Gwendolyn turns 1

Gwen LOVES blueberries, strawberries, grapes and cheese. She's our pickiest eater yet and doesn't really seem to like vegetables, meat or milk. She's also our cleanest eater yet because she doesn't always throw food whenever she doesn't want to eat it, she only does that 1/2 the time. She likes to sit on the bottom step of the stairs and play with things and do her own thing when she's playing. (As in, she doesn't usually need to be entertained. yay!)

We sang her all the birthday songs on the morning (a family tradition started by my mom) and dressed her in her fanciest dress and went off to Church. Lucky for her, I was asked to sub in nursery again so she was able to tag along and actually enjoy herself instead of either squirming on my lap or roaming the halls. We had one of her favorite meals: burritos, for dinner and opened presents before going out back for a little cake and ice cream with a few friends and neighbors. She really likes the cell phone Alec picked out for her and the baby bottle that came with a doll I got for her with money from my parents. I know those are gender specific but I just can't help myself. I don't really want to own more balls, cars or trains. Besides, everybody needs at least one doll, right? In fact, Alec played with it the longest...feeding her, putting her to sleep and the pacifier in. He's going to be a great dad, just like his dad.

She liked the chocolate cake but wasn't really a fan of the ice cream. I think mostly she just liked eating the blueberries off. I tried getting a nice birthday picture of her in her dress but she wasn't really interested in smiling for the camera. I got lots of her side/back and the top of her head.
We all love our Gwendolyn and can hardly believe she is a year old! I know all parents say that but this time I really really mean it.

American Love

We had a fun and low key 4th of July. In my opinion there are 3 'musts' for a complete Independence Day celebration: some kind of craft, flag cake, and fireworks. We barely got those all in this year. The craft was a last minute painted flag thing and the cake was missing the whipped cream but luckily my friend stepped in and made a regular frosting for the blueberries and strawberries to stick to. The fireworks simply consisted of a few sparklers for the kids... but it worked! Brave little Charlie was the first kid to take a sparkler. So cute watching them love it. Although they were always sad when it burnt out, Charlie would say, "Sparkler turned off. It turned off! Turn it on!"


We busted out those flags again today to show some American love after watching the US women win their game against Brazil in the World Cup quarter finals. HOLY COW, it was AMAZING!! I've never scream so loud or jumped so high, for any sport. Just incredible. Gwen started crying she was so nervous about Chris and I just completely freaking out and the boys loved it and joined in the screaming and dancing fest. Seriously, it was such a high-adrenalin moment.

It was a nice Birthday Present for our little Gwendolyn. She turned 1 today, but that deserves its own post.

Fun in Washington and Oregon

We met my family in Sunriver for the Pacific Crest race events in the end of June. We stayed in this awesome 6 bedroom 7 bathroom house with my aunt and uncles family too, complete with 12 bikes and 2 bike trailers! It seriously was the perfect reunion house. There was a juke box in the main room, an arcade game room and hundreds of VHS tapes. It was fun having so much time chilling with family and cousins, laying around chatting. Although mostly we were laying around because we were so tired from running the 1/2 marathon. My dad did awesome and ran it under 2 hours! So did my brother. My sister, my cousin and my friend and I started it together and all ended separately. I did my fastest yet and ran it in 2:09! It was actually fun.

Somehow my Aunt and I and my cousin's husband didn't make it into this post-race picture but this is all the runners from my family. Cousin Ben, Uncle Loren, Cousin Kelsey, Sister Sarah, Dad, Brother Jordan and Friend Darcy.

Then we followed my family home to Washington for a quick 3 day trip. We helped them do finishing touches on the new basement apartment they're fixing up for my cousins to live in. It looks really nice, and its bigger than my own apartment...I am a bit jealous.

We also went to the zoo and saw elephants, tigers, sharks, snakes, birds, lemurs, and played in the kid zone. The kids loved the slides and climbing structure.

My good friend from here, was also up in WA for her marathon! (I'm still in awe). Her family met us at my house for a day and I had too much fun showing them around Betteridge Bluff and Anderson Island. The kids really enjoyed the ferry ride and "watching the bridge go up" - Alec "and down" - Charlie. Also the rope swing and swimming hole were a big hit. Like typical Puget Sound weather it rained and sprinkled off and on throughout the day, but it didn't stop us from having a blast.P.S. Thanks go to my wonderful Mom for all the pictures!

Potty Training: the beginning

So before we left on vacation last week, we started potty training Charlie. I wrote the following paragraphs but forgot to post it!



Damage count: 3 accidents, 2 successes (albeit spilled successes)! Not bad for our first morning of potty training Charlie. We've all be working really hard at it. Alec works hard to coach and is acting as verbal manager, "first you go in the potty, then you pick it up and take it upstairs and dump it and then you get to flush it!" "if you drink lots of water it'll help you go potty" etc.... Gwendolyn is working hard to get her hands into the little potty whenever the small window of opportunities arises like when Charlie doesn't remember to close the lid fast enough. I am working hard at keeping Charlie happy and motivated (stickers, M&Ms, with a promise of a new bike at the end) and keeping calm when cleaning up accidents and dissuading Gwen from getting in the thick of things.

Charlie, the sweet boy, is working hardest of all. He doesn't seem to be able to tell much before he goes and after having a particularly frustrating accident all over my freshly folded clean laundry, I can tell he feels bad and nervous and has sat himself on the potty all throughout lunch and before naps. While sitting there, "washing" duplos he leans back and says with such a tired face, "oh, this is hard work." But at least we ended with a success and now he is happily falling asleep in pull-ups and shorts. Whew. We're all exhausted.

And I can't find the cell phone that I know I had 2 hours ago but now its too late to take pictures of Charlie sitting on the potty, or Gwen walking around with play rings on her wrist like bracelets! How does she even know to do that? Hopefully, we'll replace our actual camera soon...thanks Mom and Dad.



Well, I did end up finding the cell phone and snapped a picture of Gwen and her bracelet. Details about our trip to OR and WA are coming soon.

graduation details

Over graduation weekend we were so lucky to have family able to come visit. First came my mom and my sister, Hailey. They helped get the kids and I outfitted for summer and graduation! Thank you! Then came Chris' brother's family: Thom, Brittany and Jackson, followed closely behind them was Chris' parents and later on my dad. They graciously helped Chris watch my and my friends' kids so we could go run on our last long runs before my friend does her marathon this Saturday and I do another 1/2. She ran 20 miles and I did 14! I've never run that far in my life. It was hard, but strangely felt good.

I'm sad we didn't think to take a picture with everyone who came. But Thom was nice enough to take some pictures for us. Here is their little Jackson:

Sunday was Graduation, we only went to the Computer Science Convocation and watched Chris get hooded by his adviser. Pretty special. I loved hearing the kids cheer, "go daddy!!" as he walked across the stage. We got lots of looks as I'm pretty sure we were the only ones with kids under the age of 10 there! They served lunch after and Martinelli's. Then we had a delicious stake dinner with Chris' freshman roommate and his family, who also graduated that weekend. Fitting to start and end their post-high school academic careers together.

But, of course, the highlight of the weekend happenings was the AGA golf tournament that Chris, Thom and James all played in: Saturday at Stanford's beautiful course, and Monday at Half Moon Bay. Maybe it was long-drive/jet-lag or maybe they were being nice to the man of honor, although probably it was just the fact that Chris is extremely talented....but anyway you look at it, Chris won! Farfel Miller III, one of the usual AGA Tour reporters, wrote about it on the AGA blog.

It was so fun to have family share this huge milestone with us. I'm grateful they could all come. At the top of my emotions; however, is pride....the good kind. I'm SO proud of Chris. There have been some real challenging periods but mainly he's balanced work with family life so well and took the brunt of the balancing act which, for me, will make our time here remembered as one full of fun, sweet, relaxed memories. He is amazing.

graduation

Chris and his advisor, Yoav Shoham

getting ready...


Pictures with Yoav and his daughter, on old officemate, Thuc and our little family.


more details to come...

Chris' Birthday and EV Carnival

That's right. Chris turned 30 last month! He's so old. :) I had lots of his friends and family write something for him and I compiled those thoughts into 30 emails that I emailed him every hour for 30 hours on the weekend of his birthday. So many of them made him laugh and some of them were really complimentary, I think he enjoyed it. At least, I enjoyed reading a bunch of Chris-isms.


We had cake and ice cream with our friends that night, and as you can see from the picture, we broke our camera!! The strap came off and it dropped on the pavement. The LCD screen is cracked and all fuzzy looking and since the viewfinder was already broken by being stuck on a totally zoomed in view, one can no longer see what they are taking a picture of. We've got graduation coming up and family coming in town and a lot of other big expenses on the horizon so we're not sure when we can replace it. Its just too bad.

Also a few weeks ago we went to the EV carnival. The boys enjoyed cotton candy, snow cones and train ride. Alec also rode the ponies and visited the petting zoo.

The thing I'll remember most about this carnival was how much Alec LOOOOVED the magician, Daffy Dave. Mostly the jokes were about silly things like singing the ABC's like " A, B, C, D, E, F, Giraffe!" or potty jokes about stinky diapers or wearing pants on our head. But man, Alec was belly laughing for almost the entire show. Charlie was entertained and totally focused too, but mostly with a "why-is-this-guy-so-funny type of expression on his face.

It was great fun and it was sad to think that that was our last EV Carnival since Chris is graduating and we're moving somewhere else next fall for a post-doc.