Saturday, July 20th, 2013
We had a super fun day at Lula’s B-day party. I wish I had a pic of Page and Arielle, the mermaid that came to do a magic show, Page was mesmerized! Page had a great time with her buddy Phoebe on the swings.
Lots of cute pics of Dad and Sienna in her summer skinny jeans…
All finished packing, whew, that took forever. Gotta be out the door by 5:30am…
Monday, July 8th, 2013
Whew, we made it home. It was a long haul, but totally worth it to see Page and Sienna meet new friends at each stop. We didn’t spend more than a day in one spot, lots of driving, but the RV made it a fun adventure.
We left Los Gatos on Wednesday night and stopped in Tahoe at the Naylor’s house. Brendan roughed it in the RV while the girls and I snuggled inside.
Thursday we awoke early and made the long haul to Logan, UT where the bike ride was taking place. We made a lot of little stops along the way so Page could get out and run/ride around.
We made it to Logan before sunset and scored a RV spot in the fairgrounds where the ride was taking place. We had all of Friday to take it easy, swim, fix up the bike, and greet friends as they arrived. The ride on Saturday was for Kelley, a good friend from Park City. She has recently been diagnosed with MS. I chose to ride 75 miles. Kelley’s sister brought along her 3 year old, Gage, so Page had a blast hanging with him while we rode. They went to the zoo and lounged around waiting for the Mama’s to get back… The ride felt great, didn’t reach 100 degrees until the last hour, thankfully most of the ride was under cloud cover which kept things cool.
After the ride, we loaded up and drove to Park City. We parked at Mike’s and pretty much moved into his house for 2 days. We got to catch up with some friends from Backcountry over a BBQ and Brendan got in a ride of the Flying Dog loop, a PC favorite. We took a walk down memory lane and hit up the Park Silly Market for a monkey puppet show, took the girls for a too hot hike and hit the High West Distillery to cool down. Maybe its the hormones but I found myself crying a few times missing the PC life…
We left PC early Tuesday and tackled the long drive to Silverton. We stopped in Fruita, CO to check out the dinosaurs. Then to Ouray to soak in the hot springs. We stopped off at the top of Red Mountain to pose for a pic, Page was soaking in the beauty of mountains, she wanted to stop everywhere and take pics… We spent the night at an RV park in Silverton. Brendan woke up early and tackled the bike climb on Kendall Mountain, he has some great pics on his Instagram account, @bshenanigan (mine is @ippygibby). We quickly cleaned out my storage unit, grabbed my diaries from when I was a kid through post college years and my cherished box of pictures and all the dishes Mom brought us from Mexico. Feels good to finally have my belongings out of that town, but I am sure we will be back. The San Juans never truly leave you…
Now onto Durango!!!! Oh, how I love Durango and all the people in it. We took a quick dip in the Animas River and then headed up to Kennan and Cheryl’s place for a little get-together. Nan, Rob, Sailor, Mark and Dylan came up and there were lots of laughs. Its fun to see all the kids grow up and what a cool bunch of kids they are. We crashed in the RV and woke up early to head to our final destination, Pagosa Springs. But not before a quick stop at Bread to say goodbye to Nan and Rob, Rob generously loaded us up with a couple bags of fresh goodies from his Bakery.
Oh these two are too cute. So many RV snuggle sessions…
Last stop, Pagosa Springs to visit a good friend from my high school years, Dawn and her family, Gary, Marlowe and Harper. They own a pub in London, The Marksman, but spend time in CO every year to be close to Dawn’s parents. Fires have been raging all throughout this area, but Brendan and Gary hit the Pagosa River trail for a mountain bike ride. I took a 4 hour nap with the girls, how did that happen? We caught up over a lovely dinner and reminisced over some local Honeyville wine… Our last day was jam packed with a 4th of July parade on Main Street Pagosa and then off to Hidden Valley Ranch where Dawn’s parents have an amazing *cabin* at the foot of the Wimenuche WIlderness. It was also sweet Marlow’s 5th B-day. Page was introduced to pinatas, baseball, bucket walking, but best off all, she was able to spend some quality time with her new BFF, Marlowe. After the picnic, it was time to leave. The long 17 hour drive was ahead of us…
Thursday, June 27th, 2013
We rented an RV to take all our bikes and the girls on a whirlwind trip to Logan and Park City, UT and then down to Telluride, Silverton, Durango and Pagosa Springs, CO. We are so excited to see the mountains and good friends!
Wednesday, June 26th, 2013
Pinnacles National Park is about an hour and a half south of our place, and the closest campsite that I could book two days before the weekend during school holidays.
You may think you know of the place from Post in which Page goes spelunking and other feats of derring-do. You would be mistaken. That adventure was to Pinnacles National Monument, which was but a pale shadow to Pinnacles National Park. Pinnacles National Park became a National Park this year and is way better!
This time, I took Page AND Katya. The girls’ job was to set up the tent while I … I did something really important ..
Once they had finished their jobs, the girls were let out to play with the local gang who were chasing rabbits.
I gave them a choice of going for a swim, or going for a hike. Page, of course chose the swimming pool, which was freezing. She only jumped in once and then spent the rest of the time lounging by the edge.
We then went off for a hike to a reservoir (which may be familiar to connoisseurs of fine art) and through some caves.
Throughout the weekend, Page was mimicking everything Kayta did, even if that meant running into dark tunnels.
I mentioned fine art earlier. Aunty Ayla took one of our photos from Post in which Page goes spelunking and other feats of derring-do and made a painting of it last year. Here I tried to recreate the scene.
It was bat mating season, so we weren’t allowed in all the caves. We still had enough fun.
In the evening after a hot dog and Rore Smore dinner, we trotted off to a ranger presentation about Condors which are being reintroduced into the wild at the Pinnacles. Page and I left early, leaving Kat to take it all in as a future veterinarian would.
Our biggest adventure was on the Sunday morning. After packing up. That is after Kat and I packed up (Page practised driving the car) we hiked 4km each way to the Balcony Caves.
While I had to crawl on my hands and knees at times, Kat was climbing up and over boulders and up and down slopes which would have given her Mother and Sister heart attacks. This is why I take the girls camping.
Both of them were very well-behaved and had a great time in the outdoors. It is much more fun hiking when you are accompanied by two singing angels, even if their trail mix eating habits are a bit weird.
Sunday, June 16th, 2013
Kat (formerly known as Carson, she is going back to a shortened version of her birth name, Katya) and Page made their first stop motion movie, check it out. The only thing missing was Jamesio!
Nature from Bartelby Shenanigan on Vimeo.
Thursday, June 6th, 2013
Kat (aka Carson) is here visting us til the end of the month with Grandma Sam. Tonight we had a fun art session on the pavers. Page has been having so much fun with Kat. Shopping for swimmers, going to the pool, being artists…
Wednesday, June 5th, 2013
Here is one for all you Arrested Development fans out there. Netflix has the original Banana Stand in its courtyard and plenty of frozen bananas. Page had a blast playing Mr. Manager!
Friday, May 31st, 2013
What is a bored housewife to do all day? Well, enter her hot husband into “Hot Dads” contests, of course!
About a month ago, I was lurking on Twitter… I follow a woman here in SF who owns Red Tricycle, a great blog for parents. She retweeted the iVillage’s Hot Dads Contest so I checked out the link and checked out the Dads and thought, “Hey, Brendan is super hot”, LOL. So, I entered this pic into the Hottest Newbie Dad Category. It is one of my favorite pics of Brendan right after Page was born. I didn’t think much of the contest until today when I received an email from someone at NBC that said the photo of Brendan won his category and would we be available to fly to NYC to be on the Today Show??? Oh no, what did I do? I should probably tell Brendan I did this, he is going to be soooooo embarrassed.
We find out Wednesday if Brendan is one of 4 finalists, as of now he is one of nine semi-finalists. Next stop would be a trip to NYC to be on the Today Show where they announce the winner. If he wins, we would get a week trip to the Scrub Island Resort in the British Virgin Islands! Ok, that would be awesome. Worth a little embarrassment on his end, right? If nothing else we get a free trip to NYC and lots to laugh about… Oh my goodness, what did I do…
Monday, May 20th, 2013
Before Page was born, Alex and I would listen to the Tour de France every morning on our laptop. We used to joke that Page would think Phil Liggett was her daddy because she would have been hearing his voice so often from the womb.
When Page was newly born, we bought her a book about cycling and had it signed by the author. We told the author of the book our story so he wrote a message confirming that Phil Liggett was not Page’s father.
That was until Friday night where you can see that Mr Liggett was clearly quite enamoured with my wife. Well, either enamoured, or very, very drunk…
Sunday, May 19th, 2013
After last weekends craziness, we had a relaxing, fun birthday weekend planned. We started out on Friday catching the Tour of California roll in near our house in Morgan Hill. Brendan was excited to see Jens (Shut Up Legs) Voigt.
Friday night Brendan and I headed our for date night to meet up with the likes of George Hincapie and Phil Liggett (Phil likes his ladies and booze), photo evidence to follow.
Saturday we rested…
Saturday afternoon we went over to the neighbors for a fun BBQ. Page rode circles around the yard with the boys and then they all decided to take a dip in the bath.
Sunday we went to Hidden Villa Farms for a birthday party for Baby Hannah. Page was so tired and cranky so we headed home a bit early. The rest of the day we just relaxed, our last day of Brendan’s paternity leave. It has been so great to have him home these last 3 weeks.
We got adventurous and gave Sienna her first bath. She wasn’t too chuffed.
And best of all, I got the cake I asked for and a beautiful “Happy Birthday” song from Brendan and Page. Could life get any better than this??
