Off Bolinas coast, looking towards stormy San Francisco.

The family.

I took Friday off from work, and we drove to Bolinas where we rented this fantastic house perched on cliff above the water. Here's one part of the backyard. We stayed with Kurt, Patty & Cub. Despite threatening rain forecasts, the weekend was nearly balmy and the days were spent lounging in the sun or cooking great meals in the kitchen. Patty and I took it upon ourselves to sample some favorite bottles of wine.

Typical Day

Today was one of Nate, Julie, and Mom's more 'typical' days. We got out of the house after a mid-morning snack for Nate and Julie's breakfast and a round of fresh diapers with full intention of meeting up with Nate and Julie's new friends, Jake and Maddy, at the park. But, since Nate was up extra early, and Julie had tired herself out watching Nate and munching on her various baby toys, the kids ended up napping early in the car. So, while they were napping mom used the navigation system on the MDX to find more local parks - a cool feature she swore she would never use. We ended up at a park conveniently located near Target in Foster City (where mom was able to sneak in a bit of shopping while the kids were still in post nap haze). The park was great! Nate loved the playground structure, shaped like a big ship with lots of steering wheels and great slides. Also loved that someone left thier cool big Tonka dumptruck that he got to push around and fill with sand. Nate made a sand birthday cake for Julie who celebrated her 5 month birthday today but he was the one to"blow out" the candle stick, literally, in practice for his upcoming birthday in June.

Other highlights of the day:
- Nate demonstrating rolling over for Julie and Julie practicing this trick with mommy
- Julie and Nate duet on the electric piano dad hauled out of the garage and set up on the floor. Julie actually sat up for more than 5 seconds and plunked out a few notes with her finger!!
- Mom and Nate shared a chocolate sprinkle donut cupcake (a donut cut into quarters, each quarter being a cupcake...mom made sure Nate only had one...yum). Nate is very enamored with chocolate cupcakes after having one at his cousin Joey's second birthday party and his friend Jake's party, second bday as well, in the same week. I guess we know what Nate will want for his own party.
- Mom just marvelled at the privelege of being with these two incredible people, and of course thier daddy. This is a daily acknowledgement but it is always a highlight of her day.

Previous highlights of the past week that should be blogged:
- Nate discovered he can make Julie laugh last week so every day since he spends some time trying to make her laugh - blowing rasberries or clapping his hands or dancing. He loves it and so does she. I hope this is now a regular part of our 'typical day'.
- Mom showed Nate a caterpillar at the park the other day, crawling across an old oak tree. Nate decided he wanted to touch it with a bold statement of "Touch!", whereupon he squished the caterpillar with his finger. Eek. After mom explained the caterpiller may have been hurt during that experiment, Nate said, "Kiss!". We moved along.
- Nate now can throw the tennis ball away from Sydney, as opposed to at her, when playing fetch the ball with Sydney. Although he is still prone to throw it then run to fetch it himself - Sydney,thankfully, is still quicker and patiently gracious with her little game pal.
- Julie has discovered she has quite the babbling voice so will happily and intently babble for up to an hour, with or without an audience

Sydney in the backyard.

Julie picked her first flower today.

Only 15 more years. SCARY.

Julie and Mom hiking along the Bayshore Park. Recent Julie developments: laughing if prompted with dropping puppet or funny sounds; she'll track most movements with her eyes; she smiles incessantly, especially at her mother; and most importantly, she's now waking up just once at night for feedings. As notated by her sleep-deprived but nevertheless happy parents.

Bayfront Park walk on Sunday. Nate is closing his front pocket which was loaded up with Goldfish by his cousin Grace.

Thanks to his mom's daily outtings, Nate's now a connoisseur of the things playset-related. He loves the slides, but his dad finds the static electricity shocks somewhat annoying.

Nate loves going down slides by himself. Here he is at Bowden Park in Palo Alto.

Hop Kiln. We spent the day in Sonoma county and took our favorite drive down Westside Rd. Gina packed a picnic lunch, and after buying a bottle of Chardonney, we set up camp under the blossoming cherry trees. Nate joined the action by drinking from our plastic cups and encouraging us (read: demanding us) to tap glasses & say "cheers!"