Bouquets to Art

As Nancy has gotten more and more involved in the "Bouquets to Art" fundraiser, it became more and more embarrassing that we'd never gotten our act together to support the cause!  Finally this year we got Juanita to watch to boys and headed over to the de Young with Adam, Rachel, Phil, Nikki, and of course Nancy and the Barrons.

The premise of the event: floral arrangements inspired by modern art.  Highlights included the fashion show (all the dresses were made out of flowers), hob nobbing with the models & designers, strolling through the exhibits, swing dancing in the arboretum.... not to mention just getting dressed up and heading out for an evening of cultural entertainment!

Thanks for organizing such an amazing event, Nancy-- full photos here!

Lake Lagunitas Hike with the Usual Suspects

This Bay Area adventure didn't get off to the most auspicious start-- Lake Lagunitas is deceptively far away, and we were all dealing with whiny, hungry children as we wound our way up the final road to the lake.  In fact the Canadas called to say that they were turning around and going home.  They ended up making it, but only after we'd ravenously eaten their lunch!

But a little food was all it took to revitalize the troops.... and lunch by the waterfall was just the thing to get us all ready for a fantastic walk around the lake.  Fond memories include epic battles between the kids for hiking sticks, an hour of fantasy fishing in the river, several near-soaked experiences (both from the lake as well as from potty training), one very real tumble from a log for Theo, and an even more real fire truck evacuation during our hike (fortunately, no one we knew!).

A great adventure, thanks for organizing, Nikki!

See the full slideshow here....
    

Newport Beach with the Brackenburys

With the Brackenburys expecting twins, we knew that their trip to Long Beach would be the only chance until the kids go off to college to catch them on the west coast.  So we found a beach house on VRBO, rented a minivan, and made a week of it (combining the trip with a visit to Eunice's grandparents in Monterey Park).

We learned that when you have 3 under 3, there's a world of difference between 3 blocks to the beach and beachfront... treking down to the beach felt like planning Normandy.  But the beach was beautiful, and the kids loved it... memories include beers on the deck, watching sunset from the cliffs, BBQing in the alleyway, a night out to a local Italian place (where we spent half the time walking the kids around the block to watch the boats), and lots of time in what was truly a fabulous house.

Slideshow here....

Nikkita and Prairie at Spencer Maughan's place

Saturday was a blast from the past for Ryan - we had a fun morning hanging out with Ryan's old high school friend, Spencer Maughan, his mother, and his sister and her two adorable daughters, Nikkita and Prairie.

Isla in San Mateo!

We finally had Nara and Tracy over for brunch at our place. It was their daughter Isla's first time in San Mateo. After a harrowing entry into the world, Isla is now doing great!!!

Astrid and Thad

Long overdue for a get-together with our old college buddy, Astrid and her husband, Thad, we finally had them over to dinner along with their two kids, Linnea and Eli. Great conversations and fun interactions between the kids made for a great evening.

Mamie's Visit

Mamie surprised us with an impromptu visit from Taiwan while she was up in Marin taking some dance classes. We met up with her at Greens for a tasty vegetarian lunch, right on the Bay.


Always fun catching up with an old friend. To top it all off, it was a beautiful day to be outside, and we even caught an exciting sailing race taking place right outside the restaurant. Gotta love San Francisco!

Oakland Zoo

With Kristin in town for the weekend, we headed to Oakland to meet up with her cousin Kara and Kara's daughter, for a morning at the Oakland Zoo. Yet another zoo outing where the kids spent more time with the "fake" animals than the real thing...

Gaby's Birthday at Cirque du Soleil

For Gaby's 4th Birthday, she invited Theo and Spencer to join her (with parents) for "Ovo," Cirque du Soleil's newest show. It was quite an adventure, including a fun ride on caltrain up to San Francisco, oohing and ahhing at all the crazy "bugs" in the show (Spencer's favorite was the grasshoppers), and staying out way past their bedtime.

We suspect the train ride alone would have been party enough for the kids. :)

Spencer had a blast. Happy Birthday to a special girl, and a special friend!

New Years Eve at the Canadas

We kicked off 2005 with the Canadas in Baja; 2006 with the Canadas in Los Angeles; 2007 with the Canadas in Hawaii; 2008 and 2009 with the Canadas in Tahoe... Can you guess how we rang in 2010?

Yes indeed, with the Canadas! We celebrated at their place this time, with Lee and KB making the trek down from the city for a fantastic feast of slow-cooked short ribs followed by a rousing game of poker. It had to be rousing - unaccustomed to the break in the action caused by getting four little kids to bed, Lee and KB were quickly losing steam by 9pm. Some mental exercises (poker chip long division) whipped Lee back into shape, and he was winning money in no time. Although it was Ryan that came out the big winner this time around-- Eunice continued her trademark maneuver of going all-in just before midnight regardless of what her cards said.

Our boys looked so comfortable in the guest room when we finally wrapped up at 2am that we decided to crash there as well. But of course, oblivious to the fact that their parents had only been sleeping for 4 hours, they were up and at 'em at 6am.... several hours before Theo usually stirs (lucky Grace and Alonzo!). We knew we had to get the boys out of there fast before they woke everyone up.

But what does one do with two toddlers still in their pajamas at the crack of dawn on new year's day? Breakfast at Denny's, of course! We were quite a sight: 2 kids in their fleece pajamas, 2 bleary-eyed parents in the same clothes as the night before, and 4 healthy appetites. What could be more perfect to start off a new decade than a Grand Slam?


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Tyler's Week with Dad

While Eunice and Spencer were in St. Louis, Ryan and Tyler had some fantastic bonding time - really the first time that they've been together for an extended period without Spencer in the picture. And what a difference! It ends up that Tyler knows all the words in his favorite books. He just never gets a chance to say them before Spencer blurts out the answer. And when Tyler doesn't have to compete for attention all the time, there's no reason to shriek or whine...

So what kind of trouble can an 18 month old and his dad get into when alone for the week? Not much, it ends up. Work/daycare ate up most of the time during the week, but Ryan was definitely ready to pack in fun activities and quality time with Tyler come the weekend. A Christmas party at the Canadas, brunch with Adam and Rachel at Alana's, a family-oriented Christmas service at church, lots of walks around the neighborhood.... single parenting is a piece of cake with only one ;)

Romp in Bed

We're not sure the title of this blog post is particularly appropriate - or perhaps we should say that we're pretty sure that Phil would not find this blog post particularly appropriate! Nevertheless, when his daughter Gaby came over for some playtime, she and Spencer somehow ended up in our bed having a grand old time. :)

At preschool, we can already see the beginnings of boys preferring to play with boys and girls preferring to play with girls, but we're counting on Gaby and Spencer's special friendship to stand the test of time.

Home Group Christmas Party

We hosted our home group's Christmas party this year to give the Gates a break. We did it pot-luck style, with tasty appetizers, cheesy potatoes, spinach and raisins, corn on the cob, chicken pesto pasta, German chocolate pie, ice cream, and berries. Add to that plenty of wine, egg nog, mulled apple cider, gifts for the kids (thanks, Julia!), a fun white elephant game, and good conversation.... The perfect way to get the holiday season kick-started!

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Click here for a slideshow of more photos.

Russian River Weekend

After the crazy Dreamforce week, we were in need of some serious R&R. Eunice found us a great house to rent up on the Russian River, and we decided to escape the week before Thanksgiving along with the Canadas.

The house was great-- huge deck with a hot tub, vineyard in the front yard, and just a hundred yards from the river. We had a ton of fun with the Canadas, including some tasty home-cooked meals, relaxing in the hot tub, wandering down to throw rocks in the river, skuut excursions into town, Persimmon picking at a local organic farm, and a killer game of chess, played with shot glasses that were consumed as the game progressed (we lost by a pretty big margin, but everyone comes out a winner in a game like that!).

The house was outside of Guerneville, which has quite a reputation (which we were not aware of). Mostly, we just noticed a very large transient population... some of the happiest, friendliest homeless guys we've ever run across. We'd walk over this big pedestrian bridge on our way into town (oftentimes through huge clouds of pot smoke), and the guys hanging out would tell each other to "watch your language, kids passing through" and would let Ryan know that he's the "luckiest man in the world" to be with family.

Our last day was probably our favorite-- after a lazy morning we had lunch at the beautiful outdoor cafe at Korbel winery. We drove up Russian River while the boys napped, stopping at one of our favorite vineyards, Hop Kiln. We then headed to the coast by a little town called Jenner, where we found a path out to a deserted beach at Russian Gulch. It was a calm, warm November afternoon, and we had the beach to ourselves as we played with the boys and watched the sun set. The boys started to melt down in the car since it was way past dinner time by the time we left (complete disaster was staved off only by a raucous sing-along of popular Christmas carols), but a little restaurant in Monte Rio saved the day. It was called Cafe Les Jumelles-- totally kid friendly, great steaks, outstanding homemade mac and cheese, and Lagunitas IPA on tap. Heaven.

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Train Hopping in San Francisco

Another one of KB's fantastic days in the city, this time entirely on trains! It really was Spencer's dream day-- Ryan brought him up to join KB, Lee, and Charu for this adventure, while Eunice spent some quality time with Tyler back on the home front.

We started in the Castro, catching the F train all the way down market street to the Ferry Building. We grabbed brunch at Cane Rosso, checked out the transit museum, and then continued our ride along the Embarcadero. We hopped off in Fisherman's Wharf, and then walked through Fort Mason to Grandpa Nic's house for an afternoon nap. Then we took the 22 Muni all the way back to where we started, just in time for a late night burrito at a Castro Taqueria!

I hope Sencer remembers this one-- it really doesn't get any better than this for a 3 year old... or for a 30-something year old!

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Roosevelt Beach

Eunice headed out to Half Moon Bay for yet another perfect October day, this time roping in Grace, Theo, and Reah. They decided to check out Roosevelt Beach this time. It was Grace's first beach outing with Reah (it was warm, but not warm enough for her first swim!). The boys had lots of fun kicking the ball around the beach and playing "train" with a long string of seaweed. Craziest moment? When Theo ran off down the beach, with Tyler eagerly chasing after him.... Eunice and Grace had to head off in hot pursuit, leaving Spencer to watch Reah!

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Daycare Halloween Party

It's time for the annual Little Kingdom Daycare Halloween party, complete with lumpia, spaghetti with hotdogs, fruit, cupcakes, and of course lots of cute kids in costumes. Animals were the theme this year-- Rosalyn was Minnie Mouse, Isaac was a Bunny, David was a Kangaroo, and Kaira was a Hippo. And of course, our boys were re-using their lion costumes from Julia's birthday princess party. And the zoo-keeper of this wild bunch? Juanita, dressed as Snow White.

Next Step U

It started out as an innocent enough side project-- Eunice and Maggie volunteered to help our church put together a day of community classes (which Ryan cleverly named "Next Step U"). Hundreds of hours later, there was a high-class logo, advertisements running during the weekly service, gourmet lunch and beverages, dozens of volunteers and attendees, outsourced childcare, and a fantastic curriculum of how to take the "next step" in your spiritual journey.

The day was a smashing success-- we actually had the chance to sit down to think and talk like adults for a change, discussing subjects that don't get enough mind-share in our daily craziness. We attended a morning class exploring the intersection of social justice and faith, took a nice lunch break with the kids, and then rounded out the afternoon with a turbo-speed class on reading the Bible for all its worth, taught by our good friends Phil and Kevin. Eunice managed to rope our daycare providers in as childcare workers, so our boys had a fantastic time too!

Pumpkin Picking in Half Moon Bay

While Ryan was out of town at an IT conference, Eunice attempted to take the boys to the Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival, only to encounter stop-and-go traffic minutes into the trip. She managed to salvage the morning, with the help of the Canada's who joined her for pumpkin picking in decidedly more sunny climes at Webb Ranch in Portola Valley.

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The boys had a fantastic time running around, sitting on pumpkins, selecting pumpkins, taking pictures with pumpkins, and climbing in the wheel barrow. With a jumpy house to boot, this turned out to be the perfect place to spend the morning.

We've never ended up with so many pumpkins for Halloween-- the boys didn't want to stop loading up our wheel barrow!

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Hudson's Birthday at Marvin Gardens

You might not guess it, but Marvin Gardens is just about the perfect venue for a kid's birthday party... Beer and pizza for the adults, a huge, contained play area for the kids, and, best of all, thundering trains that whiz by practically overhead. Hudson had a great day, as did his best bud Spencer. The favorite activity of the afternoon? Coordinated jumps off the side of the patio to the gravel below. Simple pleasures, what could be better?

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