Bike Ramp

The boys have been riding bikes a lot lately and they love to jump off the curbs in the neighborhood, which drives me crazy as it’s not always possible to see if cars are coming. So, you know, of course Bruce decided to build them a real bike ramp so they could jump in a safe place.

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Ezra helped, too.

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Apparently, no bikes are necessary.

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Ah, but bikes make it even more fun.

And slo-mo makes it even better.

Labor Day Yosemite Trip

We spent Labor Day weekend with the SoCal Moisions at Yosemite (thanks to Vanessa for grabbing the reservations!). It was, surprisingly, our first trip there. We were stunned by both the beauty and the crowds. Gah! The crowds!

But let’s stick with the beauty.

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It’s impossible to even capture the scale of it. Needless to say, we had a great time. So nice to see family!

We did some bike riding.

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Sword fighting.

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Whittling.

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Water play.

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Hiking and climbing.

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And, hey look! Here are the adults!

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Uncle Bob made a pineapple upside down cake.

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Camping with the SoCal Moisions is good for many reasons … including the food which is always much more elaborate than anything we do!

Great trip! More pictures here.

Google Cardboard

Some Google engineers developed a way to bring the virtual reality experience to the masses. It’s called Cardboard and Bruce brought one home a couple of months ago. Basically, you just download a free app and put your smart phone (Android only, of course) in it and “walk around” in another world.

My photos don’t do it justice — all three of these Moisions looked super silly and had a great time in the VR world.

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Another New School

The first day of school at Fairmeadow (in mid-August, which is weird for us) gave us the opportunity to ride our bikes to school along with many of the neighborhood kids. It’s a little over a mile to get there, about half of it through the park on a bike path so quite pleasant. There’s plenty of bike parking at school.

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I tried to be a good mom and get a nice shot of the boys before they went to their classrooms. This about sums up their desire to be going back to school in August.

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This one’s a little better. At least someone is smiling.

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Here’s a Hyperlapse video of our bike commute. It isn’t from the first day of school, but seems appropriate for this post anyway.

Discovery Museum with Friends

In mid-August just before school started, I made a plan with my friend Elizabeth to meet at the Bay Area Discovery Museum just north of San Francisco in Sausalito. It was fun to take another trip over the Golden Gate Bridge and the kids had a fun day. I don’t have many pictures because I was busy gabbing with Elizabeth — we also had a fun day.

They played outside in the playground for a while and really enjoyed this boat.

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They liked this area where they could paint on the windows, too.

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There were lots of other hands-on exhibits reminiscent of Kidspace in Pasadena. Another great day of hanging out with old friends!

Kites, Bikes & Lunch

In an effort to take advantage of a few of the things we have access to here, in August I took the boys on a bike ride over to the bay where we had lunch at the Lakeside Cafe by Shoreline Lake. Then we biked over to the kite flying area and flew kites for a while. Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers — a man who knew how to work Ezra’s kite noticed us struggling to get it set up and helped us get started.

Finn’s kite — one that he made in school last year — is remarkably easy to fly. Unfortunately, while I was helping Ezra, Finn decided to let it fly itself and put the string under his backpack. Of course, the kite took off and all I saw was Finn running after the runaway (flyaway?) kite. It eventually got hooked on the power lines.

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Bruce rode over from Google to join us for a bit, and he looked for Finn’s kite on the way back but to no avail. Ezra’s kite, however, while harder to fly is easier to keep track of and made it safely home. Here’s a picture of it with the magnificent sky we had that day (along with the mysterious blue dot that shows up on some iPhone photos).

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Google[x] Picnic

OK, let’s get this out of the way first since it will be obvious by the pictures here: We finally let Ezra have his mohawk. Bruce did a very thorough job, even using a regular razor to shave the sides completely.

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Now, on to the regular post. On August 8th, Google[x] had an afternoon picnic for employees and their families, our first Googley event. There were food truck and carnival games, along with some [x] swag, and we all had a great time. The kids brought home tons of prizes and ate/drank a bunch of sugar — a perfect day for them.

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San Francisco in August

We took a weekend staycation in San Francisco in August with the intent of getting to know the city a little better. While I was unprepared for how cold it was, the scenery sure was lovely! Here’s one view from our hotel the day we arrived.

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And here’s the same shot the next morning … a little foggy!

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Here are some images of our exploration.

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One of the highlights was a boat tour which took us under the Golden Gate and over around Alcatraz. It was a freezing but very informative, touristy thing to do.

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We also spent a good amount of time at the penny arcade and took a set of photo booth pictures.

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On Sunday morning we met up with the Stevenson/Saveri clan who happened to be visiting as well. We got to see Elizabeth’s childhood home and neighborhood and had a delicious breakfast close by.

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Then we let the kids run around outside the Palace of Fine Arts building which is right across the street from Elizabeth’s house — not a bad place to grow up!

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Obviously, these four hooligans take picture-taking very seriously.

There were some great trees to climb, too.

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Ezra would have stayed here all day …

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… but alas, it was soon time to stay goodbye to friends and head back home.

Laguna in July

With the busy-ness of the new school year, the summer feels like a distant memory, but way back in July the boys and I spent a peaceful, warm week with the Bannings in Laguna. There is something so relaxing about this spot (even with the stress of Ezra looking like he’s going to fall over the side of the deck).

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Ezra was definitely in his happy place all week — with Chester.

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Of course, we spent lots of time at the beach with the kids digging, running and jumping in waves until complete exhaustion set in.

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We had Jack, Theo and Olivia (and their moms) join us for a playful day. Jack buried Ezra.

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And Finn spent a little time with the ladies …

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There was also some LEGO involved.

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During the week we also did some kayaking, biking, roller blading, a little school on the deck …

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… and lots of ice cream eating.

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Bruce joined us at the end of the week and we were able to spend Saturday afternoon with the Bondsmiths and take part in a little celebration for Jenner’s birthday.

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It was a great week of time spent with such good friends. We are grateful to the Bannings for their generosity!

I have more photos and a few videos here.

Tootho and Mootho Visit Palo Alto

Finn lost another tooth in July and Tootho and Mootho came to visit again. Ezra left them a note and some LEGOs to play with. Here is his note with all the responses.

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It was hard to capture but Tootho and Mootho put strings up all over the living room and “flew” the toys on the strings.

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I love that both boys are totally uninterested in the money left and only want to see what hijinks ensued with Tootho and Mootho. (Come to think of it, maybe that’s because the Tooth Fairy only leaves them a dollar.)