September 1st, 2016 by brendan
Sienna and Page were honoured to be flower girls at Cris and Shirley’s wedding which took place on a beautiful farm 30 minutes north of Milwaukee.
I don’t have too many pictures. There was a professional film crew following Cris and Shirley around on the day, and they are sure to have many more shots and video.
Cole and Cris had plenty of time and space to finish off their speeches in an old barn.
August 25th, 2016 by brendan
Page is 6.
To celebrate, we had an Olympics themed party in Wisconsin, at Grandpa Jim’s house.
We are in Wisconsin because Uncle Cris is getting married here on Saturday.
For the Olympics party we did a craft morning where the girls made medals, an Olympic torch, athlete numbers, and decorated the outside of the house with the Olympic Rings and Olympic-coloured balloons.
Like the Olympics we had running races. We even re-ran on of them when someone complained about not winning –
https://youtu.be/K8DqRNwdTAQ
Page chose a Bindi carrot cake.
Mermaid tails!
Rhythmic Gymnastics were an athlete favourite.
And Taekwondo gave other athletes a shot at gold.
Looks idyllic
Comment by G. Anne — August 22, 2016 @ 2:17 am
June 21st, 2016 by brendan
The girls and I headed south to the east side of Big Sur, through the Salinas Valley to Arroyo Seco (Dry dry riverbed).
I have been wanting to explore the area for a while as it is not too far away (2hrs) but is pretty rugged. As usual with campsites in this area, they are reserved a year in advance on weekends, so we took out chances on a car-camping spot with Plan B being a backpack up the canyon.
As you can see, we were able to get a spot in the primitive camping area with some no-shows.
Sienna and Page were very excited to help me setup the tent.
We then walked down to the day use area of the river for a swim. The day use area is so popular that cars line up from 6am on weekend mornings, and they close the gates by 9am when the area gets full. Most families setup for the day with grills, shades, and tables. The attraction is some nice pools with rocks to jump off. Both the girls swam with me over the pool to a rock and jumped in.
After we walked back to the campsite, we were able to make a fire (for once!) and cooked up a simple pasta dish, followed by toasted marshmallows.
Half the fun of camping is sleeping bags.
On Sunday morning, I decided to try some other places to swim, down the gorge.
It was a 3km walk down a trail, then a technical (ropes) descent down to our own set of rockpools. Page named them Pool 1, Pool 2, Pool 3, and Pool 4. We spent most time in Pool 2.
On the way down, we found some discarded noodles which helped us swim around the deep pools. The girls had fun at the “resort”, playing with their Pet Shops, rolling in the sand, losing Pet Shops, rescuing Pet Shops.
We had the pools to ourselves for a little while and then were joined by some other hikers including our neighbours from the campsite.
Page was very brave, jumping off a high rock into the pool. She even saw a crayfish.
What fun!
The kids roped down too?
Comment by Grandma Sam — June 29, 2016 @ 5:39 pm
Priceless images
Comment by Craig — July 11, 2016 @ 3:26 am
June 4th, 2016 by brendan
Page is officially a first-grader, after graduating from Kindergarten on Thursday.
She doesn’t really want to be. She was a bit sad after the ceremony. She had a great time in her first year at school. She will miss her new friends over the Summer. And she will miss her teacher, Mrs Valouch.
We got front-row seats at the graduation ceremony with Grandma and Grandpa, and watched with pride as Page received her certificate from Mrs Honda, Mrs Valouch, and the other Kindy teacher, Mrs Kovac.
The walk of determination!
Boy, do I recognize that face.
It is the same look of determination on the little 3 year old in a soccer club who turned out to be the only girl who scored a goal, and the little 6 year old who took blue ribbons on her first horse show and whose teacher came up to me and said, “Who is this person?”
Comment by Grandma Sam — June 29, 2016 @ 5:43 pm
May 24th, 2016 by brendan
We kept the birthday tradition alive with a BBQ for our friends. This year, the food was a fusion of Mexican and Southern, with smoked brisket and pulled pork on tacos with Prickly Pear and pickled vegetables.
It was great fun being there for Sienna’s 3rd birthday party
Comment by mum — May 25, 2016 @ 5:02 pm
March 24th, 2016 by brendan
This year’s winter holiday was back to Park City. With the dog and all our stuff, we thought it easiest to drive. We stopped in Reno at the Hotel Siena for our first night, and then on to Salt Lake City to meet Grandma Sam and Katya.
To make the shuttle easier up to Park City, Brendan and Bindi went skiing on Mount Timpanogas.
A long video exclusively of Page skiing at Park City and Sundance –
A big storm came in over Sunday and Monday, so we stayed inside at the Park City Ice Arena
Sienna loved the ice. Not sure she knew how skating was supposed to be done –
We stayed close to Main Street and Bindi took up where Haley had left off. Except Bindi was Park City’s favourite dog who was always willing to roll onto her back for scratch by anyone who wanted it.
Brendan got to ski again with St. Andrew McLean, his guide from Antarctica and SuperMom took the girls out skiing.
Brendan and Alex got back to their first date –
and, after seven years, Alex gets to ski powder with her Bindi –
They did it again up Mill Creek Canyon
Sometimes the girls just wanted to sled and build snowmen –
We drove down the Wasatch Back to the Sundance ski resort. It was uncrowded and beautiful.
Kat boarding, Grandma Sam in the background –
Sienna busted Page out of Jail and escaped by skiing away from the Sheriff’s Posse, down Getaway Falls –
We drove home via Elko and a couple of hours skiing with the Naylors in Truckee.
February 22nd, 2016 by brendan
We met Nick and Hannah in the valley beneath their new house for a ride on Cañada Road, which is closed to motorised vehicles on Sunday afternoons.
Great riding skills x 4
Comment by Craig — February 22, 2016 @ 5:49 pm
January 18th, 2016 by alex
We decided to give our upstairs a much needed facelift. We installed new windows and doors a year ago and now it was time to work on the inside. Upstairs has one “master” bedroom, a bath and another bedroom the girls share. Since the house is a bit tight on storage space, we decided to focus on smart storage. I started out by refinishing a cabinet in the hallway that we will use as a linen closet. That was about 3 days of scraping. Then I worked on the beams in the bedrooms, they were painted over but we are going for a ‘modern/rustic’ look, that was much easier to refinish. The floors are a mix of different types of wood – the previous owner certainly had an interesting design in mind for how to lay them out. We sanded the floors and they cleaned up nice. Over the top we added a natural finish.
These lights sure are fancy, someone new will hopefully love them, removed and replaced with can lights.
We hope to tear down this wall as there is a hidden room behind it, looking into have a wall shelving unit built in its place.
Next up is new paint and then we work on the bathroom, new tile, new vanity, barnwood sliding door. The girls love running around (and wrestling) in the empty space. We hope to have it all done in 2 weeks!
Are you using the same builder you used for downstairs?
Haha! No way!
Comment by Alex — January 22, 2016 @ 5:33 am
Looking great
Comment by Craig — January 24, 2016 @ 1:47 pm
January 11th, 2016 by brendan
Winter called us up to the mountains. To South Lake Tahoe this time, where we stayed in a place on the lake, across the street from a sledding beach!
But we didn’t come to sled. We came to ski. We drove up into the mountains to Kirkwood Ski Resort.
Aprés Ski, fourfive-year old style.
Bindi also had a go in the snow. Up Trimmer Peak to ski down the 11.
Looks like great fun. Love the cake. Bindi didn’t miss out.
Comment by G. Anne — August 26, 2016 @ 4:52 am
Enjoyed your “alternative” Olympics. Great venue and birthday fun.
Comment by Craig — August 28, 2016 @ 11:59 pm