The Longest Ride! - Jan 27

Lately we have been going through what I have been calling (and some news stations copied me) STORMAGEDDON 2017. We have been having an insane amount of rain lately so as you might imagine indoor activities have run their course. Chloe recently has become re-interested in riding her bike and started asking if I would get my bike down so I could ride with her so a week or two ago I did and Chloe was jazzed. We got in a few rides and then we got hit by like a week or more of rainy days but this week we have finally had some great weather so back to the bike rides we went.

On Thursday I decided to see if Chloe wanted to try a longer ride than usual and like virtually everything put before her, she was willing to try. Generally we have been riding around our "big block" once and then she likes to do a series of circles at the top of our street by herself. Typically this is after we have walked the dog either half way or all the way around the block to which Chloe has been riding her bike along while I walk with the dog. On Thursday, we went around the entire country club complex. It's pretty far. LOL.

We got about half way up the uphill portion and Chloe kept asking me if we were almost to the downhill part yet. I assured her there was still a way to go but then we would have a lot of downhill and she could go fast. She pedaled and pedaled and when the downhill part came..she was all smiles and having a blast. PS it's probably 50 degrees outside and my face is freezing in the wind. The last stretch is the long uphill leading to our house and she tried her hardest but we did end up walking about 5 minutes and then she was determined to ride the rest of the way. She did and I was not surprised. Impressed, but not surprised. =)

Then, while I was making dinner I asked Chloe what she was doing and she said she was "writing a story" which I found unusual and awesome at the same time. A little while after that, Heather was reading me the story that Chloe wrote, all by herself and I think I actually felt my heart melt...and that's not a term I think I have ever used. You'll see Chloe's story at the end...

Just a few random shots of Chloe on her bike. I wasn't willing to risk riding my bike and holding a really expensive camera at the same time so, no footage like that. LOL.

Have a great weekend, folks~

B

Time For A Haircut! - Jan 20

This week we find ourselves experiencing another first with Chloe, HER FIRST HAIRCUT!

Yes, we know. How did you not cut her hair in the last 7 years?? I can't really answer that question. I don't know what the "typical" time a kid gets their first haircut, but for Chloe the answer is 7 years and 2 weeks, approximately. Heather made the appointment with this haircut place in Danville I guess that specializes in doing kids haircuts. Part of what she is known for is you can have this extra tinsel and a feather put in at the end..."bling" as the lady called it. Heather thought it would be something Chloe would enjoy so, away we went.

We arrived for our appointment and the lady seemed to be barely just starting a little girl for a cut and she was the only one working there. Within 10 minutes I was pretty irritated as she just continued to talk and talk to the kids mother while we just waited and waited. Ultimately, 30 minutes after our appointed time it was Chloe's turn. My irritation somewhat took away from what might have otherwise been a good experience because the lady actually did a great job on Chloe's hair. For whatever reason she wanted to talk about various hair products and tried the entire time to "soft sell" Heather on a bunch of these hair products for Chloe. Also, of course, since Chloe's appointment started 30 minutes late, TWO more people had arrived and started waiting for their appointments (which of course only further irritated me). LOL. Heather knows this about me but, I have a thing for being on time and this lady doing the haircut was absolutely driving me nuts. In the end, it was fine because Chloe was able to pick out the tinsel and feather that she wanted and all was right with the world. Apparently the "bling" stays in her hair as long as she wants it to. It's kind of clamped in and to remove it I actually need to use pliers so..that sounds fun. LOL.

Here are just a few pictures from Chloe's first haircut! At the rate we're going I suppose we will revisit this when she's...what..14? =P

Have a great weekend, folks~

-B

Lucky Number SEVEN! - Jan 13

Where do I start? Um, CHLOE IS SEVEN YEARS OLD NOW. Yeah.

Until last Sunday, 7 was only an age that my friends kids had celebrated their birthdays and I was like wow, how the heck are they 7? Now, my kid is that kid and it is really weird. Thinking about all the things in the last 7 years that we have been through with Chloe and all of the ways she has changed really does blow my mind.

I'm sure I have said this before but, one of the greatest things we have invested the time into doing is making home movies. When Chloe was born I rushed out to best buy and purchased an actual video camera that recorded to SD memory cards. It's not technically "high definition" and most likely your cellphone will shoot better video in some circumstances BUT, it forces us to record things and it forces me to put it on DVD so we can watch it later. I understand that with a lot of families they have a kid and record a ton of stuff and then next thing you know kid #2 and #3 come along. Those kids(I'm told) have almost no pictures or videos of their stuff simply because there isn't time so in a weird way, we are afforded that time and I'm glad we have taken advantage of it. One of Chloe's favorite things to watch is old videos and I have to say, it's probably one of my favorite things, too.

So this year I would say has been completely different than any other year as far as Chloe's birthday is concerned. Last week we went to Disneyland essentially for Chloe's birthday. Leading up to that trip we talked it over with her and decided we wouldn't be having a big party on her birthday this year rather we would just do something low key with just our family and try to coordinate an outdoor party in the summer once the weather was better. This poor kid loves to swim and play outside and every year on her birthday we find ourselves locked inside somewhere. Last weekend on Chloe's actual birthday it turned out it was forecast to be the storm of the century so we decided to go bowling. We played a few games and went to Panera Bread (Chloe's choice) for lunch where we sang her happy birthday and had some cake. Custom ordered from Safeway, double chocolate per Chloe's request. lol.

The cake we basically had to order from Safeway and add the decorations ourselves. Chloe was set on having a "Secret Life of Pets" cake which of course doesn't exist. Lucky for us, Chloe has a bunch of perfect size toys we used to decorate the cake which she was totally fine with. Then after we were done with all that, we drove through the storm to the mall to return some stuff(or so that's what Chloe thought we were doing there). =)

Heather and I had planned on taking Chloe to get her ears pierced on her 7th birthday. Chloe has been asking for a while now but only recently(1st grade) has she expressed significant interest. We talked about it and it was never really said that she COULDN'T, but we never really said she could either so we figured no better time to surprise her than on her actual birthday. The last time we found ourselves at Claire's(at the mall) Chloe stood there and watched a girl get her ears pierced. This time, she would be that girl. She was nervous, but she immediately said she wanted to do it so we waited our turn and in just a few minutes, it was all over. No blood, no tears, just smiles and a happy to have her ears pierced Chloe.

Seven years. What an amazing and insane ride it has been so far. Looking forward to more crazy.

Have a great weekend, folks~

-B

A Very Disney New Year! - Jan 6

Hey, we have a great idea! DISNEYLAND! The last couple years we have made the trek down to Disneyland on or around Chloe's birthday so this year we were happy when they slid back the winter break schedule to include the first week of January. As it turns out, so were about 200,000 other people because the parks were absolutely jam packed. We have made a point over the last several years to visit the park in "off peak" times but apparently the off peak times are slowly starting not to exist. As they have steadily increased ticket prices and annual pass prices the idea was to decrease the number of visitors at any given time which seems counter intuitive but it has not worked. I have a feeling that as they have raised prices, it had the opposite effect which is that MORE people ended up buying the annual passes and then those people have justified the purchase price by visiting the park MORE often. I know we basically fell into that trap. We can go? Let's go! I have a feeling as time goes on, they will keep reducing the amount of days available for all but the most expensive passes, especially with the new Star Wars land opening(this year).

In just 2 days, Chloe will be turning *lucky number* Seven! I for one absolutely cannot believe how quickly it has flown by. I'm sure I have said that every year. We spend 2 full days in Disneyland and lucky for us we are pretty familiar with how to maximize our ride to wait time using well times "fast passes" otherwise we might not have been able to do anything considering the attendance. We have not been in the park when they have reached capacity(where they don't let more people in) but it really felt like they must have been pretty close. We had 2 days of nice weather and on the way out we drove through a lot of rain so we certainly lucked out at least with that. In a weird string of luck(I say it's because of Chloe's upcoming birthday) we literally rode in the front row of every roller coaster we got on. California Screamin, Big Thunder Mountain, Space Mountain. All of those Chloe rode in the first seat, first row. Fun!

Just sharing a random mix of photos taken, some with my camera and some with my phone. I wanted to experiment and just use my phone for 100% of the pictures I would take but in the end, I still don't think it's worth it for me. I like using my actual camera. =)

Have a great weekend~

-Brian