Lounging

San Diego Botanic Gardens

I got a year pass to the Botanic Gardens near our house. The kids have a lot of fun wandering the paths through the garden and spending time in the children gardens. They have a brand new section for the kids with a giant treehouse, music garden, stream, etc.

Pumpkin Patch

In the beginning of October we went with Chris' work colleagues and their families to the Bates Nut Farm. We spent the morning visiting the petting zoo, taking a hay ride, making our way through the hay bale maze, and of course picking pumpkins. We dressed for autumnal weather...only it was the hottest day of the year. Henry was DONE at the end of the morning. Also...the kid trying to share his sippy cup with the goat is Will McDuff...he belongs to Chris' friend DeForest and his wife Susan.

playing on the bunkbed

Kate's Birthday

My whole family came down to San Diego to visit, and we celebrated cousin Kate's 3rd birthday. She is adorable and we had such a fun time celebrating.

Soccer

Miles started going to a soccer class once a week. He has been looking forward to this for a long time, and he calls it his "soccerball class." It's really good for Miles to participate in a class and learn how to follow directions, while at the same time doing something he really enjoys. He is catching on quick.

Firsty Day of Preschool

Miles goes to All Saints Preschool in UTC two days a week. He was nervous the first week, but now really loves preschool.

First day of School

The first thing Amelia said when I picked her up from school...."I just want to go back and start it over again right now."

Self-Portraits

Always fun to see pictures the kids manage to take of themselves.

Hen

Chris hates that Henry's nickname is Hen. But we just can't stop calling him that. It's Miles' fault...he started it. We know he has big ears and a giant head and he has thin hair...but we think he is the cutest thing we have ever seen.

He is starting to talk now, which is always adorable...he can say dada, mama, more, puppy (pupa), yes, bird, ball...all the essential words for a baby.

Natural History Museum

The kids participated in the summer reading program at the local library, and got free tickets to the Natural History Museum here in San Diego. The museum isn't that great, but is a good way to spend a few hours on a saturday afternoon.

NY, NY

For our tenth anniversary Chris and I spent 5 days in NYC. We spent our time walking around Manhattan, eating tons and tons of delicious food (i.e. - almond croissants, famous NY deli sandwiches, famous NY pizza, delicious food in Little Italy), marveling at the architecture, visiting museums ( MOMA, Museum of Natural History), traipsing around Central Park with the Dastrup Family, taking taxis (17 total), and sleeping (we slept 12 hours straight the first night - the sign of two exhausted parents on a vacation), except when we weren't sleeping (i.e. - the middle of the night when our ceiling started caving in because it started leaking...we had to have a bad nyc hotel room story, right?).

this is what you look like when you take a red-eye flight. land at 5:00 a.m (2:30 a.m. your time), drop your bags off at your hotel and then wander around the city for a few hours. We finally stumbled in for a much needed rest in Bryant Park. We were running on adrenalin still and loving every minute...we just looked ragged.

took a cruise around the bay...first sighting of the statue.

i loved this shot of the tiny little house in the center...the smallest building on the island...so cute.


view from the empire state building. it was foggy and rainy that day (similar to san diego) and so the visibility wasn't as great....but still spectacular. visiting the empire state building was our favorite surprise of the trip...we didn't expect it to be so awesome. if it hadn't been so cold and rainy we would've stayed there for much longer.
our hotel room. as seen from the top of the empire state building.
a shot of a dinosaur, for our kids.
chess and checkers in central park with the dastrups.
we sure had a great time with the dastrups. and we sure miss their cute family.


We talk constantly about how much fun we had walking around the city, and we can't wait to go back someday.