Happy Birthday Grandpa Bill

We wish Grandpa Bill a wonderful birthday today!!   It was great fun celebrating on Sunday, and we hope that you have a great day today as well.    Happy Birthday!

Fun Day Outdoors

Saturday was a fun outdoor day.   Colbie and Addy were invited to a camping birthday party by one of their favorite friends.   The family booked a large 50 person campsite at Portola Redwood Park in La Honda.  Jake had a different party to attend, so I drove the girls out to the campsite for a few hours of fun under the woods.   It was such a great birthday idea, and definitely got the girls and I super excited about some camping trips this summer!   We could not stay for the overnight however, as I planned and hosted my last event as the VP of Events and Social Groups for our twin club.   With the gorgeous weather finally here I planned a "Welcome to Summer Campfire Sing Along" as my last event, which turned out to be perfect.   I found this beautiful park open only to Palo Alto residents off of Page Mill Road that lets you essentially rent a large campfire pit.   I brought out a big picnic dinner, hired a singer from Berkeley who brought her guitar and song sheets and we had a great time.  The s'mores roasting was of course the biggest hit with the kids, but it sure seemed like things went incredibly smoothly.   The extreme heat cooled off just in time for a perfect warm summer night event.   My kids are seriously begging to go camping now, so I've got to try to book up some more sites for this summer!
Only pic of the camping birthday party (this was during the nature scavenger hunt)

 Sing Along Campfire

  We caught the last of the kids as we were packing up for a quick photo

Happy Father's Day

We are wishing our Dads a very Happy Father's Day today!   Thank you for all that you do for us!

And Happy, Happy Father's Day to Josh too.   We look forward to pampering you all day today!   It's your special day, so enjoy!

What a day:  Dada woke up to presents and a donut tower for breakfast.   He decided he wanted to use our San Jose Giants tickets for his fun family Father's Day activity.  Little did we know that it was going to be the hottest day of the year...so the game was a bit unbearable, but definitely a better, more management stadium for us than AT&T.    At 105 degrees, we lasted only through the fifth inning, and then headed up for a quick dip in the pool at Grandpa Bill and Lee's house, followed by their favorite dinner spot.   We missed celebrating with Granddad this year, but we will find a time when he returned from his travels for some celebrations.  
 Love you Dada!

Graduation and Summer Fun Has Begun

Phew- is today only Friday?   It's been a very busy first week of summer here!

Tuesday- the girl's preschool was closed as their official summer school program started on Wednesday, so they had a day to prepare.   So we headed out early to go blackberry picking at Webb Ranch- delicious again this year!    Afterwards we went exploring at Foothills Park in Palo Alto as I'm throwing an event there tomorrow for our twins group and I wanted to get an idea of how it looked.   It was absolutely gorgeous- it's only open for Palo Alto residents for some bizarre reason, and therefore it was totally empty, serene and peaceful.

 

 

 Wednesday was Jake's last day of school (for some reason I thought it was on Tuesday, but I was wrong).   It was a half day of fun- popsicles, movie, yearbook signing, etc.   It was a pretty great way to end the year, and what a year of growth it was for Jakey.   His interest in reading has finally blossomed and his math skills are very high.   We're hoping for a bit more challenge in third grade for his guy!  

 Josh and I took the girls to the SF zoo on Wednesday.  It was a gorgeous SF day, and of course, the girls wanted to play in the zoo's amazing park more than see the animals.  They are officially monkey bar masters.  

 

 Thursday was Jake's first official day of summer vacation.  I took him and his buddy to Dave and Buster's for the morning, and then we all headed to the annual County Fair in the afternoon.   The kids lasted for four hours at the fair, and we didn't go broke this year, as they were quite occupied with the butterfly room, the rainforest, the games/art pavilion and the farm animal area.   It was great fun.  

 

 This was a crazy display make entirely out of masking tape.  

Phew- what a week already!

National Anthem and All Stars

It was yet another busy weekend.   On Friday night Jake participated in the San Carlos School District's singing of the National Anthem at the Giants game.   He did this last year and enjoyed it, and this year we thought it was time for Addy and Colbie to join us at the game.   Jake still remembered all of the words from last year, so he had zero nerves about going out on the field and belting out the song.   The only bummer was that this year the kids were organized by grade, so Jake was way in the back of the pack with the second graders, vs. last year when he was front and center as it was organized by height.  So, needless to say, we couldn't see him during the song, although he did get up on the jumbo-tron at least twice which was special.   We sat with the San Carlos city section, which was WAYYYY up at the top, back of the stadium, which unfortunately proved pretty tough for Josh.  He was pretty sore throughout the game from the walking, and therefore requested to head home early.   All three kids did exceptionally well during the game- not a single whine or request to go home which was amazing!   The family in back of us even said "Jenny, did you give your kids benadryl before the game?", lol!   Once Josh is fully recovered I think we can take on more fun family outings, yippee!

For our city's baseball league, 3-4 players are picked from each team for an All Star team at the end of the season, and Jake was chosen this year.   He was proud and many of his friends from other teams were placed on his team too.   It was a windy, cold morning for a game, but it was still fun to cheer his on to end the season.

Celebration donuts after the game!