Friday, November 11, 2011

The last 30 days

Here's a quick glimpse at our last 30 days.  What will the next 30 days bring us?  ;-)

1) Mama needed a day off with the girls and tried out Stand Up Paddling (SUP) - LOVED IT.  The pics aren't very flattering, but I had a terrific time and, if it weren't for the fact that my back is killing me right now (but not due to SUP!), I'd sign up for another class (or ten!) in a hot minute.  Thanks to Kim for organizing it!


2) I flew up to Redmond for a few days to attend our Women's Global Leadership Conference because, in some circles of the world, I'm a leader!  Weird, right?  (the Conference was tons of fun and very enlightening, educational, informative, yada yada)

3) We celebrated Molly's 4th Birthday party while Daddy worked his fanny off up in the city (his company decided to schedule an entire building move PLUS one of their biggest hosted gaming events yet, all in the same weekend.  And they don't think they need a project manager.  Ha!).

Unfortunately, no pics to share from the party since I was busy chasing down two hyper bouncing maniac boys by myself!  ;-)

4) I took the boys up to Arata's Pumpkin Farm in Half Moon Bay (met the Jodoins for part of it) and had a blast playing, running through a very confusing (and unsolvable by 4 kids and 3 adults) hay maze, riding on a train and picking out mini-pumpkins to adorn our front porch in an effort to dress up our home and look semi-festive this year.  We had a really great time and the boys enjoyed themselves immensely (sadly, Daddy had to miss all the fun since he had to work again).



After the pumpkin patch, we met up with my parents and grandmother, who was in town for a short visit.  So great to see Nana and I can't wait to see her (and Clock) again in December!

(the full album of the Arata's Pumpkin Farm visit is online)


5) Callum turns 18 months old - woot woot!  Both boys get their flu shots.  Boo hoo!  ;-)

6) We four travel out to Texas to celebrate Jon's sister (Kate)'s marriage to our now fun and funny new brother-in-law Blake.  The wedding was small, simple and elegant - family only - and loads of fun.


We enjoyed seeing....

Jon's parents as always,


Daphne (Logan's god-mother, if puppies could be such a thing),


several of his brothers and other extended family members,



being adults for an evening, without chasing after our kiddos,

Hey! We clean up pretty well, don't we?

and of course, a lot of fun and exhausting playtime with the cousins.


Logan caught taking a whiz in his grandparent's backyard!

(the full album of our Texas trip is online)


7) Once we got back home, we managed to squeeze in time for the boys' school Harvest Festival Party (aka Halloween party) where Callum won the cutest costume award, took the boys out to the movies that weekend to see Puss in Boots (Callum's first time at the movie theatres; he didn't do too bad but was pretty damn antsy and done with it by about the last 30 minutes I'd say), dressed up again (this time Callum wore a Yoda costume to match Logan's Darth Vader) for my work's Kid's Halloween Parade, and then Trick and Treated our hearts out on Halloween night.

8) This past weekend, we drove down to Southern California for a VERY quick visit with Jon's family (I think we spent more time traveling than we did actually visiting!).  Unfortunately, both Jon and I ended up working most of the day on Friday before hitting the road - and I ended up forgetting a few things (like my iPad which had Logan's movies all loaded up and ready to play for the ride down south) when packing the truck.  Thankfully, Logan was AWESOME and Callum wasn't too bad either.  They were both content to laugh and giggle and make faces at each other for most of the ride.  And, when Callum was napping, Logan would just look out the window and/or talk to Jon and I and tell us stories.

It was a VERY long drive however, and unfortunately, I threw out my back in the process.  Running after the kids all day Saturday during Jon's Grandfather's 80th Surprise Birthday Party didn't help - nor did the head cold that got 10 times worse over night!  So, Jon booked a ticket for me to fly home so I could rest and recover (but not before we took the kids to ride/see Thomas the Train!).  I took Callum with me so that Jon wouldn't have the long drive alone with both kids, and he spent some extra time at his brother Curtis's after dropping me off at the airport, so that Logan could play with Luke and Stella before hitting the road again.

But back to the Party!  Grandpa Negrete was totally surprised (which we were shocked at, given no one in Jon's family is very good at keeping secrets for long) ;-)  and it was a lot of fun celebrating his long life and memories with his kids, grand kids and great-grand kids.



Surprise!
 




(the full album of our SoCal visit is online)

My father likes to give a beautiful (short but sweet) toast at our own family gatherings, which I thought would be an appropriate blessing to include in Grandpa Negrete's birthday card:

Le mandamos con cariño, salud, dinero y amor, y el tiempo para gastarlos.



And we mean every word of it!  Love to all... let the holidays begin!

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