the g boys reunite!

(from 9/13/10)

last weekend was a big one.

the beginning of the nfl football season was upon us and with that the opening of the new meadowlands stadium. evan's brother had tickets to the first giants game at the new stadium and evan managed to find a reasonably priced flight to join his brother dad, and friend jamie at the game (which thankfully they won). while evan was out in ny having fun catching up with jeff, jamie, eating ny pizza, bagels and living large, we were not to be outdone here in california.

we had quite a few fun things planned for our weekend with me and the kids. saturday started with greta's gymnastics class where she had fun going through the stations, practicing her balance and moves and being the "line leader" between stations. we followed that up by a quick stop at the store and then headed to see some family visiting. We caught up with Bob and Barbara (visiting from the east coast - evan's mom's cousin), while they were out visiting david (their son) and sara and stephen (grandson). i won't even try to make the right guess as to how everyone is related to each other through technical terms - suffice it to say they're family. we had a great time catching up with everyone and graham got to meet more family for the first time. a very relaxing lunch/brunch and good to see everyone.

sunday had even more going on with watching the big game in the morning. greta was a bit disappointed that she couldn't see daddy on the tv at the game, but she was excited nonetheless, and wore her giants super bowl jersey with pride. when the game ended and greta woke up from her nap, we headed to palo alto for the first of two parties that afternoon. 

the first party was the nicu reunion for lpch (lucille packard children's hospital where he was for the first 6 weeks). it was great to see kids of all ages who were also "graduates" of the nicu, but the best was seeing gunner.  graham and gunner (the g boys as they were called) were neighbors for all but a few days in the nicu.  we got to know the family and given they were about the same age and born about the same time, we shared many of the same experiences.  it was great to see them again and to see how much both graham and gunner had grown and changed.


the g boys (and tammy and i)

we moved from that party to one across the bay.  it was greta's "cousin" aidan's birthday party (evan's cousin's son technically).  he had a raucous party at my gym and greta threw herself in and had a blast.  she and aidan were the last kids to leave. 

a very busy, but very fun weekend.

...and july

(from 7/27/10)
well, at least i'm starting to write my july post in the actual month of july. as it seems to happen, july was packed with activity for us. we started off the month with a nice long weekend and a 4th of july party that was fairly low key this year since many of our friends were traveling or already had plans set for the saturday.

that didn't stop us from having a great time. the highlight of the party was all the kids. they were all instant friends and had a great time with all the toys and stuff that was around. the best was the slip and slide we set up just off the deck. the first round was fun and all of the kids had bathing suits or something suitable to play in. the second round was much more amusing as they just stripped down and played in the buff. to add to the picture, the water had made some nice mud in the yard.

after the fourth weekend, we had a short work week and then began our big vacation adventure for the summer. this year, our primary destination was the east coast, but we kicked it off in vegas.  i started on my own with my mom, aunts, and cousins rachel, bryn and abbey.  we were celebrating my mom's 60th birthday and bryn and abbey's 21st birthdays.  we went to see the elvis show, had a great dinner and general vegas fun.

the second day, evan braved a flight with both kids on his own and joined us for a stopover in vegas before the aronowitz part of the clan left the next day for the east coast.  greta was in love with the fountains at bellagio and in general all the shiny vegas objects. 



on the east coast, we had great fun with evan's family, but the reason that brought us there was evan's 20th high school reunion.  as part of the celebration, we spent a few days at lake george with 6 of evan's classmates and their families.  it was loads of fun and the kids had a blast as well. 

hanging in lake george

after our days in lake george, we returned to niskayuna and prepared for the reuinion.  it was a blast and all the wives even got the title of "the party girls".  good times indeed. 

 

greta and riley hitting the pool

we wrapped up the trip with a visit to vermont and evan's parents place up there.  we covered a lot of ground on this trip - family, friends, family, and it was a great trip. 

whoops! there went june...

(from 7/27/10)
yep. it was there somewhere, and somehow, sitting here at the end of july, i vaguely remember pieces and parts of the month.

i suppose the major thing (and hence the lack of posts) is that i returned to work. it has been a transition as expected and is so far keeping me busy. rather than bore you with work transitions though, i will highlight the other parts of life.

the kids did great and greta is super excited that graham is now going to daycare (aka camp)with her. she has been great and visits graham in the baby room many of the afternoons. graham wasn't at all phased at going to camp everyday and is generally a great baby there, just as he is at home.

the other great experiment of the month was my weekend alone with the kiddos. evan flew out to denver to visit with old friends/roommates. they camped one night in the rockies and went to a widespread panic concert at red rocks on sunday. he had a great time catching up and getting away.

new month, new routine

(from 6/2/10)
today is my first day back at work after almost 6 months of maternity leave. big changes many times come with some mixed emotions and this change is no exception. i think of all of us, greta is the most excited about this particular change. she and i had to talk through the routine that would happen when i put her to bed last night and it was almost like a kid on christmas eve.

the morning routine was smooth and greta helped me take graham into the baby room. she carried the bag with the bottles of milk to make sure graham had food for the day. she offered to stay with graham for a bit after i left to make sure he was ok, but i told her she should eat breakfast with her friends and check on him a bit later (and they would get her if they needed her sooner). i've gotten a few pictures today and a call that assures me all is well and he is doing great. greta has visited him twice so far and he was smiling and happy to see her.



graham's first day at noah's ark

we had a great holiday weekend leading up to the back to work week. evan was incredible on saturday as he went upstairs with greta when she woke up and let me sleep in a bit and then surprised me by letting me know he has scheduled a massage that afternoon for me and made reservations for the family at la fondue for dinner. it was a wonderful day and felt very decadent.

we had great weather (finally!) for the weekend and spent lots of time outside, which was nice.

begin the countdown....

(from 5/26/10)
yes. as much as i'd like to ignore it and think that there's no change in the future, change is a comin'. this is my last week of maternity leave and tuesday will be my first day back to the grind.

while i can't quite believe i am not going to be hanging out with graham for a good portion of the day, i am mentally preparing for the transition. it is going to be tough to drop off graham for the first time, but this time around, greta will be there to show him a familiar face during the day and i know the routine and loving people at daycare.

i am excited about the job i'm going back to, so that's a huge help as well. i'm going to be working with a group at deloitte called the center for the edge. it is co-chaired by john hagel and john seely brown (both have their own wikipedia page among other things). it is a pretty exciting time to be around as they just released their latest book the power of pull in april and it has been getting great press and reviews. should be an interesting test for my mommy brain to work with such brilliant people.

of course it is heading for the coldest spring on the record books and it is raining this week. fitting, i suppose, but i was kinda hoping for a beautiful may and more chances to get outside with little g, but overall i can't complain.

as i look back, i can't believe almost 6 months have passed since our december surprise. as always happens, it feels at once years ago and just yesterday. it has been amazing once again to watch how quickly a newborn grows and develops. this time around it was especially stark since graham started at a mere 3 and a half pounds and is now over 13 pounds. i am cherishing this phase and am amazed at how hopeful i am for the possibilities in his future. it also leads me to reflect on greta and how far she has come in 3 years and the wonderful (and strong) personality she is growing into.

mother's day and mom's visit

(from 5/17/10)

thankfully, we had an uneventful mother's day this year again (everyone was in town and nobody broke any bones). it was a wonderful and laid back day. we got breakfast at the cafe in los gatos and i got some nice cozy pajamas, which is exactly what i wanted.

a couple days after that my mom came in for the last visit before (sniff, sniff) my maternity leave ends. it is great having her visit (greta is loving it!), and we're getting a lot of little things done before i go back. evan and i even got a date night on saturday night and went to restaurant james randall in the gatos and had gelato... mmmm.

this is the second date night in two weeks. the week before we went up to sf for dinner and a concert. it was great. we had one of the wonderful people who works at greta's daycare come up to watch the kids with her cousin that was visiting. greta was so excited to have her at the house (which is polar opposite of the usual babysitter attitude). we went to a new restaurant for us - wexler's. it is a nice upscale bbq place. it was a great dinner and we even managed dessert.

from dinner, we went to see los campansitos in concert. it was good fun. we didn't make it through the encore, but making through a concert that started at 9pm with an opening band is not bad. especially considering graham was going through a growth spurt and waking up 2-3 times a night that week.

the kids are doing great. greta is still working on listening and keeping her emotions in reasonable control (aka cutting down on the tantrums). graham is growing and as of last week is up to 12 lbs 13 oz (he gained a full pound in 2 weeks - thankfully the night feedings were making a difference) and 24 inches long. he is smiling up a storm, babbling and making noises with his tongue and throat, wiggling all the time, rolling from front to back, grabbing at toys and holding on, and in general, being a very good baby.

so long tahoe... hello more rain???

(from 4/28/10)

last weekend, we trekked up to tahoe one last time for the season to get in some spring skiing and clear out the rental house. what was really crazy is that they got around a foot of new snow during the week - not typical for this late in the season.

we were able to head up thursday evening after evan finished work, and we spent friday and saturday morning hanging out at the lodge and on the mountain. due to alpine's spring schedule, there were only two lifts open (which covers quite a bit of the mountain actually). the hitch with that is that we were taking greta up the summit six lift to the top of the mountain and skiing down alpine bowl before you could access any of the lower mountain terrain. she did awesome, but it was interesting for the parents getting down the first steep drop with a kid on a ski leash - feel those legs. i only made it for one top to bottom run, but evan was great and took greta on several runs.

we closed out the ski season with a trip to the bridgetender for dinner in tahoe city. it was great to finally be able to get out a bit more easily with both kids (did i just say easily with two kids??? really???). easier in that graham is old enough to go out, we can guess at the schedule we'll have, etc. they both did great and we've found that we can go out as long as we don't plan to dawdle and we know the signs of restlessness that mean we have to move on.

we came back on saturday after naptime and once again had saturday night and sunday to spend around home. a nice bonus. sunday, we snuck in some more spring outdoor projects as we spread wood chips and got the first dirt prep step done for the garden. monday i finished prepping the dirt for the garden and quickly got plants in before the next storm arrived tuesday (really??? another one???). an inch of rain later, more sprinkles today and i'm hopeful the spring sun and warm pattern settle in for good.

old friends, new friends

(from 4/28/10)
one of the nice things about getting back from vacation on saturday afternoon is that we had time (and felt under control enough) to go up to sf on sunday morning to visit friends who were in town for a wedding.

the friends we were visiting were tara, phill and their son max. tara and i go way back - we were roommates our freshman year at ut and have been friends ever since (and know way too many fun stories about each other). after our first few years in college, we started crossing paths in the most interesting places - serendipity at it's finest.

when i worked for motorola in toulouse france the summer between my junior and senior year in college, it just so happened that tara was spending that entire school year and summer studying in toulouse. it was wonderful on the first night in my apartment there, i heard a knock on the door and there stood tara with boyfriend phil and friend stu, ready to take me out and show me part of the city and more importantly the local bar. that weekend, despite my ridiculous lack of supplies and lack of knowledge that you have to carry your own toilet paper to some places in france, i hopped into the car they rented and went camping on the coast. we had great fun that summer while we overlapped at local spots in toulouse, a trip to andora, etc., and i'll always be greatful to them for showing me around and giving me friendly faces while i got my bearings in a new city.

i can't remember the order of our next rendezvous points, but they included austin for tara and phill's wedding and a visit from tara and phill in san francisco, where i got to play a bit of tour guide and show them some cool local spots. after that, we met again in london and a weekend in oxford while i was on a project in london and they were studying at oxford. we didn't have the luck of overlapping in boston (where they live now), but maybe that will be the next destination for catching up...

though this latest visit in san francisco was short, it didn't seem to matter as we have known each other for so long, that we stepped right back into everyday conversation. this is the first time greta and max have met and they hit it off right away. it helped that we met in a park in san francisco, and the kids were all about exploring all the fun stuff as the parents took chances to catch up. they were even lucky enough to catch 4 rides on the carousel with the dads.

we ate lunch outside at the ferry building at what used to be taylor's automatic refresher (they changed their name and i can't recall what it is - not so good marketing i suppose) and we all enjoyed burgers, hot dogs, onion rings, fries and watching the people zip lining across the street in justin herman plaza. we parted ways after a leisurely lunch so the kids could get their naps in. it was a beautiful day in the city with some great old friends.

fabulous vacation!

(from 4/28/10)

the major event in april for us was a 10 day trip to arizona to visit evan's family. normally, evan's parents rent a house down in florida for the month of april and we've visited them there for the past several years. given that we have a young infant this year, we were very happy they tried out arizona this year because traveling with an active 3 year old and young baby cross country on flights that were not non-stop was a non-starter for us. arizona, however, was a nice 2 hour flight to the same timezone, which made it very appealing.

we joined evan's parents and his brother's family, eric, anne, hannah and riley on a wednesday. eric and family left the following tuesday and we stayed through the following saturday. we had a great set up in scottsdale in a house on a beautiful golf coarse with a pool and hottub in the back. the best way to go through the vacation fun is through a pictoral description...

graham & poppy

at the butterfly exhibit

racing

boating with hannah

jumping

movie time with hannah and riley

a little golfing

mimi, poppy and the granddaughters

train ride at the park

and greta's favorite - the carousel

graham and i hanging out at dinner

mimi, poppy, graham & greta

the family portrait

smiley graham

and of course, fun in the pool!

spring storm

(from 3/15/10)
now that we are able to get to tahoe on the weekend, we plan to take advantage as much as possible over the next month. that included going up this past weekend. we had heard all week that there was possibility of rain on friday in the bay area (which almost always translates into snow in the mountains), but the forecasters didn't make much of a mention or big deal about it - until friday.

needless to say, we had not planned on a big storm when we decided when we would leave to drive up, and we got caught. thankfully, everything worked out in that we didn't leave until late afternoon, we had dinner in auburn (after a bit of a fiasco leaving a restaurant when the 20 minute wait time turned into an hour - not good with two kiddos) and started the mountain climb after that. we hit what we thought was chain control traffic not too long after setting out and decided to exit and head in a back way.

what we found at the exit was that they had shut down the freeway and didn't know when it would reopen. we headed off the crowded exit and scrambled to figure out plan b (sleeping in the car and/or waiting it out did not make the list). we found a dog friendly motel along the back route and headed there. after a reasonable night's sleep considering the circumstances, we left for tahoe early the next morning.

the good news is that we were able to head out early enough (thanks to young children waking up early no matter the circumstances), that we made it to the feige (our rental in tahoe) just in time for evan to throw on ski clothes and catch the 8:45 shuttle to the mountain. he was on the slopes just after the lifts opened at 9am and got a great morning of skiing. i dropped greta off later in the morning to join him for a few runs and she did pretty well on the groomed trails even with all the new snow.

all in all a great weekend trip up to tahoe. it's nice for me even though i don't get to ski as much because there's never a to do list when your up there aside from get to the mountain, eat, sleep, relax and have fun.

return to tahoe!

(from 3/6/10 - which has been sitting in my draft folder for 2 years...  clearly, i am trying to catch up)

finally, we were all healthy, big enough, etc. to make our triumphant return to tahoe. my parents were still in town (they left to go back to austin this morning), so we had two carloads to travel up. my mom and i took the kids up after lunch and my dad and evan headed up after dinner (and post traffic).

both kids did great on the ride up and we arrived just before dinner. evan and my dad made great time after dinner and arrived at 11pm. given this was our first trip up with all of us since thanksgiving weekend, we were a bit off our game, but thankfully, the jolly's were there and helped us along all weekend.

saturday morning, we started our routine. it was almost like a splurge weekend since my parents were there. my dad skied both days and my mom skipped skiing this year, so she volunteered to stay at the house with graham so i could go up to the mountain and get a little bit of skiing in. saturday, i skied with greta and got a couple runs in with my dad before returning to the house for greta's nap. i even returned to the mountain while greta slept to get a couple runs in with evan - what a treat to ski together without having to keep to the bunny hill. sunday, i joined greta in the morning and skied with my dad after lunch since evan volunteered to take greta back. it was a great couple days for me and i made the most of it knowing that most of the rest of the season i will be hanging back at the house with graham and carson (not bad with a cup of hot cocoa).

greta, who got one weekend under her belt with evan in january, hit the slopes like a pro. she is using a ski leash (although she is sure she can do it herself), and even over the two days this weekend, got better. we are working on posture and focus, but she loves skiing, riding the chairlift and like last year, still wants to go "really fast". we even ventured on her first blue run both days and she did pretty well. mind you, she's just starting to experiment with direction and turning, but overall she did really well, and most importantly, had a great time.

saturday afternoon the kids burned off excess energy by playing in the snow fort (complete with slide) that andy had dug out the day before. they had great fun and really got going when my mom joined (the magic of grandma's) and there was a snowball fight. there was one incident toward the end when greta got a large snowball in the face at point blank range, but we got over that pretty quickly.

we only hit a few traffic slow downs coming home on sunday. we stopped in sacramento for dinner and made it home around 10pm. all went according to plan with the exception of greta staying awake the entire time and talking the whole way home. at least she slept well when she got here. graham did great for his first weekend trip. he's not a fan of traffic and prefers when the car is moving, but was great and easy the whole weekend. we are looking forward to the spring skiing season!