Do you like pools? Well if you do you will like pool parties! Today I had a soccer pool party with my team to celebrate the end of the season. It was really fun.😍

I love watching Warriors  game. I like to watch them because they are  interesting and  because it is fun to see who is going to win. The warriors are in the playoffs. I hope I get to see  the whole game to night.

When I left for my sabbatical last week, I shared some goals with my colleagues:

So what am I going to do?
After a frenetic five years at a8c, I want to retrain my brain to focus for more than 20 minutes at a time so plan to read long books, avoid web browsers, go outdoors, and write. I’m excited about lots of family time — my girls have already told me they want to spend “daddy’s summer vacation” playing Minecraft, coding together, visiting amusement parks, and eating ice cream. I’ll also have some long visits with my mom, which is particularly meaningful after my dad passed away early this month. We’re planning a few short trips but are resisting the temptation of a big one. I may (or may not) clean out our garage. I will certainly play with my new drone and any other gadgets that come along.

Yesterday and today were my first few days. How am I doing?

I walked the girls to school, started and wrote in journals, cooked dinner for the family. Both days. I also did some prep for my mom’s visit Thursday, caught up on eight weeks of The Economist and four weeks of bills, at healthy(er) lunches, and brought some treats for Katherine (fancy cheeses!) and me (Oban!). I watched the keynote to an Apple developer conference (gadgets!), read a fun sci-fi book, and started the new season of House of Cards.

I also did a little too much work trying to wrap up a few things. Fortunately, that is winding down.

A good start…. and a lot to look forward to!

Candy, Candy, Candy is awesome. I like it because it is so yummy.🍭

After school I took my friend Kate to my house for a playdate. When we got there we ate a snack .After we went on the trampoline. Then Kate mom and her brother came. Then we jump on the trampoline again. After we played on the trampoline we played with chalk. Then it was time for Kate to go home. I had a fun playdate.

Claire, Juliet and I will be doing some journals this summer here on this blog. Why journals? For the girls, learning to express yourself with words is a big part of what they’re learning in second and fourth grades. For our family, it’s just fun doing things together.

For me, I’m looking for a change from the writing I’ve been doing lately. At Automattic, where we communicate mostly over text, I churn out a lot of words (15,000 or so a month). But it’s a certain kind of writing — fact-driven, rapid fire, driven by the breakneck pace of interactivity. Stylistically, it feels​ to me like the writing equivalent of empty calories. I’m looking for a space to savor the words, rhythm, and structure of writing.

I am starting a new journal.I will be practicing my typing and writing.

I am starting a journal.I want to practice my typing and writing.I am going to write  with my sister and my dad.

Katherine and I celebrated our 10th anniversary last week. That night, we returned to Town Hall, the restaurant where we had our wedding reception, for a family dinner. We tried to explain to the girls what a wedding is and all the different things that happen at a reception; they mostly cared about the cake. The following week the girls had spring break so we headed for a 5 day visit to Calistoga in the northern part of Napa Valley. We started off with two days for just Katherine and me, including a day at the spa and a great dinner at our swank hotel (including a yummy bottle of wine). My sister Mona flew down from Seattle and spent those days with the girls including a trip to the Pt. Reyes lighthouse. Then the girls joined us in what they called “Calistogia” for a few days of lounging by the pool, playing bocce, visiting giraffes and zebras and rhinos at a nearby wildlife preserve, hiking on Mount St. Helena, and biking into town for breakfast in the morning. Photos below.

One of the girls’ most favorite movies is the Sound of Music so we made sure to visit Salzburg on our trip. It’s a half-day drive from Prague through the beautiful Czech and Austrian countryside (we stopped for lunch and a taste of good old American cuisine). The town is charming, along the banks of a the Salzach River, with lots of history, architecture, and art. We stayed in a fairly central hotel that included handy foot bathtubs that Juliet noticed and liked across Europe. We enjoyed some fun walks around the old town — at times in some pouring rain — to visit local sights including the Makartsteg bridge which is covered by “love locks”, the Salzburg Cathedral, and the Hohensalzburg Castle where we played outdoor chess. Of course we also did a Sound of Music tour which was a fun way to visit many of the locations for the film while singing its classic songs.