Let's go OAKLAND!!

It may not quite be baseball season yet, but that didn't stop the crazy Hymas Oakland fans from getting their garb and headed down to the stadium. Saturday was Oakland Fanfest. The girls had their balls (which they got from Coach Rene Lacheman during one of the games they went to last year) and had them signed by 8 players - including Dan Johnson (who is Skyla's favorite because he looks like Obi-Wen Kenobi. He is Sierra's 2nd favorite player with her first being Mike Piazza but Mike is about to retire so Dan is her backup favorite player. I was just informed of this as Sierra is reading over my shoulder making sure I get it right...) Karsten was even tickled (literally) by Dan Meyers #37. Sierra and Skyla got to see Rollie Fingers and his famous mustache which isn't quite as long as it was back in the day. And yes, they knew who he was and were VERY excited to see him. The event has gotten everyone ready for baseball season. Bring on the bobbleheads!

Rainy Day Off

What do you do when there's a day off of school (and work!) and it's cold and rainy? That's right - eat ice cream (at Ghirardelli Square in San Francisco no less...) There could be stranger things - like seeing people swimming in the bay as it's pouring down rain while we're eating ice cream. And they didn't have wet suits on, either. We found the perfect place to appreciate why we had the day off in the Metreon of all places...

And we did have a great time making funny faces while waiting for our food...

A perfect rainy day...

Wiiiiii!

A family that plays together stays together. And boy are we playing now! We got a Wii for Christmas and it has been so much fun! The girls are thrilled to be able to beat Daddy at bowling, David can make lots of homeruns when things get stressful at work, and Karsten is turning out to be a great boxer - while playing Wii and not. (We're working on that latter part...) I, of course, am fun to beat, but little does David know that while he's out-of-town the next two nights I'm going to practise every single night!

Feed the Birds

When I was a little girl, Mary Poppins was my favorite movie. I could totally relate to the two kids in the movie fleeing the bank to instead buy food for the birds... Here's us on a Sunday afternoon at Lake Merritt in Oakland doing my favorite Mary Poppins thing (since I can't jump on chimney tops or ride carousel horses into a field with dancing penguins and most sadly can't have tea on the ceiling...)

Sierra would throw her pieces of bread up into the air and the sea gulls would catch it before it fell. It was so cool! Some of those geese are as tall as Karsten! He kindly gave one that got too close to him the whole piece of bread. Skyla, with her big heart was trying to feed the ducks in the water and the sea gulls in the air and the geese surrounding her. There just wasn't enough bread and Skyla to go around...

And David took some great pictures. Another favorite moment captured.

Things I Learned Today

My family can drink a whole gallon of milk in 24 hours. Soy sauce is suppose to be refrigerated after opening. Even if you go to the park and play tennis and try to wear your kids out, they will still not be ready for bed when you have a RS presidency meeting at your house. Sierra and Skyla got brave and played handball during recess (meaning with someone other than me and David) for the first time. David always had funny comebacks to emails. Sometimes if you don't wash your hair the second day, instead of feeling like sexy second day hair, it just feels greasy.

The Cat in the Hat

Remember the story of The Cat in the Hat where the fish is thrown out of his fish bowl and the Cat proceeds to make a huge gigantic mess? Well, Sierra's poor fish Roscoe had the same experience last night with Karsten taking on the role of the cat... "No! No! Make that Karsten go away! Tell that Karsten you do not want to play. He should not be here. He should not be about. He should not be here in the girls room when his mother is out." Roscoe could have been saying the same thing...

So Karsten pulled the girls dresser onto himself. He's fine. I saved the fish. Both girls were screaming at the top of their lungs because I initially couldn't find the fish. Broken glass was everywhere. Skyla threw up she was so stressed out. (The picture is the what the room looked like after I lifted the dresser back up.) I'm hoping (as are the girls) that we'll soon be able to laugh at this. However, the room is still such a mess and I'm having to wash every piece of clothing (yucky fish smell) so I have a huge pile of laundry so I'm not laughing yet...

Memories of our Winter Break

We had a great 2 weeks off of school. Some of our favorite memories are Sierra's banana pancakes, horseback riding, handball with Dad, watching the horse races, jumping on Adri and Kyla's trampoline, playing tennis, sleeping in, staying up late, mucking the horse stalls, swimming on rainy days, bike riding to Richmond marina, painting pictures at MOCHA, playing UNO attack with friends, Star Wars video game with Dad, playing in Webkeinz world on the computer, scrapbooking, playing with Uncle Geoff, undecorating the tree, and drinking hot chocolate. It all ended too quickly!!!

2008

I love new beginnings. Such a great time to reflect and change. To start the new year right I got up early and ran across the Golden Gate Bridge. It was beautiful and inspiring and I felt so lucky for so much in my life. I'm looking forward to 2008 and am grateful for all my blessing of 2007. So here's to potty training, scrapbooking, lots and lots of running, more date nights, more blogging, more reading, more Friday night Pizza nights, more time with girlfriends, new piano songs, new bike trails with the girls, new foods to try, and all the other memories-to-be in this new year.

Uncle Geoff

We had a surprise quick visit from Uncle Geoff! He's truly adored by the kids and this time was no exception. He brought them some fun games (including a guitar that hooks up to the T.V. and plays some really ummm, interesting songs - Thanks Geoff. :) ) Skyla tried her hardest to convince him to get a dog. The kids played with him nonstop which was so great as it allowed me to finally make a dent in this mess of a house... He only stayed one night but made every minute count. We love you Uncle Geoff!

Monterey Vacation

Taking advantage of David having another 4 day weekend, we packed up and headed to beautiful Monterey. First we stopped in Santa Cruz at the Monarch Butterfly Natural Preserve and Natural Bridges State Beach. It was amazing. This is where the Monarch butterflies come temporarily on their migration to Mexico.

The beach here is one of my absolute favorites. I wish I could freeze time when we're at the beach. It's so much fun.
We got to our hotel in Monterey and ordered pizza. It was pretty funny because the kids couldn't believe that someone would come find us at this hotel and bring us pizza! I guess they didn't notice the exchange of cash. :) We all enjoyed our pizza and then stared as Karsten ate more than any of us - including David!

The Monterey Aquarium was simply amazing. We spent all day there viewing sharks and jellyfish and octopus and schools of sardine... They have a great white shark in one of their tanks right now which is very rare. When the kids were so exhausted (or was it the parents...) we headed back home, but not before hitting a cafe on Cannery Row(which I'm now inspired to read this novel by John Steinbeck.) It was a great get-away and the best part was it only took us 2 hours to get home.