To Five Years!

Yesterday was our fifth wedding anniversary, so Lou and I celebrated today by going to Waffle House for lunch. Seriously! In case you think I'm kidding, here is a picture to prove it.

Here's the background story.  Nate and I talked yesterday while he was at a hole-in-the-wall, Indian restaurant in downtown Hong Kong.  He was super-excited about how good and cheap his meal (dal mahkni, chicken briyani, naan and two beers) was. To understand my story, its important to know that Nate and I enjoyed many a good Indian and Ethiopian meal in Uganda in 2008 and still enjoy cooking Indian food together.  So when he commented that his meal in Hong Kong would have been an appropriate anniversary dinner for us, he was spot on (and romantic...sigh).

Fast-forward about 18 hours to Louisa and me driving north on highway 85 through North Carolina. Louisa was acting as if she had a dirty diaper and I was hungry, so I started checking out my options on the green highway signs. When I saw a sign for Waffle House, I immediately dismissed it since I don't like breakfast for lunch, greasy food or chain restaurants. But something in me wanted to make an exception. Obviously chain restaurants are all but unavoidable on a un-planned road trip and greasy breakfast at 11:30 am sounded perfect. So we exited, parked, and ran through the rain for a warm meal.  The grits, bacon, raisin toast and eggs over-easy all tasted great and the coffee was decent. The waitress was really sweet with Louisa while taking our order and telling me about her triplet nieces that visited her last night. Just the word "triplets" made me realize that a 6-hour road trip with a toddler but without your husband - even on your anniversary - is easy easy easy.

A pause in the story for a warning: the ending to my story is not funny or surprising, although I know that is not why you read our blog, so I'll continue without further apology.

The ending is just that sometime during the journey from the Waffle House to DC, I realized that the reason I chose that particular greasy, chain, breakfast restaurant is because its totally the kind of place Nate would pick.  So despite the 12-hour time difference, we each celebrated our anniversary apart/together - he at a tiny Indian restaurant and me at Waffle House.  Happy fifth wedding anniversary, Nate.  You're an awesome husband and an amazing dad.

(For further proof of the amazing dad bit, check out the first picture in my last post, below)

DC Family & Carolina Friends

We've been on vacation, so I apologize for my absence from our blog.  We celebrated my dad's retirement from the US Navy and now we're in Durham, North Carolina visiting Adrienne, Paul and Geneva.  Erin drove up from Charlotte to be with us too! Lou and I drove down from DC yesterday, leaving Ries behind with Romeo, Oliver, Sarah and Dan. Nate left mid-week for China. Oh Apple.

Louisa (16 months) and Geneva (25 months) are both awake now, so we may take off for a mini-adventure of some sort, so for now, here are some pictures!

Lou pooped right as we all got assembled for the photo, so we had to get creative

The we excused the mobile babes and took a sibling + Oliver photo

Sharing a peach at the Durham farmers' market

Loving the Tub

Maybe it's because she's study the life of beluga whales so intently, or maybe it was the "parent and me" swim lessons, but whatever the reason, Louisa adores water.  Tonight she was being especially silly with Nate, while I vacuumed in the other bathroom...sorry about the high-pitched hum in the background....



Love to you all.  We miss you very much.

On Sale Today!

Nate's been bugging me to buy Loubear a kiddie pool for the back yard, so I finally did it today. I found one on Craigslist for $10, but that didn't seem cheap enough, considering that I would have to drive to Mountain View to pick it up. I also saw an ad for a free one, but it had a hole that the seller thought maybe I'd want to patch? Um, no thank you.

After some online shopping (ie, googling "rigid plastic kiddie pool") I wasn't coming up with much (in my price range) until I stumbled upon a suggestion to buy a doggie pool. Sure enough, our local PetSmart (1.36 miles west) had them in stock and ON SALE! How much, you might ask? Regularly $9.99 but on sale today for $7.99. That it what the PetSmart employee proudly announced when I asked where they were. What a steal.

Lou must have know what it was because she got excited when we bought it and even dragged it from the car into the backyard. After an evening bike ride to the dog park where we met Amanda and Andrew, she finally got to take a (skinny) dip. Since we haven't been taking her to any frisbee games this summer, the least I could do is let her use a frisbee as a pool toy, right?

"Lou, show Mom the frisbee"

Trying to understand the strategy sketched out on the back of the disc

Necklaces are a favorite accessory these days

Proud Mama

No pictures to share tonight, just a short story.

I knew I was experiencing my most proud moment as a mother today once I figured out exactly what was going on.  Louisa and I were at the grocery store, buying ingredients for these two recipes.  She was being particularly pleasant, sitting in the child-seat of the cart when we wheeled up to aisle 8 to pay for our food.

There was some confusion about flour tortillas - particularly which size was on sale - the 6 inch or the 10 inch, so we waited for at least seven minutes.  While we waited I made faces at Lou and tickled her chin and she giggled.  Then I turned  to read the covers of US Weekly and People when I heard, "ehh, ehh."  

That sound, said quietly and somewhat politely, in combination with a pointing finger, means, I want that.  My first thought was, seriously, how does she know how good candy bars are? But I turned and followed her finger to the toothbrush sale!  Just the fact that there were $0.98 toothbrushes for sale next to the candy was awesome, but the fact that Louisa wanted a toothbrush was so so so awesome that I bought her one.  I gave into her candy-aisle begging because in general, I want to do everything I can to encourage good dental hygiene.  Just ask Nate how strict I am about dental hygiene.  Strict.  When you have insurance, there is no reason not to go for a cleaning at least once per year.  But that is a rant for another post.

Oh Loubear, you made your mama proud.

All of the Raindrops

Louisa and I like to think that we brought the rain.  Of course, usually when you visit someone, they want you to bring sunshine, but everyone needs rain so much right now that we're happy with our choice of hostess gift.  And as for the rain spoiling our fun, it hasn't.  We're in Oconomowoc and mostly when it's not raining, it's been too hot to be outside, so rain is great!  It's been a nice visit, with plenty of time for long afternoon naps, visits with friends and evening baths.  Sarah and Oliver are here too.  These are the kind of visits that are oh-so-memorable.

Meanwhile, Nate is trekking around China for work.  The thirteen hour time difference is easy to figure out, so we've been able to use Facetime to talk.  Loubear digs that. Well, until she accidentally hangs up on Nate because she needs to be holding the iPod. Using the laptop is better, so we'll make sure to have it charged up from now on.  I'm glad we didn't decide to stay in California while he was gone.  It would have been long and lonely, I'm afraid.

On another note, I think you'll be glad to see that I finally updated our blog header.  We no longer live on an isthmus.  I thought about re-naming the blog Three Valley Girls and a MacDaddy, but I didn't get a chance to approve that with Nate before the big edit last night.  Actually, that is not true...I just thought of that title now.  If you have a good idea, leave a comment!

Baby Beluga in the deep blue sea

Louisa loves Baby Beluga, the happy arctic whale that swims in the warm waters with his mama.  Anne and Andrew got to have the song ingrained in their heads this weekend when they visited us in Campbell.  Andrew also pointed out a few inaccuracies in the lyrics.  Can you find them?  Louisa was timid around them both at first, but Anne soon inched her way into "favorite aunt" running by singing endless verses of Baby Beluga, as well as other songs such as Tender Shepherd, Powder Blue and Baby Duke of York.

On Saturday we all went to The Mystery Spot on our way down to Santa Cruz to visit the dog beach and a favorite restaurant, 515 Kitchen and Cocktails.  Then on Sunday we went to church together at the San Jose CRC, visited the Campbell Farmers' Market and went on a 12-mile (round-trip) bike ride to Los Gatos for their outdoor concert series.  We packed a picnic and enjoyed musical selections performed by the San Jose opera group.  We also posed for one of my all-time favorite pictures.  The second photo is pretty fun too:

It was such a nice visit and we can't wait to see them again!

Blue skies for me, blue skies for Lou

Not too much to say, but lots of cute pictures to share.  Yesterday I potted our herbs while Louisa napped and today we met some friends at the outdoor concert downtown Campbell.  Have I mentioned how much I love Campbell?  We can walk or bike everywhere we need to go and it's such a happening place.  People around here talk about how much they love Campbell too. They mostly talk about it's centrality...close to the mountains, the beach, and the city.  Today someone also boasted that it's reasonably priced (housing-wise) compared to the surrounding areas. Relatively speaking, I suppose that's true. And Nate just reminded me that we will probably never live somewhere with nicer weather than this.  I'm not very interested in finding a job these days and I blame the weather for that.  Maybe if it rains...

So anyway, the photos.  Our toddler-friendly herb garden:

Louisa loves to hang out on the back patio, so today while she explored, I snapped some pictures.  A few of my favorites:

Sing it, Louisa!

And finally, fun at the concert:

Hannah and Kate (Nate's co-worker's daughter and wife, also from WI)

Jacob, one of Lou's older boyfriends

Jacob and Heather

Clip clip here, snip snip there

I knew as soon as I got excited about my daily blogging that I would stop.  So, sorry about that.  It's probably better this way though, right?  Daily posts means too much for you to read.

Today was a productive day.  Ries got a snazzy new haircut which means I found a groomer that I like.  And the whole shebang costs only $10 more than it did in Madison.  Not bad.

I also went running with Louisa, which felt great.  I've been making excuses, but I really need to get back at it.  I feel good when I run and more importantly, I feel good after I run.  And we're training for a 9K in mid-September.  Yep, we're training.  It's a women's-only race that has a stroller division, so Louisa is an integral part of the training.  Abbie is flying out with her stroller and Mr. Max to run with us!

After the run, we had a nice lunch play-date with some more new friends - Karen and her 3 kids (almost 5, almost 3, and almost 1), Shelly and her daughter (16 months) and Jen and her kids (almost 3 and 3 months).  Very fun.  I met Karen at the church where her husband preaches: San Jose CRC.  We look forward to going back to this church soon!  I thought about bringing my camera so I'd have something for my post tonight, but wanted to make a good impression :)  So the photos above will have to do.

Tonight after Louisa went to bed, I finished her curtains.  Because she's sleeping, I didn't hang them yet, but here is a sneak preview:

We're on a Roll

Regan, a friend of ours from Madison, moved to Denmark with her family (husband and two boys) earlier this year.  I just learned of her blog - Three Years in Denmark and was inspired by her blogging skills...she posts daily!  So thanks to Regan's inspiration, we're on a roll.  I'm on a roll.  Makes me sing the song by Over the Rhine in my head while I get my daily blog on.

Today we:

1. walked to church
2. felt less than an instant bond to this particular church
3. walked to the farmers' market
4. bought herbs (mint, lemongrass, Italian parsley, silver thyme, Italian oregano and basil) for the empty pots in our sun-drenched backyard

After this morning excursion, Lou tried to nap but was apparently too excited to sleep.  Instead of napping, we loaded up the bikes and drove to Santa Cruz.  It was chilly there (65 degrees) but we were prepared with sweatshirts, so it felt nice.  "Its beach" is a off-leash dog beach and Ries had tons of fun.  Not to mention the fun Lou had.  Well, she had fun until she had her daily poop.  Then she was uncomfortable (see picture # 3 below). Nate saved the day by biking back to the car and getting her diaper bag.  I'm still amazed at the number of places I go without the essentials: wipes, cloth diaper, diaper cover, wet bag.  Someday I'll learn.

Good news!  I'm visiting Wisconsin soon because Nate is going to China for the first time.  See some of you soon!  Even better news!  Before we go to Wisconsin, we get to see Anne and Andrew!  They are coming this weekend after a visit with Andrew's sister and her fiancé.  Louisa can't wait to re-meet those funny faces in her favorite board book.

Making Ries pose for a picture with her biggest fan

Probably saying, "doggie"

Snuggling in close post-poop

Looking for dogs

Ries gets gotten by a golden doodle