A Penchant For Activity

We're starting to be really bad bloggers. The more busy life gets, the more we turn into once a month bloggers...at best. Be that as it may, here's the latest and greatest from your own Bay Area Doxeys. Step into our home for a minute. Don't forget to notice that Nate is playing the homemade drumset in the background. He's also mastering the Recorder...and that's no late April Fool's joke. Ahh the peaceful intones of home.



She's Everywhere! Caroline is on the move, 24/7. She's crawling and can pull herself up on things. This creates an issue at home. We can't even leave a Lego on the floor anymore, and if you leave a door open, she's gone. You can only hope to contain her. Cute as a button. Rambunctious. Agressive. Sweet. Demanding. Nice little tot.

She eats a lot too. The kids are a BIG help in policing the floor and feeding her.

Caroline loves playing with the kids. She really is an active little punk. I'm not sure why, but the nick names that seem to be sticking are "Punky" (after Punky Brewster I guess), "Care Care" and Imelda (just kidding about the Imelda one).

Liza Turns 3. Liza started the day with our traditional birthday pancakes, and later celebrated birthday parties with her pre-school friends, and of course the big family birthday dinner last Sunday.

I was able to come home for lunch for her friends party-- a nice way to break up the day. She loves her new bike. We took it on its maiden voyage today at the park. She'll be riding fast in no time!

Preschool is cranking along. Julia is BUSY! Fortunately for Liza, the week of her brithday happened to be the week that all of her pre-school friends were here. She loved it.

New Project--Master Bath Remodel. Ever since we bought the place, this one has been on my list of things to tackle. It only had a single sink, and was due for an update.

So, I studied code for all this and split the drain and water lines, relocated the plugs, reframed a wall with a load bearing header and all so we could have an amazing recessed medicine cabinet. It's crazy how "once you open the wound, you have to go all the way" with these sorts of things. I'm officially a major fan of PEX.

Country Club 1st Grade In-N-Out Tour. Our local In-N-Out provides a yearly tour for all first graders. It's a much anticipated "behind the scenes" look at how an In-N-Out works, where the ingredients come from, how things are made, etc. Nate loved it his year, and this year was John's turn to get a piece of the action. They do EVERYTHING with these 1st graders...John even got to chop potatoes for fries. Of course, the first graders love it b/c they get to be there with all their friends and hang out. John was first in line for almost the whole tour. Definitely a highlight of 1st grade in San Ramon.


Out with the old, in with the new. I was starving at work one day. It was 4 p.m. I knew I had about 2 more hours and decided to wait until I got home rather than forage for cube food that people keep at work but never eat. You know what I mean...it's the stuff you keep at work just in case there is an earthquake and you have to eat it as the building lay on top of you. Anyway, I get home. I smell incredible breadsticks in the oven and Italian food on the table.

Julia tells me, "Bad news. One of the kids was playing with the oven lever and locked the oven--and it broke in the locked position." Not good. Being the determined soul that I am, I decided right then and there that we were going to get those breaksticks at all costs. Our oven was a circa 1981 mostly piece of junk.

The timer did not work, the clock did not work, now the oven latch was broken and we couldn't even use it. Enter my efforts. I gently tugged and pulled to no avail. I removed all exterior screws to no avail. Finally, just before the breadsticks started to burn I turn off the breaker and got a crowbar and pried it open. Breadsticks have never tasted so good! We got a new double convection oven about a week later and Julia's been baking up a storm...just for the heck of it. It's actually for all of us to savor and relish, which we willingly do.

Later.