I headed away for a “guys weekend” to go skiing – which meant that here on the homefront it was decidedly a girls weekend. Mommy kicked things off properly on Friday night with a “picnic” in the living room and a showing of Finding Nemo. (Maile’s review was it was pretty scary – she told me she liked Minions better.)
Check out that spread!
And just to make sure I was appropriately missing them (and trust me, I was!) – Mommy sent along these selfies…
Mommy and Maile
Mommy and Lauren
I’m heading away for the weekend tomorrow night, so I thought I’d do a #tbt a night early this week. While looking for a good one, I came across this video from March 2012.
The perfect reminder that the best part of a trip is the return home!
(Click here for the video.)
When Christine and I lived in NYC, we often started our Sunday mornings with a walk to the local bagel shop for breakfast and a newspaper. Our favorite Jewish deli here in the city, Wise Sons, opened a new bagel shop last week right up the street from us. We thought we’d start a new tradition with the girls and went to check it out on Sunday. Not quite as relaxing as I recall our days in NYC with bagels, coffee and leisurely reading the newspaper, but still good times (and the bagels are great!)
And we're off - family selfie on the way out!
There was a bit of a line, but we didn't mind...
Lauren enjoying her cream cheese with bagel (in that order)...
Two thumbs up from Maile Girl...
by Papa K on February 23, 2016
Some friends from Presidio Knolls have started a newspaper aimed at kids called Xyza. We’ve really enjoyed the first few issues – a little while back Maile started asking about the “news” – but nothing really was well targeted for a 6 year old. This is – and we’ve had a lot of fun reading through the stories so far.
For Chinese New Year, they included a recipe for dumplings and Maile asked if we could give it a shot. So Sunday afternoon we finished our Chinese New Year celebration with some good ol’ dumpling making. Here’s the girls telling us how its done…
Mommy showed the girls how it was done and then they were off...
Lauren working hard on her first dumpling...
The lineup - we got a little creative with our shapes.
All cooked and ready to eat!
Yum!
(Click here for the video.)
by Papa K on February 22, 2016
Okay, technical difficulties have been resolved and we’re ready to share all the details of Saturday’s Chinese New Year Parade!
This was Maile’s second year participating in the parade and once again we had an absolute blast. We headed downtown as a family at 3 PM and helped the kids get ready for the big parade. It was a long afternoon – the parade itself didn’t kick in until ~6:15 PM, but the kids barely noticed – they were having too much fun taking in all the sites and goofing around with each other. Once the parade started they were all business – the practice really paid off and they nailed their dance number to Uptown Funk each of the oh 30+ times they performed it along the route.
Here’s a close-up of Maile performing the complete number during a pre-parade practice…
And here are some fun shots from along the way…
Lots of helping hands getting Maile and friends ready for the parade...
Here she is - ready to rock!
Maile and Gemma
All the Presidio Knolls kids - notice Maile looking at the only camera that matters 🙂
Family selfie right before the start...
Maile and Isobel
Maile Girl - smack in the middle of the action as always!
The picture of jealousy.
Don’t worry, Lauren, next year you’re in!
(Click here for the video.)
by Papa K on February 14, 2016
Been awfully quiet around here, right? Apologies! For the past 10 days Christine and I have been off having adventures in Washington, DC and Mexico. We made it an “all the way” vacation and that meant even taking a break from the blogging – the longest break I’ve taken since Maile was born 6.5 years ago.
One of our adventures had us repelling down into a cenote (a sinkhole)!
And while Christine and I were having some awesome adventures (and lots and lots of down time!), Maile and Lauren were in very good hands with Grandma Gail and Papa Cal. By all accounts, our time away was a success. The girls had a wonderful time and Grandma and Papa really got to spend some quality time seeing what their day-to-day lives are all about.
This selfie was taken on the very last day before we came home - everyone is all smiles!
Thank you, Grandma and Papa for letting us escape – we are forever grateful!
While we were waiting for our lunch on Sunday, we paused for a moment of zen…
Maile zen
Lauren zen
Mommy zen
Daddy zen
(Dad note: Christine and I are heading away for the next week and a half tomorrow. Grandma Gail and Papa Cal came in from Hawaii to watch the girls. Not sure what the posting will be like while traveling, we’ll see…)
by Papa K on December 29, 2015
Lauren is at that age where she does NOT like having her picture taken. This has made getting a nice picture of all the girls together for Grandma and Papa’s Christmas card a bit of a challenge.
Grandma made the girls beautiful matching Christmas dresses … she even made one for Lauren’s new baby doll! We thought the “hey! everyone is wearing matching dresses – let’s take a great picture” line of attack might work. Well…
See Lauren, even your baby doll wants to take a nice picture with Katie, Emily and Maile...
Only if Mommy joins too? Well, okay...
... maybe if you are on this side of Mommy we can crop her out afterwards...
Look at yourself in the camera...
Stay still.
Maybe stand a little higher?
Argh.
by Papa K on December 23, 2015
On Saturday evening, we drove over to Waimea to participate in their annual Christmas parade. Papa marches as part of an organization he is on the board of and last year he asked Maile to march with him too. The original plan was that Lauren would watch from the side with Mommy and Daddy, look cute and collect candy as everyone walked by.
She, of course, had other ideas and headed off to march along with Papa, Grandma and Maile. That left Christine and I to do our best collecting candy, but alas we were not nearly cute enough 🙂
The parade was an awesome way to start out holiday on Kauai – total small town feel, a beautiful night that held off the rain, and all the holiday lights and sounds you could ask for…
Maile Girl showing off her parade outfit...
Papa, Lauren and Mommy pre-parade photo op...
Grandma Gail and Maile
Maile Girl hard at work passing out candy as she walks the parade route...
Mommy and Lauren post parade holiday selfie!
Daddy and Maile - all smiles after a fun time at the parade 🙂
by Papa K on December 15, 2015
I wasn’t kidding, the holidays are in full effect out here in San Francisco! Tonight’s activity? Ice skating! Every year parents from the Maile and Lauren’s school rent out the ice rink down by Embarcadero Center for a few hours and a bunch of the families head down and do a little skating. Maile loves it and Lauren got into it as well this year. She was very proud that she and Mommy went around the rink “three” times. (And then they took their skates off, ate some pizza, and decided they wanted to go again, so we put skates back on and Mommy and Lauren went around another two times. And by “we” I mean “Lauren” 🙂
Hard to just stay standing so we'll forgive Lauren for not looking at the camera...
... this one on the other hand was all about the posing...
... no really, lots of posing 🙂
Here’s a good video that captures what Lauren and Mommy were up to as they made their way around the rink…
And here’s Maile Girl doing her thing…
(Click here for the first video.)
(Click here for the second video.)
