Serra Park

On June 19th we decided to walk to Serra Park for some park time since we hadn't been there in a while. Since it was a pretty warm day, I told the kids we could take some extra clothes so that they could go into the water sprayers they have running there. We played on the toddler playground and then the big kid playground for about 45 minutes or so. 

Then the kids decided that they wanted to go into the water. So in they went. This was Grant's first time in the water and I wasn't sure how it would go, but he had a blast! Grant's favorite thing to do was to catch water in his bucket and then to dump it out, typically all down his front. Cecilia was running around trying to catch water in her bucket. Then she would come pour it on my feet for me. Both kids ended up soaked, but they had a lot of fun. We will probably try to go back again soon. Maybe Daddy can come with us next time too!

Cecilia's camp

Last week, Cecilia and Shayla went to a summer camp through the Sunnyvale Recreation Dept. They both had a lot of fun and it was nice to have some time one-on-one with Grant.

On Monday, Cecilia made a hat. She is really excited about it and wanted to show it off.

Unfortunately, they cancelled the camp for this week last Friday morning because of "low numbers", without giving the families that were enrolled a warning that they had to sign up by a certain day and time. So instead of camp this week, Cecilia got to have some time at home by herself with Daddy on Monday morning and a playdate with Shayla at our house on Wednesday. So I don't think that she really missed camp much. :)

Grant's duplo creations

On June 14th, Grant and Daddy made some pretty cool Duplo creations. They made a bus, a "cat bus" (after the cat bus in the movie Totoro), and a carport for them.

Grant runs across the bridge

Sous Vide Controller

Sometimes we have arts and crafts days at work. They're not sponsored or anything and cover the range from garden planters to floating fine art prints to making 3D models on a computer. This time, one of the managers decided to share how to build a sous vide controller.

Sous vide is a cooking technique where you put your meat in a tight freezer bag and submerge it in warm water for a long time. That way you can have a perfectly medium rare steak all the way through. Of course, afterwards, you should throw it in a frying pan to sear it up.

Anyway, the controller just measures temperature of the water and flips the crock pot on and off. (You need a cheap manual crock pot for this. Ours was digital, so I had to buy another.)

I'm excited to try it!

More pictures from the park

June 12, 2014

A night at the park with Daddy

On the 11th, we went over to the park with Daddy after dinner. Here we are all playing airplane.

Unfortunately, not long after that video, Grant fell again and scraped his elbow. He seems to fall and hurt himself a lot more than Cecilia did at the same age. Maybe it is because he is a little boy, or maybe it is because he wants to do EVERYTHING that Cecilia does. :)

This is one of Grant's favorite things to do lately. He lays on whatever (a bench, chair, etc.) and then pulls his feet and legs up in the air. 

Cecilia learns how to go across the monkey bars

This spring, Cecilia learned how to going across the monkey bars and has been practicing ever since. We haven't posted many (or possibly any) videos of her doing it, because she wanted to be able to go all the way across. But now she can go all the way across, so I put together a bunch of the videos to show her progression. It is a long video though, to warn everyone.

So much for "Knee high by the 4th of July"!

How about  like 4 1/2 ft by the 10th of June?

Grant in the pink hat

Later on the 9th when we were over at Nimitz, Grant put on Cecilia's hat and wouldn't take it off. He can't stand his own hat and refuses to wear it, but was so excited to get to wear "Ceya's" hat. Looks like I need to get him his own pink hat if I want him to wear one in the sun...

Playing in the pool

On the 9th, it was pretty hot out and we were trying to stay in the shade, so we decided to try out the new pool that I had bought a couple of weeks before that. The kids had a blast and are really excited to have their own pool to swim in the backyard, at least until they saw a bee. Then they couldn't get out of the pool and away from the bee fast enough. 

BBQ

On July 8, we had a BBQ and board games day at our house. It had been a while since we had this group of friends over, so it was good to see everyone. Chad made half of his pork butt into pulled pork. You can see the "before" picture below. 

Here is a photo of some of the food. This was after a lot of it had been eaten. We had pulled pork with spicy mustard sauce, coleslaw, honeydew, grilled veggies, chicken thighs with sriracha and sweet Thai chili,  veggie "burgers", artichoke dip with bread, brats, hot dogs, haloumi (a cheese) with balsamic vinegar and strawberries, various types of crackers and cheese, vanilla pudding with bananas, chocolate chip cookies, beer, lemonade, pop, iced tea, and probably some other things that I am forgetting about.

Some photos of some of the games being played