Obamicon yourself!

Someone sent me a link to a cool/fun website where you can make an Obama-like icon from your own picture which mirrors the now somewhat famous pictures used during his campaign.

You can try it here: http://obamiconme.pastemagazine.com/

I found a picture of Julia I could use and made her her very on Obama icon (whom she would have voted for had she been able to vote)

Little swimmers

The kids have been taking swimming lessons pretty consistently for 2-3 years now and are all water safe around pools. Over the last year they have been lucky enough to be at the world famous International Swim Center in Santa Clara where many a great Olympian has trained. They are currently in a class on Fridays and are all still enjoying it. The teaching is first class and they really stress technique and strokes so much so that that Lea can easily swim multiple lengths of our Junior Olympic length pool in our neighborhood.

We will evaluate Julia and Lea for pre-competitive swim lessons this fall. Very exciting! Lea seems to have the energy and aptitude for it. I am not sure how interested Julia is.

Here are a couple of fun pictures of them getting ready for their lesson last week. Currently the swim in a bubble over one of the outdoor pools however if they move up to the next level they swim outdoors year round. Brrr!

Lea

All kids!

Julia

Pictures from Bear Valley

I was finally able to download some of the pictures from our Bear Valley trip over MLK weekend. We had a great trip and though I am no Jean-Claude Killy out there we had plenty of fun and will almost surely (stop calling me Shirley) go back.

John-Lea and Julia

Nicolas in gear

Me on the mountain

A snow bunny named Mel!

A grand day out!

Kids in ski school

Julia ready for school!
Julia post graduation skiing on her own!

Off the running wagon

I'm not sure if it has been the somewhat rainy weather this year, or the long nights or for some other reason but I have completely fallen off of the running wagon. I have probably been on 4 runs this year (although they were all 4 miles or more).

Now this definitely goes counter to one of my previously unstated new years resolutions around losing 15lbs and my eating habits seem to have gone the wrong way too!

Time to tighten the belt and get back after it!

Wow I could get use to this!! - Courtside

Last night around 6pm I was just finishing up at work when my friend Steve called me to let me know he had an extra ticket for that nights Golden State Warriors vs. Oklahoma City Thunder basketball game. I was initially thinking I could not go for logistical reasons but then he told me they were COURTSIDE seats I found a way to go. These were once in a lifetime (at least my life) seats so I was glad I did. These seats normally retail for $1800 a piece and I got mine for free!!! The image at the right is the actual ticket I had for the game.

The seats were phenomenal!! At the Oracle arena there are 4 court side seats between the scoring table and the visitors bench and we had those four seats! I literally sat next to the visiting teams coaches as they watched the game. We were able to talk to the players and the coaches sometimes even during the game. The view needless to say was amazing. You could see, hear and smell the game. You could see nuances lost to any other vantage point. I did not think that my Fiesta Bowl experience would be topped (at least from a sport seating stand point) but it was.

Because we were next to the visitors bench that also meant that the TV cameras were often on us. In fact my co-worker JT who had dropped me off at the game went home and put it on the TV and was instantly able to see me. He snapped a photo of the screen with his iPhone and sent it to me at the game. Here is the picture, the blue spot next to the court and visitors is me sitting there happily drinking a beer. If you could zoom in very far you would be able to see a smile from ear to ear!!

I also almost forgot to mention one of the coolest things and that is that Kevin Durant plays for the Thunder. Kevin Durant was a freshman star at the University of Texas and because he was so close I was able to give a Hook 'Em Horns sign to him and he gave one back to me! Pretty Cool!

Wow amazing!!

Bear Valley Fun

Last weekend we had a wonderful trip to the mountains! Just great! We stayed in a 'rustic' cabin in Big Trees Village with our friends Steve and Jen. Very cozy! We were able to go skiing in on Sun including getting the kids on the hill for the first time. This was my first time in 15 years and Mels first in 10. After their lessons we took them up the bunny hill. Julia and Lea could make it down pretty well and Nicolas went down a couple times holding on to John's ski poles. They all really loved it. It was a beautiful day in the snow and people were skiing in t-shirts! Very nice, family oriented place (Bear Valley).

I definitely thing we will go back!

Here are a bunch of videos from the weekend. We also took a day and went sledding at a defunct ski hill. What is really great about the sledding is that we had every combination of adult and kid going down the hill enjoying the sledding together!

































After sledding, we went back to the cabin, ate lunch and relaxed. Then slowly cleaned up and left to come home around 4:30. We had a long dinner stop in Arnold and the kids fell asleep on the way home. The whole drive back with traffic and one potty break took 3 hours! WAY better than Lake Tahoe (which is 5+). A much easier drive and cabins and skiing are both a ton cheaper. So it will be the place to go for the snow from now on. Really great! Have a lot of pics to post when I have a chance.

A google this and a google that...

Recently our kids of become fond of quantifying and comparing things. I am not sure if this is just a natural curiosity or something that occurs as a result of their learning slightly more advanced math at school. Often when they are quantifying it can become competitive, not surprising really.

So you will often hear "oh yeah well I have 10 and you have 5" or "I've been to the movies 3 times" etc. etc. When this occurs the numbers often escalate and the kids will raise the numbers to bigger and bigger amounts to one up each other.

They recently realized that the search engine they know daddy and mommy use (and a few others I suppose) called Google is also a very large number. Now technically the number is spelled googol and represents 1 with 100 zeros but that is just a detail. So whenever one of them wants the ultimate trump on how many xxx (insert random seemingly meaningless thing here) they will say "oh yeah well I've got a google!" They also often ask me to help quantify that for them. For example they ask me if there are a google "ants" in the world (don't think so) or if we had a google sheets of paper how high would that be? Answer pretty darn high.

So they run around talking all the time now about a google this and a google that. It's pretty funny!

I have not yet tried to explain the concept of infinity as I am having too much fun listening to them talk about a google.

Oh yeah and they also ask me if we had a google dollars would I still work. Answer, duh!

No apparent image problems

I was just eaves dropping on the morning breakfast conversation going on amongst the kids only to discover that Lea does not appear to have any image problems whatsoever.

She was describing a dream she had last night where they were at a park with a bunch of kids who were dividing up into teams, the dolphins and the bears (I was recently corrected by Julia who periodically reads my blog, the other team was the whales). Nicolas and Julia were already on the dolphins but both teams wanted Lea, who was apparently amongst the last to be picked.

She said both teams wanted her because she was "smart and athletic and beautiful"!!

Now as a parent you can help but be happy that you children have this kind of positive image! Of course we also know that playground team picking doesn't work this way, the athletic and cool kids get picked first! :)

I love summer in California, no wait!!!

We have had some unseasonably warm weather here the last few days which are reminiscent of of early summer Yesterday the highs were in the mid 70s and there were people out in shorts and t-shirts. Even us east coast transplants would like to see a bit more winter than this!!

This also does not bode well for our upcoming trip to go skiing! I guess there is always man made snow...

Hook 'Em Horns!! Fiesta Bowl Champs!

Well I just got back from an amazing experience watching the Horns come from behind to win the 2009 Fiesta Bowl with 16 seconds to go. I met my good friends Richard, Rudi and David in Phoenix on Sunday night and we started the festivities immediately. Here is a picture of us at the game.

We had a fantastic time! We arrived at the game 2 hours early so that we could watch the entire pregame activity including warm-ups and other pre-game ceremonies. Our seats are the best I've ever had (thanks Richard!) on the 40 yd line row 19!!!

We took quite a few pictures with Richard and David's camera's and Richard has loaded them up quickly.

Click here to see more pictures. We will have more pictures from the game soon!

Hook 'Em Horns!!

Disaster avoided! (tongue in cheek)

Over the weekend we were extremely fortunate to avoid a major home disaster. For some unknown reason our old family friend, reliable babysitter, provider of much entertainment and distraction yes our TV decided to stop working!! The kids were distraught! Beside themselves completely!! All they could do is moan "what will we do?" "What WILL we DO!?"

Fortunately a family friend Val was visiting us for dinner and as it turns out she had an extra TV and was willing to part with it in exchange for our 2 kid bike trailer so that she can take her dog on longer walks.

Whew!!

Happy New Year!!

I hope everyone has a fantastic 2009! We rang in the new year with a bang by having a party for about 50 friends and family at our house. We are still working to clean up this morning from all of the great food we had but I will say that the Jambalaya was a hit (thanks mom for the recipe!). We nearly polished off a triple recipe.

Here are a few videos from the evening, from around the peak of attendance until (very) late at night.

Lot's of people chatting and enjoying themselves. The 20+ kids were spread around the house and the two babysitters we had were a good investment because they kept the peace and watch kids for 3 hours giving all of the adults some nice time to relax.



Lots of kids!!



Nicolas makes it to midnight!



Now it's really late and Jannel is still going!