Happy March!

We've been on a bit of a "blog drought" lately. Our most sincere apologies go out to our loyal following--all 10 of you. We've all been sick with Spring colds, busy, doing Spring yard work like crazy, admiring the buckets and buckets of rain dumping on us or otherwise detained. Be that as it may, here is the latest and greatest from the Doxeys...

Temple Hill Symphony. We took the kids to the Temple Hill Symphony in Oakland recently for their Show Tunes concert. Lately the kids have all been really into how music is made (especially the music from movies like Star Wars) and they LOVED it. Knowing what they know about the effort it takes to play the piano, it was fun to see their amazement with all that is going on with a symphony. Jenny Oaks Baker was the guest soloist. She's coming again in May so we'll surely be there. The boys are now sufficiently amazed that this is Dallin Boulter's aunt (Dallin was their former next door friend) in Utah.


San Ramon Sandlot Baseball League. Next Friday our own youth baseball league starts. Due to the heinously high cost of youth baseball, time commitment for games/practices, issues of constant fundraising, and Sunday play, we started our own neighborhood "Sandlot" baseball league. Nate and John plus about 10 friends from school and 10 friends from Church will play every Friday night at Country Club Elementary (their school). It's a bring your own uniform gig. I'm AMAZED how many parents and kids want to play baseball without all the aforementioned drama, cost, time commitment, etc. I could seriously start a whole league.

Pinewood Derby. I stink at building Pinewood Derby cars, and this fact is building Nate's character. So many theories and equations, and so little ability to test before the race. Nate likes the design over speed anyway. Nate is in the unfortunate position as being my first boy in this deal. Now John...he will have fast cars.


Our Scout troop dads are seriously competitive and make great cars with their boys. You wouldn't believe how fast these cars are. It could also be that we have a killer extruded aluminum, few thousand dollar track that we borrow from another troop...Nate took 1st in only one heat, we'll take it.

Nate Turns 9. Count 'em up...four b-day parties. First, per tradition we had birthday pancakes before school.

Then, there was the school friends birthday party at Super Franks, where you can mini golf in the dark under black lights so the balls glow. Fancy. Julia made the most incredible ice cream chocolate cake one could ever imagine. It was a thing of beauty, charm and new level of excellence.

But wait! There was the family dinner at Chevy's so we could build our arsenal of sombreros, in a birthday environment. We also had a Mexifest--the "all family invited" party. More later on that. It's a great way to wrap up a February.


Nate's been so happy about being 9 that it makes him want to just roll down the windows, and flap his tongue in the fresh Bay Area Spring air.

MexiFest. Last week we had a "MexiFest" birthday dinner (as we call it) for Nate at our house. All the Bay Area Family plus special guests Tanner, Brady, & Carter Call and Roger Parkinson were there. Phenominal Mexican food as always.

John's San Ramon Clippers Season Over. I know you've all been wondering how John's basketball season went. I'm sure that's just top of mind for you. Great season. I was the coach, the team learned a lot, there were regular treats after every game. The season was good to us.

John is intense on the court and doesn't like all the "little kid" rules like no stealing it from someone when they're hanging it out there right in front of you, no defending someone unless they are within the 3 point line, you have to let someone who has never scored all season shoot the ball and even have a chance. With the way he and Nate go at in on our home court, these things are hard.

Liza Turns 3 on 3/30. Biking is a year-round deal here, and Liza officially turns 3 at the end of the month. She's totally ready to start riding a bike and gets frustrated when the boys cruise ahead of her on in their bikes while she putts along with the scooter far behind. Hence, a bike is the direction we're headed in gift wise.

Thanks to Craig and his list, we found an AWESOME bike for her. It's brand new, Marin Tiny Trail and was gifted to a girl (who actually lives in Marin half way up Mt. Tam) by her school reading competition/program. She totally didn't need it since she already had an amazing bike. We got it for about 80% less than retail. Caroline will love it too one day. We CAN'T WAIT to give this to her!

Baby is crying, kids are fighting. Gotta go.