Growing up with a little of both and the lessons learned along the way
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Today is our 9th anniversary(!) – we’ll be celebrating a bit this weekend. Tonight we showed the girls our wedding video for the first time (I just recently got it digitized) and after the girls went to bed, Christine and I had a glass of champagne and looked over old posts of the girls on the blog.
This one from way back in October of 2009 gave me a good laugh…
(Click here for the video.)
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On Saturday we went on a fun hike with one the family of one of Maile’s good friends from school. They have a daughter Maile’s age and an older son – for awhile we’ve watched from afar on Instagram as they took fantastic hikes all over the Bay Area. We always said once Lauren was a little bit older we wanted to start exploring in the same way. They took us out on one of their favorites on Saturday and we had a blast. We did the Batteries to Bluffs trail and it was perfect – not too hard, fun spots for the kids to explore … and absolutely beautiful views!
Maile, Lauren and Isobel with the Golden Gate in the background...
A long walk down
Lauren tried desperately to keep up with the bigger girls scrambling over the rocks - she did a pretty good job overall
Touching the sky...
Love my little hiker...
Windy smiles 🙂
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On the last weekend of summer, our family expanded by two! I know, hard to imagine in our SF apartment, but we made it work. Please meet Blueberry and Ariel – Maile and Lauren’s new fish 🙂
Very excited to get Blueberry and Ariel set up in their new home!
Here’s a video of us putting them in their new home…
The girls are very excited and so far, two days in, have done a very nice job keeping the fish fed. We’ll see if we can keep it up!
(Click here for the video.)
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Once again we headed to Michigan for a family reunion with Grandma Jill’s side of the family. We had an awesome weekend running around and playing with our cousins. We fished (using marshmallows!), went paddle boating, swimming, slip n’ sliding, water ballooning, glitter tattooing (thanks Maile!), we sang and danced, we shared stories, ate s’mores over the fire and, of course, made amazing memories!
Paddle boarding cousins!
Maile doesn't actually like eating the s'mores, but she sure enjoyed roasting the marshmallows 🙂
A rare family picture (Maile 7, Lauren 3.5)
Maile and Aiden _loved_ spending time together!
Auntie Elyssa and the cousins (at least some of them)
(Almost) full family shot!
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On Wednesday, we all converged on Chicago to start a midwest visit of Daddy’s side of the family. Grandma Jill and Maile arrived from Boston, while Mommy, Lauren and I arrived from San Francisco. We didn’t get any pictures of videos of it, but suffice to say Maile and Lauren were very excited to see one another! (And Maile was only slightly less excited to see Mommy.)
On Thursday we spent the morning visiting with GG Bea (after a pit stop to get an apple pancake at Walker Brother’s, of course). It was really nice seeing GG and she loved seeing the girls. We checked out her new place, played some games and took GG out for lunch at a local hot dog spot.
Maile Girl and GG Bea
A wonderful visit with GG Bea!
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We’ve started talking to the girls (Maile in particular) more and more about the election. Tonight we started watching Chelsea’s speech and Maile was into it for awhile, but then got a bit bored so we stopped it. The girls headed to bed and Christine and I started watching Hillary’s speech. We had it on a little too loud, so Maile popped out, Lauren soon followed and we invited them to watch a bit with us.
Maile and Lauren were there watching when Hillary accepted the nomination!
Taking it all in...
They didn’t make it for the whole speech, but that’s okay. We’ll share more later. When I brought Maile to bed, I knelt down and told her that she can do anything she wants, where ever her dreams might take her.
I think she believed me.
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On Sunday, we headed out to a community pool in San Rafael to celebrate Maile’s 7th birthday. San Rafael is about 40 minutes outside the city over the Golden Gate Bridge. It was the perfect day for a pool party – when we left the city, it was a normal 59 degree San Francisco summer day – but out in San Rafael it hit 90!
We had a blast spending the afternoon in and out of the pool with friends – so much fun, we didn’t take too many pictures or videos – but here’s a few we snagged along the way…
We arrived early and Maile and Lauren probably ate half the watermelon before their friends arrived...
Goofing around in the pool...
Lauren had her BFF Elena there to keep her entertained.
Maile shared her celebration with her friend Aiden
Happy Birthday, Maile Girl!
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Yes, another birthday for Grandma Jill is in the books and its an opportunity to watch one of my favorite videos with Maile Girl…
We can’t wait to see you in a few weeks and celebrate (minus the tears 🙂
Love all of us!
(Click here for the video.)
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As I’ve posted, the girls have been getting more and more into bike riding. Up until now, Christine and I have mostly run around behind them and our rides have been pretty limited. I finally thought Maile was ready to ride along side me, so on Sunday, I brought my bike out and we headed out for a family bike ride. Well, a split up family ride. Christine went running with Lauren beside her on her scooter bike (she said it was the perfect pace actually) and Maile and I rode up ahead. We went down to Golden Gate Park where they close off the streets and had a really nice ride for a couple miles.
Not the most demanding pre-PMC training, but fun all the same!
The crew - ready to rock!
Its only a matter of time before this one is lapping all of us!
After our ride we met up again and Lauren had the good idea to do some geocaching - so we went in hunt of a treasure!
... and after some good searching we found the cache!
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The day before we left Kauai, Maile and I went on an adventure. It was a kayak hiking trip to check out a small waterfall on the island and, most importantly, go on a rope swing. Maile was most excited about the rope swing.
Maile and Daddy ready to rock our kayak adventure...
Maile got her very own paddle and actually did a good job manning the front of the kayak.
Maile showing off some of the pretty flowers she collected along the way...
Kayak part done, now off to hike to the rope swing...
Maile Girl leading the way...
We had actually gone on this trip once before a couple years ago – that time we compared Maile to Dora the Explorer, but this time she was indeed more of a Tomb Raider! She didn’t even hesitate with the rope swing – she walked right up and jumped on – our little girl that used to hesitate at the top of the slide has come a long way!
One unfortunate part of the trip was that despite using bug spray, poor Maile’s legs got eaten alive and she developed a slight reaction and developed pretty big welts on her legs. They were super itchy and I felt so bad for her. Going in the cool water at the rope swing helped her out and she was a trooper all the way through. The bites were bad enough that I took her to the doctor the next day before we left for home and he prescribed some stronger medicine that really helped get the bites under control. She is indeed my daughter – but didn’t let that stop the adventures!
(Click here for the video.)
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