Fourth of July!!

On the Fourth of July we headed down to Laguna Beach for a party at our friend's parents house.  They have a great house in the Three Arch Bay community.  Just a block or so from the house is a huge beach that was full of people.  We had great weather.  Not too hot, but warm enough to be in a swim suit and out in the water.

It took a bit of time for Nick to get used to being in the water, but after a while, he was in & out just like the rest of the kids.  All of the other kids were SO great with him - they kept an eye on him & jumped over the waves with him (of course, Kevin or I were also always nearby...)  Here he is with Rowan.  He had that smile on his face ALL DAY.

How he spent a big chunk of his afternoon - back and forth.

Riley helping him "jump" the waves.

Riley describing how the tide goes in & out.

More wave running...

Rowan & Riley.  Hard to believe these two are the same girls that were in our wedding as flower girls almost six years ago...

Nick surveying the beach - watching for sharks, I think.

Later came yummy dinner and fireworks (no pictures of that).  When we left at around 9:30-45-ish, we hadn't been in the car for more than five minutes before he was out cold.  Sun, sand and surf is exhausting for a little dude!!

Irish Time!!

We are never ones to miss a fun festival, especially an Irish one.  So we headed down to Irvine to hit up the Annual Irish Festival.  Nick fell asleep in the car on the way down (which was sort of our plan).  We just moved him into his stroller so he could continue napping while we found the Guinness booth.

Here are Christy & TJ - they're both wearing skirts!!

That is a full-grown man snoozing on a full-grown dog.  A BIG Irish Wolfhound.  Nick thought they were super cool.  He was a little hesitant to pet them at first, but once he did, he kept talking about how much he wanted one (so does Mommy!!)

Here is Nick with Rowan & Riley - they have so much fun together, love it!!

Lots of fun at the Festival, as always!!

Spring in the Midwest

In May we took advantage of the long Memorial Day weekend and headed out to the Midwest to do a little sightseeing and visiting family.  We started out with a couple of nights in Chicago.  Now, given that it was May (late May at that), you'd think it would be nice and warm.  Yea, not so much.  Regardless, we still got out and had some fun.  

Our hotel was one block away from the John Hancock building.  So we walked on down the street and headed up the 100+ floors to the observation deck.  It was pretty cool.  They gave you a headset to listen to as you walked around, telling you the history of Chicago.  They also had headsets for kids, which Nick really liked.  

View from the deck.  That's the Sears Tower on the right.

They had a description of the window washers that clean the outsides of the windows.  So inside they had this little booth you could go into and pretend you're washing the windows.

One of the things we looked forward to for the Chicago visit was going to Wrigley Field.  We were not completely prepared for just how cold we would be.  Our seats never got any sun and it was somewhat breezy.  We had Nick bundled up pretty well, but I was freezing most of the game.  Here is Nick with his hot dog.

Showing the camera his hot dog.

Daddy & Nick (see how Kevin's jacket is zipped all the way up?)

The view from our seats (the sun got to about four rows in front of us.  And the ushers were pretty strict on making sure people didn't move down closer to the field.  Bah.)

The classic Wrigley Field scoreboard.

Nick and his cool Cubby Bear baseball.

The next day, we headed up to Milwaukee.  Thankfully it was a bit warmer.  And even better, the Giants were in town playing the Brewers.  We've never been to Miller Park, so it was a first visit for all of us.  Here are Kevin & Nick walking into the park.

The view from our seats.  It's a very nice park - more of a full modern park versus the "old style" kind of park that AT&T Park is even though new.  And obviously VERY different than Wrigley!

We were wearing our Giants duds of course.  Local fans were very nice and there was no heckling of us (although I wasn't expecting much of that in Milwaukee - it's not LA after all!!)

Nick, his grapes & Mommy.

The roof on the park is retractable.  So after the game (which, sadly, the Giants lost), they closed the roof.  Here it is nearly closed.

Almost there...

After the game in Milwaukee, we drove up to Green Bay.  Unfortunately, Cindy & Mike and Ed & Teri were out of town for the weekend, so we didn't get to see them.  But we were able to catch up with Pat & Dan and Al & Penny.  And, of course, Grandma Mary.

It's becoming sort of a tradition now - each trip we head over to the wildlife sanctuary.  This time we caught a large family of Canadian geese as they moved through the park.

Nick had fun feeding the geese.

He tried to get as close as possible.

He got pretty close to this one - I was a bit worried it would nip him, but thankfully the goose was pretty tolerant (probably because he was getting a lot of snacks).

Another thing that is fun to do in the summer months is head to Bay Beach.  They have a bunch of small kid oriented rides.  Tough to get a good picture, however.

Of course, Nick wanted to ride the red car!

Overall a very nice trip, even though the weather wasn't perfect!!

Baseball, Easter and Legos - of course!!

After the Egg Hunt (see previous post), we headed down to San Diego with Christy, TJ, Rowan & Riley. We decided to hit up the Padre game that evening. We got seats in the "Family" section, which are bleachers with grass and a sand pit for the kids to play in - perfect!! Here is Nick with the girls (who changed into their Padre gear).

A rare picture of Kevin & I. Who is playing? The Padres and Phillies? Who cares? Go Giants! (And Packers, too!)

The game was fun - the Padres lost (which was fine with us). After the game, we grabbed a late snack and then waited (for what seemed like forever) for the trolley to take us back to the hotel. Have to say, I do love Petco Park - a nice place to watch a game.

The next day was Easter. Our friends Joel, Hope & Emma were also in San Diego - they'd actually gone to the game the night before as well. They were staying up in Carlsbad at the resort right next to Legoland. So we headed up there to meet them for Easter Brunch. Um, tasty!!!

The kids had all sorts of good breakfast food (so did the parents) and also had some candy (of course!) Here is Emma with a HUGE Easter lolly-pop.

Here is Nick with a lolly-pop that Emma bought for him at Disneyland.

The resort had an Easter Bunny touring the restaurant saying hello to all the kids. Nick has never been a big fan of life-size Easter Bunnies (or any life-size characters, really). He did OK with this one, but certainly didn't get too close.

Love his expression in this picture - "Yea, I don't know. Looks a little freaky to me, Mommy"

Kevin & Joel representing their championship teams - Giants & Packers.

After brunch, all of us headed down to Legoland. It was a quick walk from the resort - good thing too, we needed to work off our brunch. It had been raining that morning, but by the time we'd left, the rain had stopped.

In addition to some rides & such, Legoland has all these exhibits of things made out of - can you guess? - Legos. Here is the recreation of the San Francisco city-scape - all Legos!

I doubt this needs a caption...

Bob the Builder is in the house...

As well as Wendy... (there was also a live Bob the Builder character taking pictures with kids, but, as mentioned above, Nick isn't too keen on the live characters that walk around, so no picture for him).

Here is Nick on one of the toddler-oriented rides. He kept saying "Go horsey, go!"

They also have a roller coaster for bigger kids. Unfortunately for me, Nick just cleared the height minimum so he wanted to go on. UGH. I do not like roller coasters much, but what are you going to do. Of course we were put in the first car in the front row. There was a big hill right off the bat. I decided to watch Nick versus what was coming up. There was a hysterical picture that was taken on the way down the hill. You know, the ones that are set-up by the park and then you can buy it for some crazy amount of money. It was me with my head turned to look at Nick. And Nick with a look of utter fear on his face. It was GREAT - ALMOST good enough to buy, but we didn't. After seeing the look on his face, I thought well, we won't be going on another one anytime soon. So I asked Nick, did you have fun? And he said - with a huge smile - yea, Mommy, that was FUN!! Great.

The Hunt is ON!!

Yea, I know. It's July. And I'm JUST doing the Easter post. Whatever.

So, WAY back in April, we went down to the OC for the annual Easter Egg Hunt hosted by our friends, Hillary & Laurent. There are a ton of kids and they have it organized wonderfully. Thankfully, our kids are also wonderful (HA!), so they cooperate when the parents force them into picture-slavery. Here they are from oldest to youngest (almost). Sean, Rowan, kid-I-can't-remember-#1, Kyle, Tristan, Evan, Riley, Remy, kid-not-remembered-#2, Noah, brother-of-kid-not-remembered-#2, Justine, cute-little-girl-who-I-can't-remember, brother-of-kid-not-remembered-#1, Ben, Nick and Ben's-brother (dang, my memory sucks!!)

See how cooperative they are? "Hey kids, put your baskets on your head!!!" Sean is getting too old for that, but at least he stayed in the picture.

Nick busy hunting away.

By the end of the hunt, the kids were way too excited to dig into their loot to stand still for a picture. Look at Nick's basket - he scored!

Christy wanted to get a picture of Nick with the girls - success...

She then wanted one with just the girls... Fail. Nick refused to leave them (he LOVES them).

After lunch, we hopped in the car to head down to San Diego. We'd barely hit the road before he passed out.

As always, a great hunt!!!