Summer Traveling

Summer is just about over for everyone, and that will finally include us too.  Britton starts work next Monday, and our summer traveling days will be over.  We had a great time this summer going to many places near and far.
We took a short day trip as a family to Oakland to board the USS Hornet.  The aircraft carrier had a rich history including battle in WWII and was the prime recovery ship for Apollo 11.  They had a lot of fun artifacts, photos, and information.  We watched a short, awkward video of Richard Nixon interviewing the three Apollo 11 astronauts during their quarantine time.

There were some cool planes to look at, and Britton needed a picture in front of the jet engine of course.  It's always amazing how massive these ships are.  You can kind of get an idea from the picture below.  You can see San Francisco in the distance. 

Unfortunately the Fourth of July fell on a Wednesday this year.  What do you do with that?  So we attended the annual Sommercorn family reunion the weekend before the holiday.  This year we traveled to McCall, Idaho for some fresh mountain air.  I have to admit, I was a little skeptical about enjoying a vacation in Idaho, but I have seen the Idaho light.  The location was absolutely beautiful, and there was so much to do because everything was so cheap!  We took advantage of a great deal on horseback riding through the mountains. 

We enjoyed plenty of delicious ice cream in town which was also a steal!

We spent some time swimming at a local hot spring, and the lake.  I don't really recommend Zimm's hot springs which was actually piped hot spring water into a shabby pool.  But at least it was warm, and everyone got to enjoy swimming.  I'm kind of a pansy when it comes to swimming in cold lakes these days.

One of the best parts of the trip was finally visiting my brother's family in Boise.  Just coming from our tiny student housing, my boys were just amazed at the size of their house, and the awesomeness of their backyard.  "They have their own playground Mom."  They also had a giant garden, deck, and two-story play house. 

Shortly after that trip we drove to northern California to go camping with the Olsons in Lassen Volcanic National Park.  There are all different types of volcanoes there as well as bubbling, stinky hot pots.  We took a nice hike around Manzanita Lake, and enjoyed some absolutely beautiful views. 

We had to cross the freezing cold river during our walk, and spent a good amount of time climbing on fallen logs.  We also took advantage of some kayaking.  At night we roasted jumbo marshmallows, and spotted different planets and stars through Phil's telescope.  We were pretty exhausted after this trip as camping with a bunch of kids can do to you.


Right after Britton's Ph.D defense in August I flew out to Washington so I could make it just in time for my friend's wedding reception.  I was sad I missed the ceremony earlier that day, but so happy for the couple, and happy I could see so many old friends.

Then I spent a week with my family catching up on Washington stuff.  I got to spend a lot of time during the day with my mom and sister, and we took the kids out for lots of fun activities. 

We spent a day at Alki beach throwing lots of rocks, and then went to the Woodland Park Zoo another day.  I was so exhausted after both those days!  This early pregnancy gets to you! 

Will got to spend lots of time with his cousin Natalie, and this is what they did most of the time.  It was some kind of game with legos and airplanes.  Will also had his first ever sleepover at Natalie's house!  I was a little hesitant especially since I had to take him on a plane the next day, but he was fine.  He was a little more prepared for his second sleepover with his California cousins.

It was great to see all those parents, siblings, nieces and nephews, but it was also great to get back home and into our usual routine.  Our usual routine didn't last too long because we only had one week to pack, celebrate Will's birthday, and move to the east bay.

After the move we had lots of family time before Britton started work so we recently took a day trip to the Del Valle reservoir near Livermore, CA.  It was the middle of the week so we practically had the whole lake to ourselves.  We had an absolutely fantastic time driving the boat around, spotting wildlife, and hopping on shore for a picnic lunch. 

We found the bald eagle's nest, and then spotted a bald eagle soaring in the area.  I won't show any of those pictures because our camera is nowhere ready for those kind of nature shots.  We also spotted these ducks, herons, a lot of hawks, and two deer.

I'm not sure why we took a picture of this, but here I am putting some sunscreen on Elliot.  He likes to put on sunscreen, and while we weren't looking decided to put more on by himself.

It was all over his hands, face, and even in his mouth.  He didn't cry or say anything!  He just sheepishly walked up to me like this.  I love how you can see his hand print on his face!

We moved all our stuff to Brentwood on a Saturday and the following day happened to be our sixth anniversary.  We gave ourselves some time to recover from the move, and pushed our celebration all the way to Labor Day weekend.  Mostly for babysitting purposes. 

We started out driving up to Lake Shasta since I've always wanted to go there.  It always looks so beautiful and fun when you're driving I-5 on a long trip.  We took a tour of Shasta Caverns.  Despite all the stairs you have to climb, it is definitely worth your time.  Pictured below is the cathedral room, named because the formations look like organ pipes.  Yay, organ!

We didn't spend too much time on the lake because it was so smoky in some areas from the forest fires, but we did visit the second largest dam in the US!

Can you believe the size of that?  It provides a steady water supply for most of California and all those farms that grow all that delicious produce.  We took a long walk to the middle of the dam despite the heat.  We also visited the dam visitor center...  We couldn't help ourselves.

We also stopped in the Napa valley for a little walk in the clouds.  No sight of Keanu Reeves.  We did see a ton of people at Castello di Amorosa.  It was also blazing hot that day, but we enjoyed all the sights and educated ourselves on the wine making process. 

I love how everything is hand made, and every detail looks just like part of a medieval Italian castle.  We indulged in some pretty amazing grape juice.  The people there couldn't believe we were for real.  I gave the server guy my pregnancy excuse, and he said, "That wouldn't stop me."  I'm sure there's not much that would stop him which is probably why he's working at the winery.

We ended our trip with a fancy Napa dinner, and got to see a wedding take place during our meal!  Happy six years to us!  Marrying Britton was the best decision I have ever made, and I am consistently impressed by his talents, and grateful for him every day.  Except when he teases me like an obnoxious older brother.  But that makes life fun.

So that's all our travel!  Now it's time to settle into routine, and make some tough decisions about where to live!

Saying goodbye to Stanford

The day has come when Britton is done with school!  He's been a student for 21 years, but I think he is ready to move on now.  We are incredibly proud of his hard work these past five years at Stanford.  He attended the graduation ceremony in June, but all they gave him was a paper that basically said "get back to work."  So he finished writing all 252 pages of his thesis, and defended it August 3.  The Olson family attended the public portion where Britton gave a presentation of his research along with other students, friends, and a panel of four professors and one adviser from his time at Lawrence Livermore Lab.  The five people on his defense panel had to sign off on his thesis which was edited and triumphantly, officially turned in on August 19, after we moved to Brentwood.  That day also happened to be our sixth anniversary which we romantically spent editing Britton's thesis. 

After spending five years at Stanford there are too many things that we will miss.  The first is all the friends we made.  Pictured above is Will having tea with his favorite buddies at Rainbow school.  We will definitely miss that great preschool.

We will miss all our neighbors and instant playmates for Will.  There was mostly girls in our courtyard so Will had to be flexible and play a lot of house, tiger family, and sometimes even fairies.  He always insisted on being the prince, dad, or boy fairy.

We'll miss all the fun parties and events.  These pictures are from Will's fourth birthday party.  It was pirate themed and we had a bounce house and treasure hunt for all the kids. 

Elliot will miss his buddy Holt.  I hear Holt will still stand outside our gate and say, "choo choo."  He loved our toys more than us.


We had lots of fun activities with our neighbors.  Below we are checking out the solar eclipse together.  Since we only live an hour and a half away, I'm tempted to just show up to the next courtyard campout or Halloween party. 

I'll miss all the playgroups, running buddies, fun walks on campus, and easy access to Stanford sports. 
But we knew it would have to come to an end some day.  You know all your neighbors will move away, but it's still hard when they do.  And now I'm the neighbor that moved away, and someone else took our place. 
Now that I've written this post hopefully I can look forward.  There are some exciting things in our future including... a house!  A baby!  A minivan!  Don't laugh, I'm really excited.  Britton will be spending less time at work (I think).  We'll be living closer to Olson family, and we can always make some new friends. 

Spring Summary

Here I am again trying to summarize the last three months.  Spring was beautiful and pretty busy apparently.
Will and his friend Liesel threw a party for their friends.  They made invitations, delivered them, and decorated.  Mostly they just wanted to have a party so they could use the streamers they found in our closet.  I used the opportunity to try out rainbow cupcakes.  Will was fascinated with mixing the colors, and you can tell he tasted each one to make sure they were all equally yummy.  The party was a low-key success.  It's easy to be a success when there are no expectations. 


Back when working at NASA was a possibiilty, Britton took the boys to the nearby NASA visitor's center.  It's a little boy's paradise with all the space shuttles, space suits, and buttons to press. 



We've been riding bikes to church a lot lately.  The boys are wiped out on the ride home.

Elliot attended his first Halo Fest!  Halo Fest 2012 was open to all ages in an effort to get the boys started on video games young.  Elliot also got to play with a new friend Evan while the dads zoned out in Halo land.  I owe a big thank-you to the Colvers for hosting, and especially Victoria for making sure the little boys were fed, bathed, and well looked after. :)

Will and I hung out at home while they were away.  We had a great time cleaning the house together...and then we went to Great America!  We had fun too.

One of those weekend we drove down south to visit my nephew in the central coast.  We watched him hit three triples at his baseball game!  The little boys were in awe of his awesomeness. 

Easter Egg Hunt

The Scarboroughs invited everyone over for the traditional Easter egg hunt this year.  It was so sweet to see Elliot get excited about collecting the eggs.  He was so pleased with himself.


The yard was full of plenty of steps, bushes, and lots of fun hiding places for eggs. 

We had some special visitors from Idaho!  Derek and Victoria made the trip over during a break in school so we could all meet sweet baby Justin.  Justin got his own bucket for collecting eggs, but someone... ate all his candy!

This was actually Will's second Easter egg hunt for the day so he had plenty of sugar.  We had to help take care of it.

Nana outfitted the cousins in matching clothes again!  The adults were still free to wear clothes of their own choosing, but I made Britton coordinate for a family photo. 

These cousins are so cute!  It's been great to see them play together more.  However with five boys all about a year apart, things could get pretty crazy. 

I Wanna Go Fast

Within one week Will and I both ran in races.  I did a half marathon with my running buddies at Stanford, and Will did a 200 M race in a local neighborhood.  That's a big distance for a little guy who insists on being pushed in a stroller or carried almost everywhere.  He seriously will remind me to bring the baby carrier for Elliot so that he can ride in the shopping cart or stroller instead of walking.  I wasn't sure he would finish the race, but he did so well!  He easily ran the whole way, and didn't come even close to being last.  This has made me a lot less sympathetic lately, and he has since then walked all the way home, all the way through a store, and most of the way to the library.
Will was pretty bummed that he didn't win.  He was sad while everyone told him, "Good job!"  He reluctantly gave high-fives.  He finally admitted to his best friend who ran in another race, "I didn't winned."  Later he did realize that he had fun running in the race, and it's OK if you don't win. 


I also didn't "winned" a race, but I did set a personal record!  I wasn't sure I could do it, but we started with an uncomfortable pace, and never let up for the whole race.  Despite two blasted bathroom stops, I still nearly sprinted at the end to... finish in less than two hours!  Yay!  It was a perfect day.  I had my friends to run with, family to meet at the finish, and an excellent after-race party.  In the middle of the run I was already thinking about my next race, but I have barely run since that day about two weeks ago!  I really need a plan and goal if I'm going to keep exercising.

Semi-homemade Valentines

Happy late Valentine's Day from this cutie!  We were semi-homemade this year.  Our treats were brownies from a box, yet lovingly cut into heart shapes and hand decorated.  Our dinner a frozen pizza but once it is cut into a heart shape, it is instantly romantic. 

 



The only thing not cut into a heart shape was the actual paper valentines.  I helped Will (the anti-crafter) make some cards for his friends.  I just had him choose the color of paper, and the shape for the card.  He picked pink, which he is favoring a lot lately, and a triangle.  Then he picked out some stickers to put on the valentines while I wrote some heartfelt messages on them.
He said basically the same thing for each person.  "Hi ______ .  You're great.  Play with me on the playground."  He did tell a few friends he loved them.  In a friendly way I assume although he does spend most of his time with a certain girl...  But Valentine's night he had to stay home and watch a boring movie with his parents. 

Glimpses of January

 

This one is developing quite the attitude.  I don't really mean attitude in a bad way.  He is 14 months, and I guess that's about the time kids start showing a lot more personality and determination to follow their own agenda.   He likes to do things to make us laugh like hiding in the curtains, sticking his tongue out, and shouting gibberish. 

 

I took the boys to the beach recently and they both had a great time throwing this ball, running with it, and most importantly stealing it from each other.  I love this shot of Elliot yelling.  He is so loud sometimes.

Britton had a golden birthday turning 29 on the 29th!  One of the cards said, "Knock knock.  Who's there?  30."  We are still in denial.

January was mostly warm and sunny.  I am really starting to take this for granted and forget my Seattle roots.  But we do our best to enjoy the outdoors on the playground, going for bike rides, and one weekend we had a great trip to San Francisco.  Will and I rode a classic cable car for the first time all the way to Ghirardelli Square.  Always a good destination. 

We are starting to look forward to the unknown in the fall.  Will we still be in the bay area?  We could move across the United States, or even across the ocean to a different country.  It's kind of annoying to not be able to plan ahead yet, but also exciting to start the next step in our lives soon.