Shira's first Fieldtrip

We had the pleasure of taking Teacher Rachel's daughter, Josephine, on our bus fieldtrip.

Shira thought the fieldtrip and Josephine were pretty fantastic.

Welcome to the Bay, Uncle Micheal

Uncle Micheal charmed Samuel and Shira.

I think it was mutual.

His presents weren't bad either ;)

Conversation

Samuel: Why are we going out to dinner with Daddy's uncle?

Me: Because we haven't seen him for a long time, and you have never met him.

Samuel: No, I mean why are we going out to eat and not going and playing somewhere?

Me: Well, because adults like to talk to each other over a meal. It is considered sociable. Kids like to go play.

Samuel: Well, Daddy plays with me all the time.

Me: Yep. You've got a pretty awesome daddy.

March Madness

The kids were super excited for Purim this year.

We kicked it off with a hamantaschen making party at our house. I'd love to say the idea was all mine, but I read about it here: http://jcarrot.org/yiddish-savory-hamantaschen. It was super fun, the kids jumped themselves silly on the trampoline in between eating raw cookie dough, rolling out dough, filling their cookies, eating cookie filling, and generally wreaking the kind of havoc that only 15 children between the ages of 1-5 year olds can. It was so hectic, I didn't manage to take any pictures unfortunately, but I hope to make a tradition of it.

At the synagogue celebration Samuel and Shira went as Winnie the Pooh and Tigger.

They loved the kids service.

The tandem that just keeps growing

I've been worrying about how I'm going to ride with Samuel and Shira when Shira gets too big for the Ibert and this is the solution. We got the child attachment for Samuel so that he can actually pedal and reach the handlebars, and made it a triple by adding the tag-a-long for Shira.

It's not perfect; Shira isn't quite big enough for the tag-a-long yet, but we made it to the market and back without anyone falling off.

I did have a concerned citizen on a bike follow me for a few blocks though, telling me how I should tighten Shira's bike attachment. Blah, blah, blah. No one would ever tell a guy how to attach his bike components.

January 2012

January was a full month. Samuel and Steve worked hard on Samuel's school project. Samuel chose to study our solar system.

Here they are about to leave for the presentation

And then they presented it at school, to the delight of a number of other children (and a parent or two) who are space/planet/solar system afficionados.

Steve says Samuel was a little hesitant in the beginning of the presentation, but by the end he couldn't stop sharing all of his information.

I took a part time job teaching College Readiness at a somewhat famous local charter school. Weird to be back in a classroom.

It was a month that Samuel and Shira really didn't like Steve leaving for work everyday. They never like it when he goes, but this month getting him out the door could be kind of tricky.

Tahoe with no snow

Our trip to Tahoe this winter was devoid of snow for the most part, but that didn't ruin our fun.

We used the bottom of a run at Heavenly to sled once the lifts had been shut down.

No surprise that Samuel was willing to go for solo runs.

But I didn't know Shira was going to love it so much that she wanted to do it solo too.

Samuel was very worried about Shira getting hurt, you can see him in this picture running next to her to make sure she didn't go off the edge.

Samuel, ever the big brother, actually volunteered to haul Shira up the hill. The days of complete meltdown when requested to walk more than 5 feet seem to be over (Yay!)

And since there wasn't much reason to pay the big bucks for limited skiing on man made snow, I realized we could do my favorite thing to do in Tahoe - Hike!

Can't remember the last time we had the opportunity to do some serious hiking - Two days in a row, no less!

Amazing views, amazing hiking, amazing husband. Doesn't get much better.

Spent an afternoon hanging out watching the gondola in Heavenly Village. Two years ago I took Samuel on this gondola after a day of skiing. Too bad we didn't have the passes to do it again this year - without a ski pass, the gondola costs 30 bucks! But it is pretty awesome (and a little nerve wracking - I seem to have acquired a minor of fear of heights, or perhaps a small bit of caution, who can tell the difference?)

And of course the best part of the vacation - spending time playing endless games with Bubbie and Popsi.