Chessmaster in the making.

Ezra and Dad playing chess with Arlo observing... time lapse video... I lose my queen at time point 0:40.  Sorry for the poor quality...

Tahoe

We had a great time heading up to Tahoe with our friends Debbie, Andrew, Jacob, and Peter in June.  We took the lifts for some great hiking, went to the pool, the kids tried and Ezra enjoyed sushi for the first time, and Rach/Ez tried rollerskating.  Rach enjoyed.  Ezra skated in place and then enjoyed ice cream.

Ezra's riding a 2 wheeler!

County Fair

We chatted up storm troopers, rode lots of fun rides, got taken in by a carnie at tubs o fun, watched some hog racing, looked at weird looking turkeys, and lived it up at the County Fair!

Pixar

Here are a few of our visit to Pixar Studios:)

Arlo turns 2, turns into a superhero, and goes to his first As game

 Life has been lots of fun here.  The boys are playing together all the time.  Their favorite game is to go "duh duh duh duh" and make other superhero theme song noises and strike a superhero pose (see above).  Arlo is talking a lot now and the boys are playing and having conversations all the time.  We had a great party at our house for Arlo's 2nd birthday. Water balloons were a big hit.  Then later that week we took Arlo to his first As game, and Stomper came to visit.  This started a major baseball obsession for Arlo.  The kid is a slugger and can really knock it off the T-ball stand.  He really gets into a deep squat for his at bat.  And lots of time, the first words he says in the morning are bat, ball, and homerun.  He always wants to look at the MLB app on my ipad.  We've started taking the tball set to the park on Thursdays for some good afternoon baseball time with the family.  Sometimes I just take a nap in left field.  Fun times!

Yosemite 2013

Holy moly.  Little Papa came to visit and we took a 3-day trip to Mariposa and Yosemite and had a blast!  It is so unbelievably beautiful!  Our house was fantastic...lots of beautiful outdoor space and vistas and a great back porch with outdoor eating.  We spent the first day in the valley, and really had a great day with the boys.  We walked to lower falls & Vernal halls, and Ezra did a really great job hiking -- made it all the way to Vernal.  Arlo slept well in the hiking backpack, although was awake for the walk in and the falls.  The next day we went to the south entrance and rode the Sugar Pine Rlrd and went panning for cold.  A sweet slow talking feller taught us how to pan for gold and warsch out the rubble real well.  That was a lot of fun, and we went to the Sequoia grove afterwards and got to see some huge trees, but unfortunately, we pushed Arlo too hard and he was too pooped for another hike -- did not want to sleep in a backpack two days in a row, and I guess you can't blame him!  Last day we spent throwing rocks in the Merced river and walking around.  Oh, and this was after Caro, Ezra and I did some morning boot camp at the house.  The boys like to climb on my back when I'm trying to do push-ups.  Makes it kind of challenging.

It was really nice to grill food and eat outside at night on our porch.  A great trip.  We also got to listen to the musical stylings of Ezra in the car-ride.  "Zippity doo dah, zippity ay.  My oh my what a wonderful day.  Plenty of sunshine heading my way.  Zippity doo dah, zippity ay.  Mr. Bluebird on my shoudler.  It's the truth.  It's actual.  Everything is sexual."  Yup, that's right.

Arlospeak

Arlo's at that fun age where he is starting to talk more and more.  And he kind of has his own little language.  Some examples:  Nap=yes or yup.  Bow=cat (trying to say meow).  Woof=dog.  Weird breathy snore sound=sleep.  So if Arlo says bow snore sound, you know he is trying to tell you the cat is sleeping.  Right now, as I try to write this blog he is saying "all done, all done" meaning mom, get off the dang computer.  And "push push" which means let me pound on the keyboard please and get out of my way!  Ahhhh, the joys of language acquisition!

Spring Break in Cabo

We had a great vacation to Cabo San Lucas, at the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula in Mexico.  Mostly, we swam and rode down a 30 foot long waterslide in the shape of a killer whale.  But we also played tennis and went whale-watching and ate a bunch and saw sea lions...