Halloween this year was a fun treat, with Claire as a pink butterfly, Juliet as a flower, and me in full costume as an overworked startup guy. We did the now usual round of pumpkin patch visits, backyard photographs, and trick-or-treating up and down our block. Click on the lovely photo of Claire and Juliet in costume for a slideshow.
A few weekends ago we headed to Big Basin State Park in the nearby Santa Cruz Mountains for a weekend of camping with some friends of ours and Claire’s. We stayed in a tent cabin, which was adventurous without the headaches of squeezing a portable crib into our small backpacking tent. It was busy and fun, with ten kids under five-years-old running around our campsites, walking on felled redwood trees, playing hide and seek among the cabins, and roasting hot dogs and s’mores. It was also a chance to use our brand new roof rack on Katherine’s Subaru Outback. Click on the picture of Juliet and Clare among the redwoods for a slideshow.
Here’s part two of our Summer 2010 catchup. We’ve got pictures of Claire’s first face painting (a butterfly that matched her dress), a trip to a local kids zoo and amusement park called Happy Hollow where Claire rode her first roller-coaster, a bike ride to a nearby playground, a ride on a steam train through the redwoods in the Santa Cruz Mountains, a pizza picnic dinner during a visit from my parents, playing at home including with a Slip ‘n Slide on the 100 degree day that was our hottest this summer, a visit to a beach in Half Moon Bay, and some eating shots including Juliet’s first (and certainly not last) chocolate ice cream. Click on the picture of my girls at the beach for a slideshow.
We’ve fallen behind this summer so will make it up in two posts with pictures galore and even a few videos.
First off, here’s a slideshow from the early summer including Claire falling asleep on the couch trying to adapt to life without afternoon naps, berry picking at nearby Webb Ranch, visiting with our friends the Farrells for Glenn’s birthday and for my godson Harrison’s first lemonade/snack stand, our town’s July 4th parade, hiking in the redwoods at Wunderlich Park, and a movie night for Harrison and our girls. There’s a few videos of Juliet, too, one hiking and another munching on pizza. Finally, we’ve got pictures of the girls’ first car camping trip which we took with the Toths in a nearby state park. It was hot, dusty, and sleepless, a mild disaster so probably average for a first outing with kids. Click on the berry picking picture for a slideshow.
Also, we’ve added a few more pictures and videos to the post on Claire’s 3rd birthday party including this one of the various efforts to keep her candle lit long enough for her to blow it out.
For the statistics hounds out there, Claire had her 3rd birthday check-up today. Everything is in good shape. She’s 40 1/2″ tall (98th percentile, about the same as 99th percentile when she was 37″ a year ago) and 34 pounds 8 ounces (80th percentile, up a bit from 77th percentile last time). She even had her first blood pressure check and a vision test!
We celebrated Claire’s 3rd birthday with a fun party at our house and a week-long visit by Grandma Judy. Highlights included a rented bouncy house, a gaggle of friends young and old filling our backyard, Claire enjoying her new big girl bed, and finally opening Grandma’s presents. Click on the picture of Claire digging into her birthday cupcake for a slideshow.
We spent the month of May unpacking, recovering from our trip to Spain by visiting with friends at and near home. Highlights included visits from Harrison (my godson and our new neighbor in Menlo Park), playing around the house including playdates with Claire’s friends Anna and Logan, tidepooling near Half Moon Bay with Katherine’s moms group and our good friends the Toths. Finally, a few pictures of Juliet’s first haircut at home in her high chair (a much simpler affair than Claire’s first haircut at the fancy children’s salon). For a slideshow, click on picture of Harrison in our backyard pulling a wagon filled with Claire and Juliet.
Thanks to the eruption of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano, our flights home were cancelled and after a few days of stress we decided to enjoy the most of our bonus vacation week. We considered Paris, but ended up doing a southern loop through Spain to Granada and Sevilla. In Granada we saw the spectacular Al-Hambra, a 700+ year old fortress on a hill that was at various points the seat of the Islamic Moorish government of southern Spain and also of the Catholic government which defeated them in 1492. Highlights included the girls exploring the huge circular courtyard of the Palacio de Carlos V, watching the sunset over the Al-Hambra from Mirador de San Nicolás while Flamenco players performed, and eating some of the best pizza we have ever had.
In Sevilla, we visited the post-Easter Feria de Abril, which was my Spanish friend Alex’s top recommendation for our trip but was after our original departure date. It was really fascinating and fun, sort of a combination of a county fair in the U.S., Brazil’s Carnival, and the Kentucky Derby, with an elaborate social scene, traditions galore (including bright colorful outfits for women), music everywhere, and horses and horse-riding a central part of the experience. Also included are pictures of Juliet wandering around a tiny square, a family horse carriage adventure, and the ride home both in the car we drove to Madrid and the plane that finally brought us home after more than three weeks and enough memories to last us a lifetime (or at least until our next big trip).
Click on the picture of Claire and I looking over the Al-Hambra in Granada at sunset for a slideshow.
Barcelona was one of the main stops on our tour of Spain, and we enjoyed a six-day stay in this lovely city on the Mediterranean that is the capital of Catalonia. We rented a nice big apartment in the Gothic Quarter, site of some of the original settlements of Barcelona over two thousand years ago, and launched into our by-now-usual routine of sightseeing via long stroller rides, making friends at playgrounds, and eating at outdoor cafes on squares where the girls could run around.
One fun thing we did, thanks to Grandma Judy’s babysitting generosity, was go on a tour of the city on Segways, the geeky two-wheeled one-person electric vehicles. Turns out they are actually perfect for tour groups, as you can move around quickly but everyone regardless of fitness level can keep up. We had a great guide, Edgar, who among other things taught us a few local traditions including the centuries-old Catalan addition to traditional nativity scenes. He also helped clear up a mystery from one day in San Sebastián, where we saw groups of people in white clothes with bright red scarves gathered in squares piling up on top of each other while crowds cheered. Turns out that was the day when two of Spain’s biggest soccer rivals, Real Madrid and Futbol Club Barcelona, played each other. Fans of the Barcelona team showed support for their team — and some Catalan cultural pride — by demonstrating the Catalan tradition of forming human towers.
Other highlights included:
Click on picture below for a slideshow.
After San Sebastián we had a break from the big cities with a roadtrip through the Pyrenees. Our first day we headed from from San Sebastián to Aínsa. Aínsa is a small town in the center of the Spanish Pyrenees which has an old quarter that dates back about 1000 years. It was incredibly charming, cute, and quiet, plus served as a great base for exploration of the Pyrenees. We stayed in a little hotel built into the walls of the old city which was restored a few years ago in a style we loved, perfectly blending clean contemporary glass, steel and wood within its centuries-old stone structure. We spent a day driving around the sights of the local Pyrenees, including to the beautiful Spanish Parque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido, up to the French border at the Col du Pourtalet (one of the classic mountain passes of the Tour de France), and back to Aínsa through a far more narrow, windy, and adventurous road than we had planned. After two lovely nights in Aínsa, we drove from Aínsa to Barcelona thru the little country of Andorra.
Click on the picture of the view through our bedroom window in Aínsa for a slideshow including the old city, throwing snowballs atop the Col du Pourtalet, driving through the Pyrenees including on some small roads shared with lots of cows, our GPS as we crossed the prime meridian, and a detail I particularly liked at our hotel.
