More Cool Like Me!

Whoo-wee! There has been a lot of fun since the last post.

June started out with a visit from Nana & Papa which allowed Oma & Opa to head off to the Grand Canyon, Sedona, and Disneyland. In fact, from all the texts we were getting from those two, I was a little worried they'd never want to come back to their "day" job of watching our kiddos. Though, from all the fun Nana & Papa had with the kids, we'd hire them in a heartbeat!

The entire week prior to their arrival, E had been telling me that on "Saturday, I'm going to take Nana & Papa to the train museum," which is in the old Santa Clara train station and is really a bunch of train enthusiasts' (notice I refrained from using the term 'train geek') excuse to set up an amazing model train display. We made a day of it, catching the real train up to Palo Alto for lunch. After some much-needed naps -- for the kiddos, as well as Papa -- we went with some of Lisa's coworkers to the San Jose Spiders, San Jose's professional ultimate frisbee team (yes, there is such a thing). It was awesome! I had played a little ultimate back in the day, but these guys made it so much more exciting. Some of the promoters were throwing out official Spiders frisbees and E wanted to catch one so badly, but never did. He was very disappointed. Luckily, he's got a fantastic Nana who snuck off to the souvenir tent and got him one! Boy, was he pumped.

How do you outshine a day like that?  We / they sure tried: Picnic at Picchetti winery, another train museum, a trip to the boat yards in San Francisco (including Papa taking E on a real submarine while Nana & J played with the seagulls), a day at Santa Cruz beach / boardwalk, and all the various gym / classes that the kids go to.

The 10-ish days they were here flew by, but eventually, Oma & Opa returned and we had to bid the B-team farewell (for this trip). The days since have been fun, too...a lot of which have been spent trying to beat the hot sun. Luckily the kids both love the blow up pool in the backyard and as long as we re-purpose the water to water plants when they're finished, we're pretty drought-friendly too. E loves riding his balance bike and tricycle and I think J spends hours daily in their little push car. They both LOVE playing T-ball. E normally assigns us to be the different Giants players. He always claims BUM-gar-de-ner or Buster PO-sey, and J gets to be the other...unless he slides ("takes a tumble") into home base, at which time, he tells us he's Crawford. Cody or I usually get to be Hunter Pence, while Bailey or Lisa get Matt Cain. The other night, in fact, as I was saying good night to him, he said, "Love you, Hunter Pence."  In addition to playing T-ball, E loves watching the Giants games.  We often have the game on TV in the evenings.  On a couple of occasions I've unknowingly stood between E and the TV, blocking his view.  He's quick to let me know by saying, "Daddy, you make a better window than a door."  Okay, so maybe he didn't get it quite right, but it still makes us laugh.  Wonder where he learned that one.  Sounds like a little Opa to me.

A day that may have out-shined even the train trip (for E) was last Sunday. I planned on taking both of them to Great America for the day. As we drove to the theme park and with E excitedly telling J all about the rides she was going to experience for the first time, we got a call from Lisa. Some of our good family friends had two extra tickets to the Giants game! They offered them to us if we were interested.  After some quick discussions, we decided that I would take the kiddos to Great America for a the morning while Lisa finished taking care of a few things and we'd meet at lunch so she and E could go to the game. The kids loved the rides...E's favorite was the bumper cars -- on which he mastered pressing the gas to make the car go, but didn't quite get turning the wheel to change direction, so he spent the entire time going in circles. J loved the rockets, though the hit of the park was watching the Snoopy stage show and getting her very first Peanuts stuffed animal.

E and Lisa had a great time at the game.  Since it was just the two of them, she decided to take him to the outfield to check out all the kid-friendly attractions.  His favorite was playing T-ball in the mini-field.  He hit the ball, ran the bases, and played the outfield.  After the real game, they took their time exiting the park since they had to swim upstream to retrieve their stroller which they had parked under the giant glove (overflow parking). As they were leaving they noticed a flood of people coming back into the park near McCovey Cove.  Lisa asked what was going on and they said the kids were invited to run the bases!  They quickly exited the park and came back in just before the gates were closed.  E jumped out of the stroller and got to run the REAL bases all by himself!  It was such a special experience.

By now, you may have noticed from the pics or other Facebook activity that E got glasses. Lisa noticed over the last half-year some strange, little things: lots of squinting, asking to move things closer, getting absurdly close to the TV. She finally decided to take him into the eye doc. We were nervous since even as adults, eye checkups can be intimidating. Not to a toddler obsessed with machines. It was a grand adventure...the outcome of which was a couple of toy racing cars from the treasure chest and a diagnosis of a pretty significant amount of nearsightedness (-3 & -4). The kid has really taken to glasses well and it's amazing to witness him see far off things clearly for the first time -- for example, he thought watching the crows hop on a house's TV antenna was one of the funniest things he'd observed. And I even overheard him telling J, "You can borrow Mommy's glasses and be more cool like me."  When we point out an airplane he looks up and says, "Wow, I see it!"  Lisa asked him if he had seen one before and he said, "No Mommy, I never saw one before."

I think I say this every time, but I can't believe how fast J has become a toddler...and developed all of that toddler personality. She may only have a few words and signs (e.g. pointing, head shakes, please, thank you, and more), but she knows what she wants. And what does she want? Oh -- mostly the push car, gummy vitamins, apple sauce, the toy E is holding, a pretend tea pot, a dog to pet, or any carb (she loves carbs so much, Nana deemed her Carb-ivorous). She is also way, way more cuddly than E ever was...she gives the best hugs, puckers her lips for a kiss when I tell her I love her, and pets the dogs more than the rest of us combined (and the three of them are already BFFs -- especially when she's in her high chair raining scrap bites to them). And she got her first haircut...Lisa just couldn't handle the bangs on her any more. Oma said that J didn't make a peep the whole time, loved the pink "haircut car," and really loved the lollipop treat she got as a prize. 

Father's day weekend was fantastic. Lisa and I made our way down to San Luis Obispo for a friends wedding while the kid had a slumber party over at Oma & Opa's house. I think it was the first night that we'd been sans children since before J was born. The wedding was really beautiful, the food was delicious, and the dancing was fun (translation: there was enough beer that I had fun dancing). Sunday morning, we got up and had a big breakfast at Apple Farm catching up with Noni before driving home. Once back to the Bay Area, we quickly did a few things around the house before heading over to the Metsers' for Father's Day / Birthday / BBQ / Swimming extravaganza. A whirlpool of fun. 

As you can see, the days are heating up, but we're getting more and more cool.