Happy Halloween! (For Real This Time)

Sophie finally got to put on her monkey costume for real and go out trick or treating. We went over to Niki and Rick’s house to walk around with Luke and some of his friends.

Here’s Sophie in her costume ready to go.

Here’s Luke and some of his friends.

The next day we went over to Joan-Marie and Mike’s house for dinner (You remember them from Canadian Thanksgiving, right)? Of course we had to break out the costumes again.

Then on Sunday we headed up to the Carlsbad Street Fair. We met up with Elizabeth, Joe and Nicholas and Shannon, Dave and Julia. We spent some time wandering around the fair, ate some food, and then went over to Pizza Port for a few beers.

Finally we took the shuttle bus back to our car and headed home.

Here’s a link to the full album:

2008-10-31 Halloween

Eric turns 40!

I know there have been a few posts lately titled “NAME turns 1!”, and as much fun as those parties have been, it was time for a grown up party.  Fortunately our good friend Eric recently turned 40 and his lovely wife Shay and the rest of his family threw a party to celebrate.

Eric and Shay live up in Simi Valley, which is about three hours north of San Diego. So Debbie, Sophie and I packed up the car and drove up there on Friday afternoon. Garrett’s school was having a fall festival, so we headed over to that for some food and games. Here’s a picture of Sophie and me:

Saturday we spent the day hanging out helping set up for the party and trying to keep the kids out of trouble.

Here’s Debbie posing with the birthday boy himself:

There was a ton of great food and drinks, along with, of course, birthday cake. (Eric managed to eat his piece a little more neatly than the guests of honor at our last several parties.

For entertainment, Shay had set up a karaoke machine in the living room. Many wanna-be rock stars stepped up to the mike, some good, some bad and some surprising (I’m looking at you, Dave.) I won’t say who was which, but one of these days I’ll figure out how to upload my videos to youtube and you can judge for yourself (Sorry, Eric, there goes your Senate seat!)

The most amazing part of the evening was that Sophie was sleeping in the next room and stayed asleep through the whole thing!

Finally on Sunday it was time to go home. We got the kids together for a group picture and then hit the road.

On the way back to San Diego we stopped to visit Debbie’s Uncle Julian and his wife Nava. They prepared a delicious brunch for us and we spent a few hours hanging out so they could get to know Sophie a little bit.

That’s it for this post. Eric, I hope you had a great birthday. Remember, you’re only as old as you feel (but you’ll always be older than me !

Here’s a link to the full album (no karaoke video yet):

2008-10-25 Eric’s Birthday

Happy Thanksgiving!

No, I haven’t gotten that far ahead in my blog posts.  I’m talking about Canadian Thanksgiving, of course.  Our friends Joan-Marie and Mike invited a bunch of their friends over to celebrate the holiday (Mike is from Canada).

But I think I need to back up a step in my story.  On Friday, October 17th, our baby group held another sing and play meeting.  This time Joan-Marie offered to host it at her house.

Once again the sing and play was a huge success.  Debbie was a great teacher and showed the group a bunch of new songs and signs.

Nicholas practices his opera technique:

Here’s Jada learning to stand up by herself:

Joan-Marie shows us how she stays in shape:

While we were there we started talking about the big Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday, and I told Joan-Marie that I had a deep fryer, and that she was welcome to borrow it to cook their turkey.  She loved the idea, so on Saturday she, Mike and their son Matthew stopped by our house to get the fryer and hang out for a while.  Matthew and Sophie had some fun playing with her toys and jumping around on the bed.

Finally on Sunday we headed back over to their house to partake in what amounted to a pretty traditional thanksgiving, only six weeks earlier than normal.  The deep-fried turkey was a great success (and they managed not to set either the house or the canyon on fire!).

For desert, one of their friends had offered to make a wedding cake for another of their friends, and he brought some samples for us all to taste and vote on.  The were delicious! (My vote is for chocolate

Finally, it was time to go home, brush our teeth, read a story and then go to bed.

Thanks Joan-Marie and Mike for having us over for Canadian Thanksgiving.  See you next October, eh!

Click below for a link to the full album:

2008-10-18 Canadian Thanksgiving

Julia Turns One

Sophie’s friend Julia had a party for her first birthday on October 4th.  Most of our usual baby group friends were there, so there was the standard chaos of a bunch of 6 to 12 month olds running around.  And, as always, our daughter decided to take a nap right in the middle of the party!  Oh well, I guess it’s better than having her not sleep and throwing a tantrum.

Here is a picture of Sophie and Jada having a moment:

An overhead view of the fun:

Sophie takes a turn on the swingset:

Julia the birthday girl:

Make a wish!

Shannon shows her daughter how to eat cake with her hands:

And this is why you do this outside:

Happy Birthday Julia!

In other happenings, on the day before while Dad was off at the airshow, Sophie and Debbie went to hang out with Hailey and Hailey’s mom. Here is a photo of them at the bookstore hanging out:

Click below for a link to the full album:

2008-10-04 Julia Birthday

Miramar Air Show 2008

For this year’s air show I decided to go on Friday (since I had the day off anyway) rather than on Saturday or Sunday.  This turned out to be a smart move since about 90% less people go on Friday compared to the rest of the weekend.  So there was no traffic, parking was easy and the crowds at the show were very light.

Most of the show was pretty much the same as in previous years.  I saw the F-22 in the air for the first time, and it was pretty amazing to watch.  The maneuverability compared to the F-16 or F-18 was unreal, even to an amateur observer on the ground.  And the Blue Angels were back this year, after a one-time appearance by the Air Force’s Thunderbirds last year.

Here are a couple of photos, but for the full show click on the link to the full album below (I tried to keep it under 200 total, but it was tough to decide!)

Click below for a link to the full album:

2008-10-03 Miramar Air Show