Sun River! - Jun 26

All last week as you may have heard we were up a few hours north in Oregon. We spent a few days with our friend Ali and her family then we spent the rest of the time at a resort of sorts called "Sun River". Essentially, it's a city in and of itself full of properties and things to do and see along with miles of bike trails and golf courses. Essentially, with the exception of my brother and his family, my entire extended family was in attendance including all of my Aunts, their kids(my cousins) and their kids(Chloe's 2nd cousins). We spent the week visiting family and Chloe basically got to hang out with all of her 2nd cousins and just had the greatest time. She thought every single one of them was there to be her best friend it was the cutest thing. All of my cousins each have 2 kids all of various ages from about 1 year old to 11ish years old and everywhere in between. Chloe got to ride a pony, swim in a giant pool, ride in a canoe, look at stars through gigantic telescopes, play for hours on end and generally stay up late and have a great time. Oh how could I forget, the grand finally was making S'mores on the last night which Chloe has been asking to do for WEEKS. LOL. It was great to see all of our family together really for the first time since my Grandmother passed away.
I just plucked a few photos from the trip to share, many more to go through and probably more to share. Have a great weekend, folks! =)

-B

The Oregon Trail - Jun 19

The Oregon trail, no longer just a horrible green screen computer game we played in school when we were kids. (This, depends on your age if you will remember this). I have been making jokes all week about hugging trees and not paying sales tax...and oh by the way you cannot pump your own gas! Yep, we are in Oregon.

My internet is limited and my photo upload capabilty from my camera is basically none so I won't be posting a bunch of photos although I have taken a ton. Our first stop was to visit our friend Ali and her family for a few days this week(thanks for the hospitality!). Oregon is..beautiful! I can see why they like it here. On Tuesday I went to pick up a few take and bake pizzas and they were $10 each. The girl says to me, that'll be $20 and I was like WHUUUAAAAAAT?!? But seriously, it's really nice here. We spend a few days bugging Ali and her family and on Wednesday we spend another half day in the car to our next destination, Sun River! It's like, this insane resort town thing that as far as I can tell is the size of San Ramon. Almost our entire living family is here includings Aunts, cousins, 2nd cousins, I dunno. Chloe is in HEAVEN with more kids to play with than she even knows that to do with. It's been super great to see our family we haven't seen in forever and we have a few more days here to explore and relax.

Anyway, I'll post more next week when I can sort and resize my photos properly. Thank you again Ali and with that just one photo to share. Have a great weekend, folks =)

B

Last Day of Pre-K - Jun 12

Kindergarten.

Maybe it just seems like we just started this preschool thing but after two years, so much has changed and Chloe is super excited for what's next. When we were looking for a preschool I remember visiting one school and feeling very "meh" about it and just hoping we would find somewhere great for Chloe. When we toured Chloe's (current) preschool, I just had a good feeling about it(and of course I had no idea what would be in store for us). I never would have expected to be able to be as involved with the school as I ended up being and I really got to see more than I ever thought I would. Whether by luck or by fate, Chloe's teachers both years were very much the right people for the job. The level of patience it takes to be a preschool teacher ranks in the levels of sainthood if you ask me. Chloe was excited to go to school every single day and she absolutely loved to learn whatever there was to learn. I hope that is something that continues for as long as it possibly can.

The birth of summer vacation brings just a few short months before Chloe will start Kindergarten. Chloe has already planed out her entire summer basically filled with play dates with her friends, multiple visits to the pool and even wants to go to the (Pleasanton) fair and Disneyland. There are already a few planned park play dates with people from her new school so I'm sure there will be no shortage of things to do. Next week we will be making the journey up to Oregon for what could be called a family reunion of sorts. Most of our extended family will be up there and it will be a good opportunity for Chloe to play with all her little 2nd cousins and all of our families can catch up. SUMMER!

Have a great weekend, folks~

-B



























These are a few of Chloe's little school friends, Olivia, Sophie, & Mickey all of them are going to (different) Kindergartens next year..


and Chloe's First and Last day of school this year...

I Love You To Pieces! - Jun 5

Thursday at Chloe's school was not only her 3rd to last day this year but also their Fathers' day celebration. Fathers' day isn't for another few weeks or whatever but of course school is over next Tuesday so this is what they do. I understand from being at the school for the last 2 years that I am in a completely different boat as far as my level of involvement and knowledge of the school. This morning would be the first time that many of the other dads have even seen the school this year so it was neat to see all the kids be excited to have their dads around for the day. The kids practiced and prepared 2 songs to sing and the teachers made a continental type breakfast and we got to eat with the kids. All in all a fun day as we wind down the end of the year. I brought my camera and tried not to shoot tons of photos but I did snap a few.

Have a great weekend, folks~
-B