Another Shot of the Table Sitter

I looked over one morning to find Julie waiting for her breakfast.

Eating Blackberry Pie

Honestly, she was more interested in the ice cream (her loss). Notice the lack of high chair now, and she can now get up & down on her own. 

A masterpiece.

Busy pie makers.

Haircut Time

After Nate, we put Julie on the chair (at her request) and pretended to cut away the curls. Both of them wanted to admire themselves in the mirror when we were done. 

Blackberry Picking at Webb Ranch

Today we got an early start and headed out to Webb Ranch, a farm tucked between Stanford and the nearby foothills. We broke out the buckets and did our first ever blackberry picking. It was still early in the season, but we did end up with almost four pounds in our buckets and nearly the same amount in our tummies...you know, sampled for quality control. Julie and Nate were both pros, and didn't need much help finding the ripe ones. Afterwards we celebrated our bounty at City Pub for lunch, took a walk around the block, and finished planting our garden seeds. Next up for tomorrow: making blackberry pie!

New Furniture

Proof we don't force our kids to sit on hot concrete during the summer... 

Family Walk in the Neighborhood

A typical summer day...Nate loves his tricycle (courtesy of our neighbor), and Julie/Mom are keeping up the rear. 

View from the Train

 

Big Diesel Engine

 

Julie and Grace

Julie was enamored with Grace the entire day... 

Riding the train

 

Niles Canyon Railroad

Nate in his fancy UK train sweater which was admired by many other toddler train enthusiasts. We rode the diesel train from the little town of Niles to Sunol, and back again with Aunt Janine, Uncle John, Grace, and Joey. The ride was somewhat surreal: there were two Charlie Chaplin impersonators (Niles is where several of his films were shot) and a camera crew from Japan. Nate & I had a close-up while on the train: wonder if we'll be shown in Tokyo? Hungry and sun-baked after the ride, we headed to a little sandwich shop where we ate in a tiny back garden.

Blog Visualized

This is a visual representation of this blog. The different colors represent various tags on the site: violet for images, green for DIV tag, red for tables, blue for links, orange for linebreaks, gray for other. The animation as it creatives the image is pretty neat. Site: http://www.aharef.info/static/htmlgraph

Painting the fence

 

Lounging in the backyard

Memorial Day was spent in the backyard -- sawing a wine barrel in two, spreading mulch, playing on the swings, trimming, deweeding, and painting the fence with water. (By the way, these two poor looking kids do have a nice new outdoor wood furniture set. But they were cooperative enough to pose briefly in route to the nearest watering bucket.)

San Gregorio State Beach

On Sunday we packed the sand toys and lunch before heading to San Gregorio State Beach just south of Half Moon Bay. The crowds were out, of course, but we found a secluded section of beach surrounded by driftwood and proceeded to bury each other waist high in sand. Nate proudly learned how to jump off logs by himself and Julie kept standing on perches before pointing to the camera (future fashion model?) Heading back home, we opened the sun roof and found a one lane mountain road that took us from the beach to the top of Skyline Boulevard.

On Caltrain Saturday

While Gina had a Saturday respite (haircut and lunch w/her mom), I took the kids on a much-anticipated Caltrains ride down to San Jose. Nate's reaction: "This is the fastest train I've even been on. It's super strong." Thanks to Google Maps I located a nice park a few blocks away from the San Jose train station. We found the slides and rode a carousel, Nate's first time sitting alone. After a walk along the riverfront where we found some neat sculpture seats, we headed back. There wasn't great signage and I made the kids walk back & forth the tracks, and after 15 minutes Nate turned to me and said "Dad, you're wiping me out." Luckily we were in our seats and headed back a few minutes later. 

Spring 2006 Trip - Snohomish / Seattle

Our first all-Dawson family group photo.

Gina and I packed the kids and headed up to the northwest for a little week-long vacation and quality time with the family. We ended up pretty exhausted each day, but we wouldn't have traded the time for anything. Link to photo album below. Here's an abbreviated list of where we were:

• Nate eagerly waiting the plane ride
• Alaska flight to SeaTac
• Snohomish stay with Grandpa and Grandma
• Picnic at Chateau Ste Michelle
• Relaxing in Snohomish
• Ferry ride to Bainbridge Island & great kids park
  
• Fremont neighborhood in Seattle
• Greenlake
• Pike Place Market
• West Seattle
• Hotel room in Alexis
  
• Snohomish family get together (most pictures)
• Uwajimaya
• Woodland Park Zoo
• New Seattle library (not pictured, ran out of battery. But wow!)
  

Here's the Photo Album

(thanks Patty, for use of your FTP server!)