As you know, on Thursdays I like to click back through the archive and see what was happening on this day in history. Tonight my first stop was January 15, 2013 and I found a keeper right away – Grandma and Papa Boston meet Lauren for the very first time…
First meeting between Lauren, Grandma Jill and Papa Mike
One year earlier – and we have this smile of Maile’s lighting up your day…
Just a Maile smile to start your week...
And the year before that? Some silliness with Maile and her dollie in the stroller…
And we end our trip with this one…
I love you, daddy. I love you too, Maile girl.
A good day indeed.
I can now confirm that teaching an “almost” two year old to play hide-and-seek is one of the great joys of life. First Maile, now Lauren – both are absolutely hilarious. It looks like Grandma Jill and Mommy had a lot of fun with Lauren!
(Click here for the video.)
by Papa K on February 23, 2014
Last week was “ski week” so no school for Maile Girl. Or as I like to put it – “Ski week? I don’t get that at work, man, I hope one of the grandparents can come visit and help out with the girls”-week. This time Grandma and Papa Boston delivered coming out on Monday and spending the week with Maile and Lauren. And they had a blast all over San Francisco…
Hula Hooping with Grandma Jill...
Exploring the jungle gym with Papa...
Oh, there was ice cream!
Some quiet time reading books after running around all over...
And, of course, some fun dinners out at restaurants!
Thank you, Grandma and Papa for the good times and watching after our girls all week!
Lauren Girl here! On Sunday afternoon, Mommy, Daddy, Maile, Grandma and Papa took me to get my first Christmas tree! I was pretty overwhelmed by all the trees, so Maile took the lead on picking out the tree – I think she picked a really nice one.
My very first Christmas tree picked out my big sister Maile
Guess what? I wasn’t the only one getting a Christmas tree for the first time. It was Papa’s first time too!
Papa was excited too!
This is pretty cool – Papa had a fun idea to get a picture of me getting a bird’s eye view of the trees.
Lauren's bird eye view (11 months)
And it’s almost the same picture that Maile and Daddy took the first time she went to get a tree!
Maile's bird-eye view (5 months)
The house we rented was on a vineyard and actually had a decent amount of land that we could hike around and explore. Maile went on several explorations over the week – was nice to stretch the legs and spend some quality time outdoors in nature for a city girl.
Which way should we go first?
Quality time with Grandma Jill
Maile and Grandma went on a scavenger hunt to find some statues that were hidden around the property...
Follow me Grandma!
Girl on bridge
Thank you, Grandma Jill!
(Dad note: I apologize for missing a couple days of posting last week. We headed up to Santa Rosa for Thanksgiving and the internet wasn’t fantastic in the house we were staying at. Everything else about the house and our time away was amazing though … as you’ll see over the next few days!)
Grandma and Papa Boston arrived on Wednesday morning just in time to help the girls celebrate Hanukkah. It was Lauren’s first Hanukkah and the first time we used a Menurkey (thank you to Uncle Stephen’s mom, Liz, for sending one our way!)
Lighting the first night lights with Papa Mike...
We always read the card first...
Maile loved the Lego house that Grandma and Papa gave her...
.
... no, really, she loved it. We played with it all weekend and spent ~2 hours over the first night and the next morning creating one of three houses in the kit
Haha! While they are distracted, I will open my gift!
ARRGGGHH! Wrapping paper is soooo hard to get off!
Lauren Girl here. I’m on a BIG adventure and thought I’d check in. Mommy and I headed to New York City early this morning for a business trip! Nice of Mommy to accompany me while I take care of some business, right?
Today was a full day of travel – Mommy documented our adventures all day long – here’s what transpired…
First we had to wake up super early and take a car to the airport ... well, Mommy had to wake up early anyways 🙂
When we landed in NYC, we had to wait for the luggage. Mommy said she appreciated my company, but I wasn't so helpful with the bags.
The taxi line was really long so we had to wait a bit (Mommy told me this later when I woke up)
Then I took my very first NYC taxi ride! (Mommy also shared this with me later).
Finally, after all the travel, we were in New York and we had some Mommy/Lauren quality time.
Then Grandma and Papa Boston showed up!
And they took us to Morimoto to dinner, where I have to say, the milk was fantastic!
Oh yeah, serious food coma after that meal!
Grandma Jill and Papa Mike came to visit last weekend. We had a great time seeing them. It was a beautiful weekend in the city, so we spent a lot of time outside. Grandma and Papa also made sure they spent plenty of quality time with their girls – Papa, in particular, hadn’t seen Lauren since she was born so he had a lot of fun making up for lost time! Grandma and Maile read LOTS of books and did lots of projects together.
We also made sure we took some pictures before Grandma and Papa left…
Let's do this.
Grandpa Mike, Lauren (4.5 months), Maile (3 years, 10 months), and Grandma Jill
Daddy and Mommy in the mix...
Daddy, Lauren, Mommy and Maile
Thank you Grandma and Papa Boston for coming to visit us!
Maile meets Glass
A couple weeks ago we got a pair of Google Glass (is that how you write that?) at the Pocket office. I took them home this weekend to try it out.
We gave them a good workout – Grandma and Papa Boston were in town and we were all over the city. We went down to the new Exploratorium, the Ferry Building, took a pedal cab, headed over to Presidio Picnic, went kite flying and did plenty of goofing around. In the video below almost every picture and video was taken with Google Glass (there are a couple I threw in that Papa Boston took of me wearing them).
My overall impression is that while it is a pretty cool experience to use, I don’t think they are something I’d wear on a regular basis and I see a lot of challenges to this particular form factor being adopted on a wide scale. Some more specific thoughts:
- They were actual quite comfortable to wear – I was aware that I had them on, but didn’t find them uncomfortable and unless I specifically was trying to look at the screen, they didn’t get in the way of my normal interactions with people.
- The screen worked pretty well – it’s pretty small, but for basic notifications (like the score of a ballgame) it works fine. The screen is pretty hard to see in sunlight though.
- I don’t think this would replace me reaching in to my pocket and pulling out my phone for most things – you can get emails on it, but I don’t see that I would use it for that. The primary use cases for me were photos, videos, navigation and quick notifications (scores, weather, breaking news, etc.)
- I did feel a bit ridiculous wearing them around the city – part of that is the novelty factor, lots of people come up to you and ask about them. Everyone was really excited about them though – still, just don’t see this going mainstream as it currently is designed.
- You can judge for yourself in the video above, but I think the perspective is a lot of fun, especially with the girls. There were definitely moments I was able to capture that would have been ruined if I was trying to do it with my phone. I was able to be completely “in the moment” rough housing around with Maile or flying the kite – I liked that aspect a lot.
My friend, Jon, said it best, that there is a pretty good chance we look back at this post in the same way we laugh at the pictures of our parents from the 70’s, 80’s, etc. and laugh at what they were wearing. Google Glass may be my perm.
(Click here for the video.)
by Papa K on February 20, 2013
As we’ve said before, the hardest part of living away from our families is when the kids get sick or our normal routine is otherwise disrupted. That was certainly the case the past couple of weeks with first Maile and then Lauren getting sick (and Maile having school vacation this week as well). Luckily, we had a well-timed visit from Grandma Jill to keep us sane and help us out! Grandma arrived on Friday and left earlier today – not only did we have loads of fun with her (especially Maile), but Daddy and Mommy were able to get some much needed rest.
Who says Grandmas can't do two things at once!?
Thank you Grandma Jill for everything!
We miss you already Grandma!
