Thanksgiving weekend

We spent Thanksgiving weekend here with friends. On Friday we went on a friend-suggested hike in Mt. Tamalpais State Park. It was 4-ish miles downhill from altitude to the coast and was very cool. We went with the Barches; Canyon, Tarlissimo, et al.

Ballyhoo stayed on Mommy's back mostly for time considerations. She might actually be completely capable of the distance but extrapolating past hiking experiences with her to 4 miles we projected it would take 4.39 times the age of the universe to get to our destination.




Dem Barches.




This is what happened when Little attempted to give Canyon a hug. It was explosive coodiness.






Little and Canyon pretty much didn't notice the 4 miles. They probably logged an extra 2 miles just crazying around.




Little decided that these rocks just had to come with us, and insisted that we hold them for her when she became too tired. Hasn't every kid who has ever hiked done that? So cliche.


Daddy may or may not have confidently led everybody down a steep hill on the wrong path.






We got to Stinson Beach at sunset.






We sat around well into the dark waiting for a shuttle to take us back to our cars... apparently there was a holiday schedule? Meh. Anyway, it turned into a fun little adventure and made a weirdly satisfying end to a fun day.


On Saturday we watched Stanford smother some Beavers with friends.






And that's it. Maybe we'll get around to posting the Hawai'i pictures soon?

Littlest aka The Dude

A couple days ago Littlest said "boop" to Mommy. When Mommy repeated the sound to him he giggled and recognized it as his little word. So now we can say "boop" to him at any time and it instantly makes him thrilled. He even joins in and tries to say it back to us. It's so fun to be able to "talk" with him!



Also, about 4 days ago he just started sitting up. It's a cool new trick Daddy's been demonstrating to anybody and everybody. Go Dude!

Skyline-to-the-Sea with the chillunz

Little and Daddy went on a short litle backpacking trip up Skyline-to-the-Sea trail yesterday with A-Ron and Olivander. We camped at twin redwoods trail camp for the night.  A radicool old dude hiked in with us and told us everything there is to know about the plants we saw. A gorgeous San Francisco garter snake slithered right between Little's feet. Great-horned owls called all night from across Waddell creek. We heard Pacific tree fogs along the creek.  We interrupted a swarm of flying ants out looking for a queen. A bunch of deer and some raccoons raided us throughout the night. And we pretty much chilled and enjoyed the pleasantness.

MAndrew and Kason and Maleb rode in on bikes and visited us at dusk, paying special attention to wearing Olivander right out.



Little yesterday with a big-leaf maple leaf:


Strangely similar to January 2009 in Costa Rica:



A madrone stick became the coolest toy/weapon.








A-Ron spent much of the trip being a superhero/monster. It's what he does:




Olivander likes the leaf too:




Next time: Daddy, A-Ron, Lizard and Littler!

Summer End Game

Random pictures from the last 8 days' fun.

Here's Littlest and his friend/neighbor/near-twin 'Enri. 'Enri was born less than 12 hours after Littlest. They are exactly the same: they both poop a lot and sleep a bunch.


Kason and Maleb's parents moved up into the mountains and we've spent some time enjoying the trails up there. Last saturday Daddy and Olivander's daddy rode from Cupertino up Montebello Rd. to Montebello OSP and met Kason and Maleb's daddy up there. They rode up to the top of Black Mountain and took a picture of themselves, trying to look as rad as they can.  Daddy stood on a very tall rock so he wouldn't look like a midget.



On Labor Day we went with Olivander's family to Portola Redwoods State Park. We had a fair amount of fun playing in the water...






...and lying in the grass...




...until the stinging nettle ambushed us and made Littler a sad little monster.


Little and Olivander did this for quite a long time:






Then we all drove down to Pescadero State Beach and hung out there until sunset.
















Even the late-sunset light wasn't enough to make Daddy's midsection anything but blindingly white.


We found all kinds of cool things on the beach, like severed fish heads and a ray skeleton. We even saw a [live] sea otter, which was pretty cool. Somehow we took 800 pictures that day and none were of the awesome people we were there with. Nothing personal, we swear.

On Tuesday Mommy had her first game for her soccer league. She was a bit rusty to start with but warmed up and kicked some tushy.


The ball was heading over Mommy's head and, without thinking about it, she reached up to grab it. Thankfully it was too high, but she grinned a sheepish grin and kept on playing:


Here's Littlest just yesterday with Canyon's little sister Mandolin. He's staking claim to his territory as early as he can.