Anneliese Turns Two!

We had a great time with visits from all three sets of grandparents at various times to celebrate Anneliese's birthday.  As usual, she is totally set for clothes for some time.

A few weeks ago, she went for her two-year checkup and the stats are in: 24.5 lbs (20th percentile), 32" (8th percentile) but a 19" head (85th percentile)!  The craziest part is looking at the growth charts in their room, she's about as tall and heavy at two as Ethan was at one!  The visit concluded with some shots.  After crying for a bit, she uttered with her lower lip pouting, "I want stickers."  Her vocab continues to skyrocket and she's linking four or more words frequently.  She says "sorry" a lot, especially after she's bit or pulled Ethan's hair.  She also can repeat almost any word such as "awesome" but unfortunately that includes learning the S-word from Mommy.  When she drops something and says "Oh s__t" Liz has a hard time not smiling and just ignoring it.

Click here or the album for more photos from our whirlwind April!

Strawberry Pickin'

Daddy finally took a day off from work to go on one of the recurring Stroller Strides field trips to Tanaka Farms in Irvine.  I'd heard stories of how they hand you fresh vegetables along your tour and that the kids would eat everything so I finally got to see for myself.  Everything was pretty darn good fresh out of the ground (and washed)...carrots, onion, spinach, celery.  Afterwords, we got to pick fresh strawberries!  Some of us paid for a basket to fill while others (read me) were allowed to eat all we could on the spot.

In other news, Anneliese has fallen in love with Oreo cookies and has figured out the same horrible "cheeeese" smile that Ethan did at the same age.  We also finally made it back to El Dorado Nature Center for a family walk and discovered that they'd spent the last five months redoing the whole river than thinning out the trees. It's a little sparse now but I'm sure it'll fill in time.


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Natural History Museum

Liz had a girls weekend in San Francisco with Sue, Kris and Lauren so dad got some quality time with Ethan and Anneliese.  This coincided with free admission day for Boeing employees at the Los Angeles Museum of Natural History.  The lobby has real skeletons of a T-Rex and Triceratops!  We also got to see a T-Rex tromp around as part of a show (a puppeteer wearing a pretty neat costume). 

In other news, Anneliese likes baths so much she sometimes gets right in fully clothed (check out the pictures)!


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Oma & Opa Expose Kids to Art

Oma & Opa dropped in for a visit as they were in town for a few events honoring Richard's colleagues. Despite our coaching to the contrary, Anneliese kept calling Opa "Pappy" as she had done for Pépère over Christmas. We all went to the J. Paul Getty Museum as Richard was interested in an exhibit on the drawings of Rembrandt and his pupils which was pretty neat.  Aside from that, this month included a lot of Lego tower building, train track creating, and running around the house naked (this kids that is).

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Christmas 2009

We had a fun Christmas. Ethan always enjoys setting up tree and wants to sneak on more Star Trek starships than Mommy prefers. Ethan made a gingerbread house and got to be a wise man in his preschool Christmas presentation. We had a mini Christmas at our house before heading up north. We had plans to spend a week in Sacramento starting on Christmas but my work schedule forced me to leave Liz and the kids after just three days off. Anneliese quickly took to calling Pépère "Pappy" which we all got a kick out of. The grandkids had matching pajamas. Ethan got a Razor scooter which was a big hit. Before I left we had a crazy family picture session where despite two-dozen shots of the group it still took four different shots to merge into a good one via Photoshop. Most of our family made it back home without getting sick from cousin "Typhoid" Grant who was pretty sick.

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Portraits of the Prince of Peace Pageant

So this year I elected not to participate in the local Portraits of the Prince of Peace Pageant put on by all the local churches. I'd been a wise man staring at Herod two years in a row. Instead, I set out to document it. This is a merged shot right in front of our church. Red candles light the way from church to church and guides in costume standing at each end of the block hand out pamphlets describing each scene.

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Annual leaf romp!

Tree finally started dumping its leaves so it was time to rake them up for the annual leaf photo shoot.  Anneliese was noncooperative choosing not to look at the camera ever.  Daddy got inspired to give the sandbox in the back yard a makeover by staining the wood and Ethan helped out with the lacquer.

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Liz and Kids in Michigan

While Daddy was busy renovating the floor, Liz and the kids went to go visit Oma & Opa.
Liz' plan on a peaceful red eye flight backfired as Anneliese cried the entire time. 

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Happy Halloween 2009!

We had lots of fun this month culminating in a few Halloween parties for everyone including Daddy who reprised his role as Wolverine for work after growing his hair out a few extra weeks and not shaving.  Liz got them cute costumes for dirt cheap at Old Navy.  On top of that, she found great dress up gladiator and robot outfits at the local Dollar Tree store.

Ethan was in charge of designing the jack-o'-lanterns this year.  Amazingly enough he drew up plans ahead of time, replicated them on the pumpkins, and I carved away.  They turned out pretty cute!

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Legoland...this time with Grandma!

We took advantage of our Legoland tickets from our time with Oma & Opa being good for another visit within 90 days to go again with Grandma when she visited.  It was a weekday which definitely helped with the crowds.  Ethan and Daddy finally got to go on the Splash Battle ride which had an hour-long wait the last visit.  There was no waiting this time around which was at least in part to it being later in the day and almost winter.  Ethan was not too happy once we started getting wet.  Thank goodness I happened to be on the side where a big explosion went off and soaked my shorts.

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Football, Falafel and Flooring

So fall is here, technically. Ethan and Anneliese are taking an interest in football and Ethan wants to know "Who's on your team Daddy?" referring to fantasy football. We went to a local Greek festival and had fun but weren't able to convince Ethan to go on the ferris wheel. We discovered a backyard spider that looks like a crab with a body the size of a dime! Creepy. We finally took the first steps pulling up carpet to see how much original flooring is missing from when the house was added on to before we bought. On an impulse (that stretched into a few days) we successively pulled up 370 sq-ft of carpet to check it out. Ethan started crying saying he was going to miss the carpet "because we've had it for a long time". He got a grip after a while and both he and Anneliese helped out pulling carpet padding staples and washing down the floor which is a wavy dirty mess but it's still about as good as our carpet was.

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More Summer Fun

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Ethan Goes to Hawaii (for real this time)

So for over a year Ethan has been claiming to have been to Hawaii...in a past life!  Many a story started off as "This one time, in Hawaii, I _______".  My favorite was when he described being a fighter pilot and part-time race car driver.  Well, thanks to Pépère lining up the accommodations, the whole family was able to go to Oahu for a week! We stayed in Ko Olina at the Marriott Ko Olina Beach Club which surrounded one of the four man-made lagoons which quelled the already mellow waves. 

We had a great time at the lagoon building castles and at the resort's lagoon pool.  Ethan even met a girl friend on the last day.  It took some coaxing but we got Ethan through a waterfall and cave in one of the pools.  Before Mémère and Pépère went home, Liz and I checked out the USS Arizona Memorial and the Battleship Missouri at Pearl Harbor and the whole group visited the Dole Pineapple Plantation where I was bummed to discover that Google Maps on my Blackberry did not have the maze expansion.  We also climbed up Diamond Head where I got to carry Anneliese in my arms the entire time which was a good workout.

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Legoland!

Before Oma and Opa went back home, they took the family to Legoland for the first time (Daddy and Ethan went when he was 14 months old).  We had a great time and everyone stayed awake through the fireworks at closing.  We didn't get on a few rides like the new Lost Kingdom Adventure and Splash Battle because lines were long, but our tickets came with a free return visit anytime in the following 90 days so maybe we can hit them next time.

There were only two rides in the whole park that Ethan couldn't go on because he was a half inch short of the 42" requirement.  Ethan survived what was arguably his first 'legitimate' roller coaster...The Dragon...where the minute we flew down the first drop he spent most of the ride with his head in my armpit.  Ethan was cutthroat at the Volvo Junior Driving School where he deftly weaved in and out among all the other less competent drivers.  Too bad he has to wait until he's six (or can pass as six and be able to tell the attendant he's six) to graduate to the non-junior one.  Other fun things included some revamped sections of Miniland USA including the Las Vegas strip and a revised Capitol scene with President Obama being inaugurated. 

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Ethan Turns Four!

We celebrated Ethan's birthday on Sunday (our anniversary) since everyone had to work Monday.  The highlights included him receiving his first action figure (Bumblebee from Transformers) and a new bicycle!  I followed him around the neighborhood clocking him at 9 mph (much faster than his tricycle!) quickly followed by the first crash and scrape on the knee.

In other news, Ethan has become very meticulous with his art, staying in the lines and usually using every color to make everything like a rainbow.  While Liz' folks were here, Ethan and Opa built some very impressive structures out of Lego Duplo bricks.  Their parting gift to Ethan was another set enabling us to reach the ceiling now!


Anneliese still doesn't say much but she's got a lot of personality.  She has to walk to and from the car by herself these days.  She obeys complex orders like "go in your room and get your pajamas" or "go give that to your brother" and she does it.  "Ma" and "Da" are clearly audible...especially at 6am after she's woken up.

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Parents' Weekend Away

The arrival of Liz' parents for the annual summer visit associated with Richard's two-week class at Fuller Theological Seminary allowed just Liz and I to get away for a weekend. We elected to check out the various wineries of the Temecula Valley about 80 miles away.

We checked out Old Town Temecula where we sampled and bought an exotic jerky sampler pack at the Temecula House of Jerky. We also beat the heat and took advantage of the absence of kids to catch a few movies in a theater!

We stayed a night at the Pechanga Resort and Casino where we had one of our best meals ever at The Great Oak...$80 unlisted dinner special for two where we each had Caesar salad with dressing made from scratch right at the table, 7-oz. filet mignon, and chocolate soufflé!  Basically were only paying for the steaks.  Picking from nearly a thousand wines was overwhelming but we ended up with a great red.  After dinner we promptly lost all the savings at a Pai Gow Poker table.

We drove around a variety of wineries the next day (still reeling from finishing the bottle from the night before) but spent most of our time at Leonesse Cellars and at Thornton Winery where we had a nice lunch and bought 4 for 2 of the 2007 Gewurztraminer.  Scenery was nice though not as good as Napa.  It was also quite a challenge sampling wines everywhere in the extreme heat.

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Rocks, Cliffs and Dinosaurs!

The family took a trip to Denver, Colorado to stay with Liz' friend Allison and her husband Josh.  We drove the first of many drives towards Colorado Springs to visit the Rocky Mountain Dinosaur Resource Center and then did a driving tour of the Garden of the Gods where Daddy hopped out repeatedly to snap quick pictures which turned out to be a good idea because days later when we returned to picnic it started raining.

We checked out the Denver Botanic Gardens where they had dinosaurs hidden around the grounds to make it palatable to kids.  Keeping with the garden theme we went to the Butterfly Pavilion where Ethan got to hold a tarantula!  At the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park, we all got a bit of vertigo next to the world's highest suspension bridge, 1053 feet above the river bed. Daddy was 3 for 3 in tomahawk throwing there!  Next door we hit Buckskin Joe's Frontier Town and Railway where we had a stormy but pretty train ride over towards the gorge.

Somehow we had stumbled upon a brochure for the Focus on the Family Visitors Center which was free and really cool. Ethan was not happy however when we told him he wasn't tall enough for the three-story tall curly slide. We met up with Avery (Ethan's best friend from Stroller Strides who moved over a year ago) at a cool restaurant The White Fence Farm where they serve their famous hot corn fritters which essentially tasted like funnel cake as a side dish!

We also took a nice ride on the Georgetown Loop Railroad where the boys got to get off halfway and take a tour inside the Lebanon Tunnel silver mine!  Finally we had a night of watching 4th of July fireworks from the comfort of the rental minivan topped things off.

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Two is More Fun in the Tub

So we tried Ethan and Anneliese in the tub at the same time and they had a blast! Check out recent pics.

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Planes, Trains, and a Lexus

The family flew up north to Sacramento for a long weekend and had lots of fun. The kids aunts and cousins Maddie and Grant arrived after a few days too. The kids fed apples to the neighboring horses, played in the treehouse, hunted for bugs, watered vegetables, played in a kiddie pool, went to the California State Railroad Museum, fed geese, and had a great time with Mémère and Pépère.

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Boys alone for 5 days!!!

Having too much fun recently! Oma visited and we went to a small carnival at a local church. We blew bubbles in the backyard, launched rockets, went to a birthday party at Pump It Up, and made our own pizzas. When Mommy and Anneliese went to go visit great grandma Muffin in Mukwonago, WI for five days, we kept on going by dressing up in costumes, playing in the pool, and hitting McDonalds and Chuck E Cheese! Anneliese has really developed a voracious appetite and she is hilarious in that she opens her mouth wide open like a little bird for stuff she likes...which apparently includes IN-N-OUT Burger which we did after picking up the girls from the airport. Both Ethan and Anneliese loved not only the food but also hanging out across the street and having airplanes fly 100 feet over our heads as they landed.

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