On Saturday, after dinner, Christine and I noticed Lauren and Maile sitting off by themselves reading and coloring. There was so much craziness going on around them, but they were perfectly content and quiet with each other focused on their respective projects. Christine and I got a good kick out of it – not sure if the picture conveys, but it was quite sweet.
Sisters on the quad...
... hard at work 🙂
Perhaps a glimpse of the future on a TBD college campus…
This weekend was my 15th Stanford Reunion – kind of crazy to think it has already been 15 years. On Friday night, Christine and I headed down solo and had fun catching up with old friends. On Saturday, we took the girls down for the day and had a great time running around campus. They really put on a fun event for the whole family – we had a blast spending time with Nerd Nation!
Lauren Nerd
Maile Nerd
Daddy Nerd and Maile Nerd
Lauren Nerd and Mommy Nerd (Lauren Nerd is in the 'avoid pictures if possible' phase...)
The hot dogs were delicious (and cute!)
The girls got their portraits done - Lauren kept a close eye on things...
... and then did her best to sit still when it was her turn (which was super hard to do.)
At school, Maile’s first grade class has been learning about maps – so when our good friends told us that they had been going out geocaching with their boys and they had really been enjoying it, we thought it might be the perfect activity for us. What is geocaching? “Geocaching is the real-world treasure hunt that’s happening right now, all around you. There are 2,729,753 active geocaches and over 6 million geocachers worldwide.” Here’s a video that explains it:
Sure enough – there are tons of caches all over San Francisco. Maile and I did a test run down in Japantown on Saturday and then Sunday morning we went out with some friends for the real deal in Golden Gate Park. The geocaching app basically turns your phone into a map/compass and the kids had fun taking turns guiding us around as we looked for the treasures. Once we found them, the kids could exchange little trinkets and sign their names. It was a cool experience for the adults too – we found some new parts of Golden Gate Park we had never been to before.
Here’s a video of Maile finding her very first geocache in Japantown – as you can see the caches aren’t all hidden in the woods – they are apparently all around you!
Recently, Lauren has started taking more of a liking to playing with Legos. I love playing with Legos … with my children. We realized though that our Legos are kind of a mess right now – just a big jumbled mess. Not at all what Maile’s experience was like. So we’ve started the processing of organizing things a bit better – we’re thinking at a minimum doing some sorting by color to make things easier to find.
Maile has a been a big help and we spent an hour this morning tackling the project a bit. I loved this picture I took of her…
Last weekend we had a quick, but fun visit from Grandma and Papa Hawaii. They arrived on Friday afternoon and left on Sunday, but we certainly packed in some fun in between.
Right from the airport they headed to school and spoke to Maile’s class about visiting all 50 states. The first grade is doing a unit on maps and the world and Grandma and Papa had fun sharing their adventures and answering lots and lots of questions.
On Saturday morning, Grandma and Papa had a treat watching both Maile and Lauren’s dance classes. Mommy and Daddy slipped out in the afternoon to take advantage of the visit and have a mini afternoon date. And in the evening, we took Maile to her swim class and Grandma and Papa were blown away by how far she progressed with her swimming.
First thing Sunday morning, Papa, Maile and I went to volunteer at the Food Bank while Grandma, Mommy and Lauren had some quality time. Sooner than we knew it the visit was over, but we had lots of fun!
Maile and Papa getting ready to dig in sorting oranges at the Food Bank...
Headed to bed tonight on the eve of our anniversary and I found this picture just lying on the ground near the girls’ art supplies. I imagine in due time it will turn into an art project ode to mommy. But for tonight it is simply a reminder of what a lucky man I am.
This afternoon I was in our bedroom sending a few emails. From the living room I heard some nice music playing and Maile and Lauren excitedly chattering away. I ducked my head out and found this scene…
Hard at work on both hair and makeup for Mommy...
It was amazing. And hilarious. Maile and Lauren had setup their very own salon and were furiously working away on Mommy’s hair and makeup. Watching our girls and Christine play like this melted my heart a bit – it was exactly how I imagined having two daughters would be like.
