Sara's blog

We've been busy this summer. William's been playing baseball, although half the games have been rained out so far. He's also started piano lessons. He has had four lessons and already he is using both hands and the pedal! A couple more classes and he'll get to start playing on the white keys. Here's a video of his most recent song:

Eliana is following William around a lot lately. Unfortunately, she isn't able to go to his birthday parties, or on the ball field, or in the big swimming pool (today was also his first day of swimming lessons.) But soon she'll start dance class and her own swimming lessons. And her friend Katie often comes for play dates. Katie is also two, which Eliana will gladly tell you. Ellie especially loves arts and crafts. She's very handy with her scissors, so keep a close eye on all your important papers when you're around her!

We are all so happy that Daddy is home! William has another set of ears to tell all that he's learned about Bakugan from the book he got at the library. Eliana was beside herself all day. She jabbered on about Daddy on the big airplane and going to pick him up at the airport. After we got home, she giggled as she watched him mow the lawn out her bedroom window. She was so happy he was going to sleep in his own bedroom and be home. On my part, I'm thrilled to have another grown up in the house. Just in time for Father's Day!

We let Darren open up his gifts tonight, which he picked out himself and they were fortunately delivered while he was away. He got a GPS system, something he felt he absolutely needed and I was dead set against. So I think wrapping it up for him for Father's Day was especially generous of me! Don't you? Upon opening it, he asked William if he thought it knew where we were. William, in all his wisdom, promptly replied, "Yeah, OUR house!"

Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there!

Before the tornado warning, running out in the rain to see the beautiful rainbow, playing in the rain, finding a crawfish in the grass, and the cat bringing me a mouse it had caught in the house during our bedtime routine, but after taking down Eliana's crib, I happened to catch the kids on video singing a Laurie Berkner song (at least they sang the chorus, the verse was more of a mumbling). There are quite the photos in the June album from today's adventures. And here's the video:

I'm signing in from San Francisco. Our 13th anniversary is in two days and this year Darren had the opportunity to plan our trip. I was surprised when he handed me a boarding pass for a flight to San Francisco after we arrived at the airport.

We've had the most amazing weather here this week. It was perfect for a wine tour in Napa Valley yesterday. Today we enjoyed a gorgeous hike in Muir Woods to experience the majestic redwood forest. In between times we've enjoyed walking the streets of San Francisco: Chinatown, trolley cars, Fisherman's Wharf, and the farmer's market. Tomorrow we're thinking of visiting Golden Gate Park. But we also have to switch hotels, which will be sad because the Omni has been wonderful! Darren has a conference starting on Monday at our new hotel, so hopefully it will be half as nice as this. I'm not expecting a rose from the doorman, complementary coffee and juice at my door in the morning, or champagne in the evening. I'll just enjoy those things while they last.

I've overheard quite a few funny things since we've been here. Many of which came from some Aussie friends we met on the wine tour. That was "full on!" But the two that stick in my memory the most were these:

In the Muir Woods, a group of three adults sat down on a bench to eat, which you are not supposed to do in the woods. One woman made sure to tell her friends, "Don't feed the animals!!!" The other loudly replied, "What animals?!? I haven't seen any animals!" (Darren and I had seen a chipmunk, a mother deer and her two fawns during our quiet stroll.)

Last night, as we were walking back to the hotel along the piers, a large mob of inline skaters and a few mountain bikers zoomed past us with music blaring. There continued to be a few stragglers as we continued on our walk. We were getting pretty tired and could empathize with those skaters who were lagging behind. But about a half hour after the first of the skaters passed, one lonely guy walked by pushing a bike and talking on his cell phone saying, "It's a lot farther that you'd think!"

We're having fun in Colorado with baby Jack. Eliana's first word after getting in the car next to Jack was, "Wow!" We've been enjoying hanging out with the little guy. He's really easy going and smiley. We got a chance to visit my aunt and uncle and a few of the cousins who live in the Denver area for dinner last night. Our visit was much too short! At least we have one more day with Adam and Jennie before we have to head home. I put up some pictures of the fun we've been having. Enjoy!

Dinner with the aunts and uncles

William's class got to do chapel for the school last week. They did a little play about how a shepherd takes care of his sheep. William was a sheep. He also got to read the day's bible verse into the microphone. The whole class did a great job. Of course, when he came home with sheep ears, Eliana wanted some too. We made a short video of William singing "Jesus is my shepherd." Eliana added the "baas." They were both feeling a little silly, as you will see.

"The bunny, the bunny, oh, I ate the bunny" - Veggie Tales

The annual eating/destroying of the chocolate bunny

Hammin' it up with Happy and Hoppy

I often post funny things the kids do in my status updates on Facebook. For those who don't have Facebook, or if you want to indulge in a recap as I do, here are the past six weeks worth of kid related posts starting with the most recent:

3/29 - While I was making lunch, a hungry Eliana was looking through the cupboards to find "big yummy." But everything she was finding was "eew yucky." She finally settled on a raw potato and two cans of kidney beans. (Mini pizzas are in the oven.)

3/26 - I still can't get over hearing our two-year-old say "yours." What a sweet sound! :)

3/20 - The fire alarm went off during swimming lessons today. A wet Darren and William had to stand outside in the cold - Brrr! At least it didn't happen during Ellie's lesson with the 6-month-olds!

3/18 - We had a fun playdate with Katie and Michelle this morning! I realized it was Ellie's first playdate. And both moms forgot their cameras. We have so much in common!

3/17 - I'm always disappointed at this time of year that I'm only 1/8 Irish, but my son is 3/16ths!

3/12 - I'm watching the babies while my kids go to work. They're spies. It's another fun Friday night as a parent, or should I say, grandparent :)

3/11 - I'm writing the number googol, I draw the line at googolplex!

3/8 - I am listening to Eliana banging on the bathroom door saying "Baf!" and "'iana!" It's William's turn in the tub tonight. He tried to put it off another night, but we weren't falling for that AGAIN :)

2/21 - We have a future nurse on our hands. She brought her ailing big brother a pillow, a blanket, a stuffed animal, and a Transformer book then proceeded to "read" to him by laughing loudly at the robots battling on the pages.

2/20 - Oh, the good versus evil that rages inside a two-year-old. She can go from taking the dog's bone, looking the dog straight in the eye and saying "Mine!" to picking up 150 rubber bands all by herself to ripping a two page spread in a library book, within minutes.

2/15 - I just got beat in Uncle Wiggly. Tromped would be more accurate.

That puts us back as far as trivia weekend when all of my status updates for weeks were about getting ready for the contest. The Uncle Wiggly game was one of the 3rd place prizes and luckily we were the only ones with a child the right age to play it.

Apparently Eliana likes mangos enough to sing about them.

William finished his painting set while he was home sick on Friday and wanted to photograph the finished product. On one picture he had written the number 3,000,000. When I asked him how he knew how to write 3,000,000 (he had the right number of zeros) he told me that he knows almost everything. He tempered his self evaluation when I asked him for the camera, but he definitely knows he's smart :)

One of Eliana's grandpas (Poppops) looks a lot like Santa Claus, which was a little confusing to her this year. So when she got balloons for her birthday from Grandma and Grandpa, she insisted they were from Santa Claus. Really, what's the difference? :)