It wasn't all silly faces over Memorial Day weekend.

We also walked to the park on Lake Merritt, went to the farmer's market and slid down the inflatable slideturned into fairy princesses at Fairyland and played among the mushrooms,

learned to use chopsticks at Little Shin Shin, ate lots of yummy food (like blueberries!), and did some more sliding at Dracena Park.Thanks for coming out to Oakland everyone, we all had a great time!

Omma, Pop, Julie, Chris, Courtie & Lily came for a visit this weekend. We had a lot of fun.

Counting in Swahili

If you thought counting to ten in English was pretty good, check me out counting to ten in Swahili!

LEGEND:
1 = Moja
2 = Mbili
3 = Tatu
4 = Nne
5 = Tano
6 = Sita
7 = Saba
8 = Nane
9 = Tisa
10 = Kumi

Thanks Josephine!

M&D's Anniversary in Yosemite

Tomorrow is Mom and Dad's 3rd anniversary

so we went up to Yosemite to celebrate this past weekend.We stayed in one of the Redwoods in Yosemite cabins near Wawona where we could hike to lower Chilnualna Falls,enjoy the all-you-can-eat BBQ on the Wawona lawn,

and quickly get into the Valley for some funin the sun on the Ahwahnee lawn.

History, Heat & Molly

Molly was in town this week, the CA Supreme Court struck down the ban on same sex marriage, and a heat wave broke all temperature records in the Bay Area (97 in Oakland yesterday!). Definitely cause for some ice cream at Fenton's and a little naked blogging.

1....2...3.4565789...10!

This is my new trick:

and I'm VERY proud of it.

Happy Mother's Day!

To all the mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and mothers-to-be out there, Happy Mother's Day.

the Beach (part 3)

One day, a group of intrepid fliers headed for the open ocean to go parasailing under a gigantic smile.

Here's the take-off,

and here's the view 800' of line later. The crew was pretty youngbut it was pretty exciting, and VERY glamorous.

the Beach (cont.)

There were adults there too. The whole Van de Water/LaFontano familyand all but the Phoenix Taylors for a total of 30

very silly relatives.

Cousins at the Beach

I just finished up a week on the beach in Sarasota, Florida with tons of family. My parents were a little worried about all of the travel from Oakland to New York to Florida but I told them it was totally worth it for a week at the beach with my cousins. Every day I would wake up and say - kids? pool? water? - and that is pretty much how we spent every day - with kids in the pool or at the water. What could be better? Courtie, Lily and I shared snacks, threw rockets in the pool for others to dive for, and posed with flowers. Marley and I did a rain dance and walked on the beach at sunset.

And pretty much any time I saw a kid doing something, I figured I should do it too, so when Jackson decided to lie down on the shuffle board, well, so did I. All of the playing really tired me out!

North Country Family

Our visit to the "North Country" was rounded out by seeing many aunts, uncles and cousins. Special thanks to Aunt Jean and Uncle Hugh (Happy 70th Jeanie!), Aunt Becky and Uncle Peter, and the whole Syracuse/Canton clan who hosted us, kept us well fed, and introduced me to fun on the family farm where I found lots of fun pine cones and learned to fly a kite with my cousin Grace.

Great-Grammy

This weekend I took a very special trip all the way up to Canton, New York to meet my Great Grandma Van de Water. We had lots of fun together telling stories and playing. She handmade a really fun doll for me named Raggedy-Ann, complete with her own stitched heart saying "I Love You, XO Grammy". I also learned about a really yummy treat that Grammy made called cookies. I used to think that crackers were good, but it turns out that my parents were holding out on me. Here my dad is looking at pictures of Grammy's parents - my great-great grandparents! Then I decided to join the Mennonites.