2 Videos of the kids playing
December 31st, 2009 / posted by Jake
This first video is of Tyler and me playing catch followed by Kaitlyn showing off the house Santa brought her. Apparently at about the 1:00 mark, some midget-fairy came into the room and started talking for a few seconds, in case you were wondering whose high-pitched voice that was.
As was mentioned earlier, I taught Tyler how to ride his bikes without training wheels Thanksgiving day 2009. At the time, he had a small beginners bike and a bike that was slightly too big for him. Even though he could ride both on his own, the small one was falling apart and the only way for him to dismount from the bigger bike was to fall off it completely. So Santa rescued him by bringing him a medium sized bike.
Note: Sorry for the quality of the videos. they were taken with my camera phone. Luckily Santa brought me a real video camera.
Winter is finally here so bring on the fun!
December 22nd, 2009 / posted by Jake
While eating at our favorite food joint two weeks ago, Costa Vida, Tyler was monkeying around and face planted into the edge of a table there. Lindsey took him to the ER because he was bleeding profusely from his mouth. The doctor said his upper teeth ALMOST went through his lower lip and the hole made was pretty big and will take some time to heal. He didn’t receive stitches but was given medicine to help with the healing process.
2 weeks after we finished unpacking and organizing everything in our new home we were pleased to have our friend Amanda and her son Brandon stay with us for a few weeks. Unfortunately because of my work schedule, I wasn’t able to provide much entertainment for them during normal hours however Lindsey was able to and boy did they remain busy! San Francisco, the Zoo, the Aquarium, shopping, Christmas decorating, the park & playgrounds, site seeing, to name just a few events they had planned. During this same time an English friend of mine from my mission in Holland came and stayed with us for a few days which was also fun. I enjoy hearing proper English and having an opportunity to make fun of us fat Americans with him.
This last Friday night after work, we drove down to Southern California to visit Lindsey’s family for 2 days which was a blast. They received a ton of presents and were able to enjoy seeing Grandma’s and Grandpa for the weekend. We made the drive back Sunday evening which was unfortunate because it would have been nice to stay for a week or so but we’ll have to plan it better next time we visit. Even though the drive to and from was boring and seemed to take forever, I still prefer driving to flying because it’s much faster and efficient.
As of last week, Lindsey is officially a stay at home mom! She quit her job as a property manager of 5 years and now spends her days entertaining and teaching the kids. I told her I expect 7 course meals to be hot and ready the moment 6:00 pm hits each and every day. I’ve yet to have this happen and realized in order for this to work I would then be required to actually goto the grocery store and buy groceries. This of course I’ve been procrastinating for almost 2 weeks now out of pure laziness so I guess I’ll have to do my part tonight to get this ‘habit’ started.
Update: Over the Thanksgiving break, I took the training wheels off Tyler’s bikes and taught him how to ride a bike! He was very cautious at first but once he gained confidence there was no stopping him. Every chance he gets, he’s outside riding his bike up and down the court trying to keep up with the other kids on their bikes. It was a lot of fun teaching him and then seeing him actually do it!
I recently went to a concert put on by my favorite band of all time – Metallica. It was hands down the best concert ever. They played Fade to Black even. I’m ready to bring Tyler next time.
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Moving, Halloween, and Birthday!
November 23rd, 2009 / posted by Jake
We are now home owners! We finally moved into our new home the first weekend of November. We’ve tried our hardest to unpack everything so that we don’t fall into the moving trap where boxes remain unpacked for months, years even. The kids have made friends with the other neighborhood kids which has made it all worth it! A day hasn’t gone by where Tyler and Kaitlyn aren’t playing outside with everyone or everyone’s over at our house playing with the kids. This has helped Lindsey and I focus on other things while the kids play and enjoy themselves.
I’m calling this last Halloween, my first Halloween with the kids. Last year I was in a mandatory EMT class all-day and by the time it was over, the kids had already done their trick-or-treating and gone to bed which bummed me out. The year prior, Tyler was 10 months old and Kaitlyn wasn’t even born so we didn’t consider that their first Halloween, or at least their first Halloween where they can actually move on around on their own. So this Halloween was extra fun for me to watch them run around ringing door-bells and collecting candy. Tyler was up to his usual antics as he was more concerned with being the one to ring the door bell than he was with receiving the candy. In fact, when another kid rang the doorbell before Tyler could, Tyler began crying and refused to accept the candy from the woman at the door. Perhaps this is a sure sign that he’ll be an engineering genius? It was cute watching Kaitlyn collect her candy because as the youngest, she was always playing catch up with everyone else in the group. So while they were leaving a home, Kaitlyn was just running up (with me of course) saying “dad, wait. dad, wait”. There were a few times where Kaitlyn fell behind due to the fact that she was trying to unwrap a piece of candy and stuff it in her mouth. Tyler dressed up as an Alligator/Dinosaur (I can’t tell which one it is) and Kaitlyn went as a princess.
Kaitlyn and I both celebrated our birthdays this month. Kaitlyn turned 2, and I turned 28. As I age closer to 30, I try and think back to how quickly it seems time has gone and before I know it 60 will be here. I have a lot of memories of my youth and I often draw on these to trick myself into thinking I’m still young. It seems like yesterday that I was digging tunnels to China with Jeff in his backyard or playing hide-n-go-seek at night for my 10th birthday with everyone in our backyard. Anyway, we celebrated at my parents house with home-made tacos, a cake the kids made for me, and of course gifts & cards from everyone. It was a lot of fun and the kids were excited to show me the cake they had made which was the best part.
Overtime we’ve developed nicknames for Tyler and Kaitlyn – some have been typical nick names, while others have seemingly come out of nowhere but stuck. One of Tyler’s nick names is ‘brother bear’ and Kaitlyn has taken heart to using this when referring to Tyler. However instead of ‘brother bear’ she just calls him ‘bear’ which is pretty cute. We’re not sure why she went for this particular name with him because she can say Tyler and brother. Also when we ask Kaitlyn what her name is she promptly responds, “2″.
We’ve taken additional photos of our home for family who live out of town to see. To view the pictures, follow this link. When prompted for a password, simply type in our last name.
San Diego and Disneyland
October 18th, 2009 / posted by Jake
We recently took a 10 day vacation to the beach in San Diego and at Disneyland! For Lindsey and myself, this was our first vacation for longer than 3 days in over 3 years, and it was long overdue.
We stayed in cottages on the beach at Pacific Beach for 5 days and it was absolutely wonderful. The weather was slightly overcast which I felt was better than blazing, unbearable heat. The kids got to spend time playing with their cousins building sand castles, burying each other, and playing in the ocean while watching the dolphins swim around near us. Lindsey went surfing and I went body surfing a few times which is always a highlight of any beach trip for me. Nice walks and runs on the beach! While eating breakfast out side one morning a bird landed right next to Kaitlyn’s plate ready to eat! The kids jumped and screamed making this event the highlight of their breakfast. Because the cottages were on the beach, the crashing of the waves put us to sleep each night.
Both Tyler and Kaitlyn really had no idea what to expect from Disneyland when we would tell them about it. All they understood was that Mickey Mouse was there which kept them excited. Tyler is our official roller coaster rider, we were surprised that he liked space mountain with the Halloween additions, let alone Thunder Mountain and Splash Mountain!!! Kaitlyn was memorized by it’s a small world! We were able to ride plenty of rides and see some shows! We did some trick or treating at mickey mouses trick or treat party one night. The kids favorite show had to be the mickey mouse clubhouse show at California Adventure. Tyler loved it although wasn’t the dancing participant that Kaitlyn was. It was 2 great 15 hour days of Disneyland!! When Kaitlyn is a little older we will get season passes!
For our last night at Disneyland we put the kids to bed with grandma and spent 4 hours going on all the rights possible before the park closed. We had a special way in which we were able to get to the front of the line on each ride so we were able to hit each of the rides multiple times which made it a great way to end our Disneyland adventure.
We also were able to visit Lindsey’s family and hang out along with some horse back riding!
It was a great family vacation to remember (I could have done without the drive home)!! It was nice to be able to visit with everyone and relax!
5k run, Funderland, Sac 911 Memorial
September 14th, 2009 / posted by Jake
Summer is coming to an end as has been made apparent these past couple of days with the light rain we’ve been receiving. I LOVE the rain especially in the fall. Living in Holland for 2 years where it would rain all the time only reaffirmed this love. So I look forward to spending our evenings outdoors with a light jacket enjoying the weather with the kids, or riding our bikes together, or watching the rain and lightning.
We’ve had a few events come up that I thought I’d share. For the past month or so I have been working on a website for the Sacramento 911 Memorial Climb in honor of the 343 firefighters who lost their lives 8 years ago with the collapse of both World Trade Centers. The Sacramento 911 Memorial Climb is a climb organized by local firefighters in which 343 firefighters would climb 110 stories, carrying the name of one of the fallen 343. Once they got to the top of the building they hung it on a memorial in remembrance of him/her. It was a great feeling being able to be apart of such event – if only it were under difference circumstances. Even though the memorial climb is over, there are a few pictures from the climb posted on the website as well as minor details for next years climb. http://www.sac911climb.com. Lindsey, Tyler, and Kaitlyn came out and as was expected Tyler loved seeing all the firefighters and firetrucks.
If you haven’t seen on Facebook, I took up running a few months back as my main form of cardiovascular exercise. I would always make fun of runners because to me they always looked as though they hated life every time I saw them out running. Now that I’m addicted, I see why runners do it – it feels too good not to. I try to run anywhere from 3-6 miles each day. I recently participated in my first race. It was only a 5k but a good experience for me and I feel I did pretty well averaging 7:48 per mile which can be seen here. If you are interested in tracking my runs, I’ve created a separate page here where I’ll post them.
We enrolled Tyler in pre-school at the beginning of the summer and he’s enjoyed everyday of it! Some weeks he goes 2x a week and others 3x a week for 3.5 hours a day. His class has about 20 other kids his age. His teacher, “teacher pam”, says Tyler does well in participating during the activities and in interacting with the other kids which is good to hear. She shared a particularly funny experience with us recently. She asked if we play eye-games with Tyler to which we said no, not understanding what it was she meant. Apparently Tyler will wink at “teacher pam” or raise his eye-brows at her in a flirty way from across the room and she’ll do it back to him, causing him to giggle and go into shy mode.
Kaitlyn was sad the first few times she’d go with Lindsey to drop Tyler off at school. She wanted to stay and play with the other kids and didn’t understand why she couldn’t. However she got over it quickly when she learned that for the next 3.5 hours it was just her and mom without the older brother teasing her. During this time she usually dresses herself up in everyone’s clothes, plays with her babies, or finds something to keep herself occupied the entire time. Watching her do her own thing on her own is precious to watch!
