An afternoon out

Today we spent the afternoon at Happy Hollow Park and Zoo in San Jose. We hadn't been there since the park re-opened last year after a major remodel. The old favorites are still there- the Danny the Dragon train, Logan's favorite capybaras, and the stepping stones surrounded by water. But the newer areas are really lovely too, with nice landscaping and a beautiful new entry plaza.
Our friend Sam, who has been deployed on a Naval ship since last fall, came home last week. So he and his wife Harmony and their daughter Ceci came to meet us at Happy Hollow from their new home in Monterey. We always have fun with the Trassares.
Ceci was really taken with the challenge of walking across the stepping stones. She's competitive, and wouldn't stop trying to walk across until she could do it all by herself.
She started out with some help from Uncle Logan:
Next, it was her daddy's turn to help: Finally she did it all by herself. She did end up getting her feet wet (a couple of times), but she was proud of her accomplishment: The old Crooked House is still there, and it looks like it has a new coat of paint. But the house wasn't open today- maybe they're still restoring the inside. There's a HUGE twisting slide inside the house, and Harmony and Logan and I all remember going down the slide when we were little: After we'd walked around Happy Hollow for a few hours, we were ready for some dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory. Ceci, who is a true girly girl and loves princesses, felt very special sitting in the fancy chair in the waiting area: Tomorrow will be another exciting day. We're going to work on getting the garden watering system installed in the morning, then I have to go to work for the afternoon, and in the evening we're finally getting our iphones and having dinner with my parents. Another busy weekend...

Eggs for Easter

I hadn't planned on waiting another three months between posts, but here I am at the end of April already. We've had a very exciting few months between January and now. Our biggest news, which I mentioned at the end of my last post, is that we're now chicken owners. It's been so much fun watching them grow from awkward little chicks to nearly full-grown hens. The girls were born in December, and are now just about at egg laying age.
This is Alice, our Buff Orpington. She is three weeks older than the others, and just laid her first three eggs this week (more on that later!):
This is Stella. She's a Black Copper Marans, which is a French breed. When she starts laying eggs, they will be a dark chocolate color.
This is Snookie, our Jersey Giant. She's much bigger than the other girls, and is such a klutz!
This is our little Olive. She's a Silver Laced Wyandotte, and is the spunky one. She loves to sit on our shoulders like a parrot.
Logan and I have a lot of fun hanging out with the chickens. We're constantly learning something new about them. Last week we found that they think rose petals are like candy! They're always happy to see us walking into the garden, especially if we have food for them. Our godddaughter, 4 1/2 year old Chloe, had fun feeding the chickens when she met them a couple of weeks ago: Even Clark is fascinated by the chickens. He has to stay on a leash when he's outside with them, because when they run he wants to chase them. But he's gotten MUCH calmer around them the past few months: Now that I've introduced the chickens, I'll go back and tell about what we've been up to the past few months. In February, we went to Tahoe for a few days in the snow with Clark and our friend Ann and her dog Pepper. We tried putting socks on Clark to keep his feet warm, but he wasn't too thrilled with the idea:
Logan and I got snowshoes for Christmas, and had so much fun walking around the neighborhood. There was a storm while we were there that dropped several feet of snow. At the end of March, we travelled up to Ukiah to visit our friends Chris and Jenn and their daughter Kira. We had a nice relaxing rainy day, and enjoyed Jenn's amazing cooking. Chris, Kira, Logan and I took a walk in the rain that afternoon: Kira is such a smart little girl. She seems much older than her 2 1/2 years. We really enjoyed getting to know her. That was a busy weekend, because only an hour after we returned from Ukiah, my sister Katie's bridal shower began. The shower was held at my grandma's house in Sunnyvale, and hosted by two of Katie's bridesmaids, Leah and Jaci. It was a really lovely shower, and my mother-in-law Sue came up for the party. Katie got a nice selection of gifts: And the purple polka-dot cake was so cute! The June 25 wedding will be here before we know it...
Last week was Logan's spring break, and we decided to take a short trip down to Disneyland to see what has changed since our last time there in October 2009 (for my 30th birthday).
I surprised Logan with tickets to the special dessert package for the evening water and fireworks show, Fantasmic. It's his favorite show, and buying this package enabled us to sit in seats rather than staking out spots on the cement an hour before the show. They were great seats, and we really enjoyed the show:
We also headed over to the newer California Adventure park, to see the progress in the huge construction projects that are taking place over there. The newly remodeled Mickey ferris wheel looks great during the day, and even better at night when it's all lit up: The Costco Travel package we booked came with a free character meal. We normally wouldn't pay for a meal with the characters (this one was a princess lunch), but we thought we might as well take advantage of the free meal. It was so cute to watch the little girls awestruck when a princess would arrive at their table for a photo. Of course, Logan had to have a photo with his favorite princess, Belle: Logan couldn't resist the opportunity to pose as an action figure: A self-portrait while taking the raft back from Tom Sawyer Island (although I think it's been renamed The Pirate's Lair now, to tie in with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies...) We stayed at the Sheraton for the first time this trip, and enjoyed watching the nightly fireworks from our 7th floor balcony: Yummm- enjoying a Mickey Mouse ice cream bar in his new storm trooper t-shirt:We got a call from my mom on Tuesday afternoon while we were in Anaheim, telling us that Alice laid her first egg! She had been exhibiting signs for the past week that she was almost ready to lay, and sure enough she was. She laid her first egg in the straw on the bottom of the hen house:
Mom called again on Thursday as we were driving home to tell us that Alice laid egg #2, and this time she laid it in the nesting box like she's supposed to! Below is a photo of the first two eggs, along with a store-bought large egg for size comparison. Small first eggs are normal, so we're expecting they'll continue to get larger as Alice gets to be a more "experienced" layer. It was so exciting to come home to two eggs, and even more exciting when egg #3 arrived while I was at work on Friday. Logan, still home on vacation, found it that afternoon. This has been a nice Easter surprise, and we're looking forward to more (lots more) eggs in a few weeks when the other girls start to lay too.
For more on the chickens, take a look at Logan's chicken blog: http://playingchicken.wordpress.com

Umm- it's January now...

Yep- I've missed a few months (like 6) of posting. Life got a little busy. I was working more Saturdays and evenings, and blogging wasn't at the top of my "to do" list. It's not that there was nothing going on in our lives, though. Here's a quick re-cap of what we've done since last June:
In late June/early July, Grandma Clark had to move out of her house unexpectedly. I spent a few hours there one Sunday, taking pictures of everything in the house. I wanted to be able to remember it in pictures for years to come. Here's a self-portrait in front of the painting of the house that Uncle Bob did years ago: And here's the real thing from the street outside:
In early July, we were lucky enough to be able to spend a few hours having brunch and going to the park with our college friends Matt, Chris & Jenn, and Chris & Jenn's daughter Kira:
The next week, we flew down to San Diego for our long weekend at Comicon. We stayed with our friends the Trassares, and got a private tour of Sam's ship The Decatur. It was fascinating! Now we can picture where Sam is when he's deployed:
A shot from Comicon, that really shows how several types of nerd collide there as they can no place else:
We had a great time staying with Harmony and Ceci, and being called "Uncie Wogan" and "Auntie Wissa" all week. We missed little Ceci when we left to come home!:
At The Corvette Diner for lunch:
Big things happened while we were gone in San Diego- my sister Katie got engaged! She and her fiancee, Dean, are planning a June 2011 wedding:
In August, we celebrated Mom's 60th Birthday with a sunset cruise on San Francisco Bay. All of her kids- by birth, marriage and adoption!- were there to celebrate the occasion:
In September, Dean and Katie cheered us on while Logan and I ran in the Palo Alto Moonlight Run 5K. We were both happy with our times, and enjoyed the run around the Baylands in the dark:
October was filled with weddings. Mom and I flew to Cancun to attend the wedding of my cousin Jon to his new wife Kim. It was beautiful, and we plan to go back with our husbands someday!:
Two weeks later, Logan and I flew to Las Vegas to attend the wedding of his mom to Gerry Caffrey. It was a great weekend, with good food and fun conversation:
Then came Halloween. Katie and I went to our church's "Trunk or Treat" program, and handed out candy to the kids. I borrowed Logan's Cookie Monster costume:
A scenic view out our back door in late fall. A few days later, the leaves were all on the ground:
In November, we were thrilled to have Harmony and Ceci as houseguests, if only for one night. Ceci was fascinated with Clark's kennel, and played "doggy" all evening. Clark stayed at my parents' house, away from the chaos.
For Thanksgiving, we traveled to Tahoe to spend some time in the snow with Richard and Sue. We had some fun evenings, playing cards and chatting. Clark, as usual, loved the snow. He's having fun in this picture, even though it doesn't look like it:
In early December, Dean joined us for the first time on our trip into the Santa Cruz mountains to cut down our Christmas tree:
It was a gorgeous sunny day- almost too warm! Below are Dean and his mom-in-law to-be:
In mid-December, we spend a Saturday helping Mom and Dad move out of their house for their long-awaited remodel! Here's one of many "before" pictures. They're hoping the remodel is completed by Katie and Dean's wedding in June. I'll be posting "during" and "after" photos in coming months:
We had a nice Christmas at Grandma Adams' house, where Mom and Dad are living during the remodel: Logan enjoyed his new favorite beer: Anchor Steam's Merry Christmas and Happy New Year blend. Anchor Steam is our local S.F. brewery:
On New Year's Eve, we took a trip up to Novato (north of S.F.) to visit our friend Ann and meet her puppy Pepper. The two dogs got along well, and we're looking forward to having the dogs spend more time together soon:
Well, there's the past 1/2 year in review. This coming year, (coming in just a few weeks, actually) we'll have some new excitement at our house: chickens! Logan and I are getting four hens to provide us with eggs and bug-hunting in the garden. We're building the hen house this weekend, and I'll be posting more pictures soon. In the meantime, here's the chicken blog Logan has started: http://playingchicken.wordpress.com/
As you'll be able to tell from the post, Logan is putting lots of careful thought into plans for the hen house. I know it'll turn out great!

A hot time in Sacramento

Our lives have been very busy lately, but luckily it's been mostly fun! This past weekend we traveled to Sacramento to spend some time with our friends. Sam and Harmony hosted us for a wonderful day/evening that included afternoon drinks at a brewery and a mystery theater dinner aboard a riverboat. We were celebrating the occasion of Sam being promoted to Navy Lieutenant. We're proud of him, although sad that he'll be leaving for deployment for most of the next year.
After our drinks at the brewery we headed over to Evangeline's in the Old Town shopping area. It's a huge store with all kinds of fun, weird stuff inside. Heather couldn't resist trying on a few wigs and even bought two. She didn't wear them to dinner, but regretted her decision when she saw another dinner patron wearing a rainbow-colored wig! Harmony took a picture of me and Logan just before dinner started. The food was really good, and the theater part of it was funny and entertaining.
A shot of the four girls (Harmony, me, Heather and Kirsten):
After we drove home on Sunday afternoon we started getting ready for the party I was throwing for my co-workers at our house that evening. It was really hot that day, but luckily it cooled off enough so that everyone enjoyed themselves.
I had a wonderful surprise when I got home at 9:30pm from working the late shift last night. Logan had spent the afternoon crawling around up in the attic (in 90+ degree heat up there) to wire up a reading light to hang above the living room couch. So now I can see really well to read or type on the couch. Yay! It was so sweet of him to surprise me, and he picked out a really nice looking fixture too.

When he's not wiring lights, Logan has been working hard to accessorize his hobby room. The house is getting emptier as the hobby room gets more full! He went on an Ikea shopping spree last week to buy bookcases, glass display cabinets and a new desk for himself. It all looks great in there, and I'm glad he finally has a nice place to display his stuff.
Below is the view from the doorway:
There are Star Wars ships hanging all around his desk:
His bookcase is partially full with books, DVDs, action figures and cars:
Aside from displaying store bought figures, Logan also has some of his hand-built cars on display. He has had most of these packed away since college, so it's exciting for him to be able to display them now:
On top of the bookcase, Logan has his stereo system and CD changer hooked up. The stereo receiver is a hand-me-down that his dad bought in Japan over 40 years ago! It still works well.
Did I mention that there are Star Wars ships EVERYWHERE?
Can you guess whose wall this is? Silly me- I'm too busy working at the library to put my little corner together. I'll get to it sometime soon. I just feel lucky that I get any space at all! (And yes, those boxes on top of the desk are Logan's, not mine.)
I hope everyone has a nice 4th of July weekend. I know that I'm looking forward to three days off.