Mexico 2009

Volleyball, hot tortillas, sun bathing, great conversation in the window seat, fabulous meals catered by a local mother and son, Mexican soda pop, $5 "Gucci" sunglasses—What's not to love about Mexico??

My amazing grandparents with their grandchildren. Eight of us are double cousins, meaning two brothers married two sisters...which means we share the same genes on both sides of the family. Can you tell? And yes, it's perfectly legal. :)

My cute grandparents with their great-grandchildren (and Paul).

My adorable boy with his first cousins. He followed them around for 5 days, and they were impressively patient with him! He even gave some spontaneous hugs as his way of saying thanks!

Christmas 2009

We're back! Thanks to all our family who made our trip doable! We borrowed baby gear, ate everyone's food, blithely let people chase after Trenton... It was lovely.

I have to admit, though, that I'm considering a no-traveling-with-toddlers policy. Until he fell asleep, Trenton was like a caged wild animal on the airplane. And keeping him safe in a new environment (in this case, Mexico) is generally exhausting! Like I said, we couldn't have done it without everyone's help. So.....In the future, if you want me to travel when one of my children is between the age of 8 months and 2 years, you might have to bribe me. (Will make exceptions for weddings and cruises.)

More details of our trip are pending, but for now, enjoy this photo of Trenton and our little Christmas tree. He has come along way since this time last year...as has our Christmas decor. :) I missed it by the fireplace but breathed many, many sighs of relief knowing Trenton's peanut butter hands wouldn't be touching my treasured ornaments. We love you, goober boy!

Sorry about the photo quality. Our camera reappeared, but apparently with a big fat spot on the lens. Hopefully we'll be back up and running soon!

The Perfect Date

This year's anniversary date deserves 5 stars and its very own post. Usually our anniversary gets a little lost in the hustle and bustle of Christmas, but not this year! I've been looking forward to this for weeks, and it was every bit as wonderful as I'd hoped.

Several weeks ago we drove out to Sacramento to see of my best friends, Kimber, and her family. The Holts are incredible people who we love and admire. Debbie (Madre) was so sweet to give us a gift card to Cheesecake Factory that night. We couldn't use it in Sacramento because the little guy zonked out as soon as we pulled away from their house, so I immediately thought of our anniversary: the Cheesecake Factory in downtown San Francisco, on top of Macy's in Union Square. Absolutely perfect.


So my dear friend Desirae came over last night right after I put Trenton to bed at 7pm, and off we went! I think dates mean something entirely different to wives than husbands. (Well, at least for us they do!) I feel like a different person on a date without the munchkin in tow. Last night I heard someone's child fussing in a stroller, and I nearly pulled out the goldfish. Until I remembered, that is, that the only person whose hand I had to hold was Ryan. I haven't relaxed that thoroughly in a long time.

The wait at the Cheesecake Factory was long (the weekend before Christmas, who would have guessed??), which gave us time to wander Union Square and even read for 45 minutes at Border's—something we always want to do but never can, unless one of us wants to keep Trenton from scaling bookshelves the whole time.

So...to make a long story short:
Thank you, Desirae, for staying with Trenton for so LONG!
Thank you, Trenton, for sleeping so soundly and giving me peace of mind.
And thank you, Ryan, for being the perfect date.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

4 Years

Happy anniversary to us! Last night we were remembering standing in our first family ward as a newlyweds, meeting a couple who had been married 4 or 5 years. That seemed like SO LONG back then! These four years have flown by.


I love you, babe!

My Kitchen Companion

For a while Trenton has been very jealous of any time I spend in the kitchen. It finally dawned on me that he's old enough to stand on a chair at the kitchen counter without falling off, so up he went. He LOVES, loves, loves it. And I do too! I finally have my kitchen companion back. Granted, it's a lot messier now, because he's banging pots and pans around, pretending to poor water from one sippy cup to another, sampling food, and dusting the whole place with flour (sneaky little guy!). In that way, it's exhausting, but it makes him so happy that I'm happy too. I'll take a picture as soon as I find that camera...

This picture was taken in October. No, it's not quite shorts weather here right now. But still, the weather isn't much to complain about!

Today Trenton and I drove into Palo Alto to meet Ryan for lunch. (Okay, I admit, we did it yesterday too! We have to take advantage of more relaxed weeks when we can.) We went to a little Mexican place on California Ave. Trenton watched us intently as we dipped chips into three kinds of salsa, and he soon decided his plain graham crackers weren't cutting it. The next thing we knew, the kid had commandeered the bowl of green salsa and spent entire rest of the hour dipping graham cracker after graham cracker into salsa.

The good news: (1) he seems to like Mexican as much as we do, (2) he didn't try to escape out of his high chair for the rest of the meal!!!

Sorry, my camera is MIA.

Dinner Etiquette

Tonight Trenton was wearing socks and sitting in his chair, all ready for dinner. We let him go to town with some guacamole on his tray, and the next thing I knew, he was using his socks—still on his feet—as a napkin.

Guess he got his table manners from his dad. :)