Farmers Market

The Los Altos Farmers Market is back for the summer and we've decided to make it a Thursday night tradition. It's fun to walk down the street sampling fresh fruits, veggies, and other delicious treats. We watched a guy make naan by flattening dough balls and sticking them on the inner wall of a large metal drum. Did you know that's how it's made? For dinner we ate fresh corn on the cobb.

Burn Baby, Burn

Our favorite hiking place, which is known to all as "the dish" caught fire yesterday. The dish is located in the foothills above Stanford University and used to be a series of meandering paths, some of which lead to two large satellite dishes. About 7 years ago they closed of the majority of the area for environmental reasons and created one long paved loop which has become wildly popular for hikers and joggers. The loop is a little over 3 miles long, and has some pretty steep hills that will kick your butt and amazing scenery and wildlife to go along with it. On clear days you can see all the way to San Francisco.

We loaded up the kids and drove as close to the fire as we could to watch the helicopters and planes dropping loads of water on the fire. It was most entertaining, but the whole time I wondered what happened to those little oak tree sapling I helped plant back in high school to replace others destroyed in a previous fire. Sigh.

Foot Fetish

Ava's first footsteps in the beach.

Most people feel indifferent about them. Some people think they're gross. But some people love them. I'm talking about feet, of course, and Tyler is in the "love 'em" camp. At least when it comes to my feet and our girls feet. That is why we have photo documentation of our feet from the time that Tyler got his first digital camera. I'll spare you pictures of my own feet, but I have to agree with Tyler that our girls have scrumptious feet. Here are my favorites.

Ava's newborn feet.

Lilly's newborn feet.

Lilly's feet poking out of the crib at night.

New Movie Reviews

If you noticed, on the right hand column of my blog is a link to another page with movie reviews. I added a few new posts over the last two days, so check it out if you want (no pressure).

A funny side story about one of the films: There is a new theater in Redwood City that we like going to. It's close, in a newly renovated part of downtown, has nice stadium seating, and is situated right next to a store that sells just cream puffs (mmmm....). The only downside is that it's in a place that attracts an interesting crowd at times. We were never more aware of this than the time we went to see The Host. The girl selling us the tickets actually tried to talk us out of seeing the movie because it's subtitled!

Girl: You know it's a Korean movie.
Us: Yes, we'll have two tickets.
Girl: It's subtitled.
Again we assured her that this is the film we wanted to see.
Girl: Well, some people go in there, not realizing it's subtitled, and decide they want to see something else.

Two Things

Ava's been doing two funny things today. The first is that she's been peeing her pants all day long. At first I thought maybe she's just tired or having a little regression, until I noticed that every time she had an accident, she'd run upstairs and change into an entirely different outfit, shoes and all, and come back downstairs looking like she's hot stuff. The accidents were allowing her to play dress-up.

The second thing is that she's been playing funny make-believe games. I broke down some packaging in the garage for recycling this morning and it kept her busy all day. Mostly she's been building a dog house for Tato and a piano. Then she started giving us presents. She sticks her hand in her shirt, under her armpit, and pulls out all sorts of pretend "surprises," including candy bracelets and different flavors of bubble gum. I wish I had an imagination that kept me busy all day.

Tahoe in the Spring

We have a family tradition to travel to Lake Tahoe every Memorial Day weekend, as it usually coincides with my mom's birthday. One of the greatest things about Tahoe is that it offeres two entirely different vacation places, depending on what time of year you go. It's always fun to go in the winter when it's snowing so you can ski, sled, and just stay cozy by the fire, but its even better when there isn't snow and you can boat, hike, and ride bikes. Here are some pictures of the fun things we did over the weekend.

Throwing rocks on the beach.

Walking the path along the shore to "dog beach." Tato thought the water was too cold to swim.

Hiking the Rubicon Trail from Emerald Bay.

Brother-in-law bonding (a.k.a. golfing).

Eating clams at Camp Richardson. Ava loved opening the shell, eating the meat, and sucking the juices out - eww!

Roasting Marshmellows

Spending time with daddy.

Riding on Pa's boat.