year olds' birthday party that was far from your house...but close to theirs.

Yup, the Romios4 and the Cecchin3 crashed the Grochol house with almost zero notice.

The Actress and her protege.


















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