Should we feel guilty about taking advantage of a work boondoggle?
Ryan's company recently raised a round of VC money, and that inevitably unleashes a wave of cold calls from companies that assume you need to spend it on what they have to offer. One particularly persistent company was trying to sell us a data center.... particularly inane because you'd realize after 5 minutes on our website that the whole point of our company is that we don't need a data center.
But still-- when they passed along 2 free invites to a customer appreciation night at Mountain Winery to listen to the Steve Miller Band.... on a night when Eunice's mom was going to be in town to babysit.... who were we to say no?
We made it into a date night. Decent BBQ, an open bar, good classic rock, perfect weather, unbelievable views over Silicon Valley, and no annoying work conversations either...
Favorite memories include crowded bathtimes (with Spencer and Theo ganging up to pour water on the head of defenseless Tyler!), baking banana bread with Spencer and Theo, lots of fights over toy trains, playing in the sandbox in our backyard, and a great afternoon with friends at our favorite local beer garden.... Marvin Gardens in San Carlos.
Almost makes us think that we could handle three.... just kidding!
Can you believe it? It's time for Spencer to start preschool. We chose the preschool program at College Park, a public magnet school in the San Mateo/Foster City school district that offers a Mandarin immersion program.
To prepare Spencer for the upcoming transition, we read countless bedtime stories to him about kids starting preschool. We hung out in the school's playground on weekends to get him used to the new setting. Eunice organized two playdates for Spencer with some classmates before school started, and even got us invited to the birthday party of one of Spencer's classmates, all to make sure that Spencer would love his new school and fellow students as much as he loves his daycare "office" down the street.
We knew we were in luck during the open house the night before the first day of class-- there was a play kitchen in the corner complete with toy versions of BBQ pork buns and tofu! Spencer spent the entire time whipping up pretend food, working his way up to actually talking to his Lao Shi ("teacher") by the end of the night.
And the first day did indeed go well. There were definitely a couple of "Daddy please stay a long time" requests, but Spencer went straight over to the kitchen and was playing on his own in no time... and hardly protested when Ryan waved goodbye on his way out.
Favorite memories of Spencer's first days of class: Spencer repeatedly referring to one of his classmates as "stepping boy" after he supposedly stepped on Spencer's imaginary food, Spencer insisting that he only has one name ("Spencer") before getting used to his Chinese one ("Lin An"), and Spencer's excitement hanging up his coat and putting away his lunch box all by himself.
The loss of control (for us as parents) is definitely a little strange-- even though he's been going to daycare for a while, we knew the routine there so well that we still felt like we knew everything that was going on in Spencer's life. Not so much anymore.... he tells us unreliable stories about playground encounters that mix fact with fantasy, brings up books we've never heard of, and (especially for Ryan), asks us to sing Chinese songs we don't know.
Ahh, he's growing up so fast... but we're loving it!
After waffling back and forth all afternoon, Spencer finally decided he wanted to get his face painted while we were at our church picnic. He asked to be a tiger. Here are the results:
We love his expression in this photo - it's so...Spencer!
Spencer's attempt at a snarl...
Jen Quan, our friend and face painter, claims she learned how to do this a few hours earlier by watching youtube videos. We find that pretty hard to believe... We'll definitely be showing up on her doorstep for help with the boys' Halloween costumes next year!
Earlier in the afternoon, we took our turn getting a family portrait taken. Here, Spencer helps dad out with his wardrobe.
And the ridiculous end result...
Somehow, our kids ended up looking normal, and we ended up looking like goofballs. How did that happen? Perhaps that's closer to reality than we'd like to admit! :)
We have to admit it, but San Carlos's "Music in the Park" is much cooler than San Mateo's... The energy was high, the music was great, there were a million kids running around, and we could participate in the festivities from a fully enclosed playground so we didn't have to hover over the boys all the time. Ryan even randomly ran into 3 people he knew from past lives.
We came from the north, Grace and Alonzo came with Theo from the south, and Adam and Rachel strolled over with Lilah from their house 2 blocks away (lucky them!).
Our favorite memory of the evening was watching Tyler climb the play structure to see the band... while doing a little boogying on his own. And don't worry-- Theo isn't actually strangling Tyler on the slide in the bottom left photo!
We have loved being outside so much this summer... Watch the two videos below for clear evidence that Spencer inherited his basketball skills from Ryan, and that Tyler somehow lucked out and got better balance.
Thanks to Lee and KB for the great basketball hoop for Spencer...its definitely a hit. Now Lee, all we need are some 1:1 lessons for Spencer!
We had the Paris' and Canada's over for a mini-reunion on July 11th - it had been nearly a year and a half since our families had gotten together over at our house - in fact, it was the night before Jane went into labor with Nathan. If history repeats itself, Grace and Alonzo may have a new addition to their family tomorrow!
Coincidentally, the 11th also happens to be Eunice's birthday. Grace surprised us with a delicious two-tiered homemade chocolate cake with frosting to die for. :) The saga of the cake-making would take longer to retell than we have room for on our blog, but suffice it to say much love, time, and creativity were put into the making of this cake. Something that is much appreciated, in particular in light of the fact that Grace could be hours away from delivering baby #2!
After another night of fun mayhem at the Nichols' pad, we ended the evening with baths and bedtime stories for the boys.
Hopefully it won't be another year and a half before we all get together again!
KB's birthday is on the 9th of July. Eunice's is on the 11th. So Lee put together a dinner celebration right in between on July 10th at Tangerine, in the Mission district of San Francisco.
The festivities got off to a rough start for us. The plan was to head up to the city early and go for a walk by the water. Eunice fell asleep on the ride up to the city in the afternoon, so Ryan thoughtfully let her nap in the car in the driveway of his dad's place while doing some work inside. Amazed that Eunice was still soundly asleep an hour and a half later, he went to the backyard to read. When Eunice woke up minutes later, she discovered the front door locked. Ryan couldn't hear the doorbell from the backyard... and had left his cell phone by the front door. Eunice passed the time talking to her mom on the phone waiting for Ryan to come out. An hour later, Ryan emerged from the house bummed that Eunice had slept the afternoon away. Meanwhile, Eunice was mad that Ryan had left her in the car and locked her out of the house.
Agreeing to put the incident behind us, we got in the car to go meet our friends for dinner... only to find the car battery had died from the radio Ryan had left on for Eunice while she was napping. After knocking on a few neighbors' doors, we finally found someone to help us jump start our car just in time to make it for our 7:30pm reservation. Nowhere to go but up from there!
The rest of the evening went without a hitch as we enjoyed good food and even better company, shutting down the restaurant at 11pm. Thanks, Lee for coordinating such a lovely dinner, complete with cupcakes for the birthday girls. :)
Juanita hosted two birthday parties at daycare for Spencer and Kyle this year. As always, there were amazing quantities of food, lots of kids, fun gifts, and tasty desserts. Spencer was excited to have some special guests show up at his party including daddy, Cora, and Nani! All the kids were excited that Angie brought a jumpy house to spice things up for Kyle's second birthday bash.
Besides the amazing love and care Spencer and Tyler receive from Juanita and her colleagues, it has been awesome getting to know the parents of the kids that attend Little Kingdom Daycare, including Evan's parents Caroline and Dave, Kyle's parents Angie and David, Kyra Grace and Isaac's parents Aliya and Chris, and David's parents, Affi and Ameka.
Spencer is going to really miss his buddies and all the caring adults here when he starts pre-school in a few weeks. They have played such a pivotal role in his life these last three years. The good news for Tyler is that with Spencer and some of the other kids heading off to pre-school this fall, Tyler will go from being one of the youngest at daycare to being "king of the hill." Just what he needs to coax him out of his quiet shell. ;)
Why mess with success? The Gates were kind enough to offer to host a 4th of July party for Spencer's birthday again this year, and we couldn't refuse. An afternoon in the pool, an evening of Nichols family ribs and margaritas + lots of other goodies, and a house fit to host our crowd of 50 friends and their kids.
Spencer relished the attention, mostly. We've been preparing him for months that his third birthday would be marked by fireworks, cake, the loss of his beloved pacifier AND the transition from his "office" at daycare to Mandarin immersion preschool.... so we weren't so sure how he'd react to the big day.
Success on all fronts-- he lost his pacifier the week prior, making the transition a non-issue. We made a successful visit to the playground at his new school to get him used to the new environment. AND, on the big day itself, Spencer didn't seem to mind the fireworks at all... the bigger issue seemed to be the birthday singing, which put him in a VERY serious mood, as you'll see in the video below. We like to think of it as serious contemplation of the meaning of turning three.
Here's a shot of the birthday boy, getting his favorite present, a big bear hug, from Theo.
And here are some shots from around the party: swimming pool fun, Ryan and Corey manning the grill, Tyler and Evan cruising around in the wagon, Spencer and Joey playing in the dirt,Spencer sampling the feast, red white and blue Nichols boys, Spencer watching fireworks with mom, and the crew assembled for Eunice's trademark homemade banana chocolate chip birthday cake.
Three sets of special guests worthy of special mention: Cora flew all the way from D.C. to join us for Spencer's birthday festivities. Adam and Rachel brought out 2-week old Lilah for her first public appearance... she completely stole the show. And Nara and Tracy came down from the city with our friend Lee-- they're expecting their first soon, and we thought a little shock and awe was in order by inviting them to a party with so many toddlers!
