Thanksgiving 2016

This Thanksgiving the whole Husky family joined us in California for the big meal. The kids had great fun playing with all of there cousins. The grandparents enjoyed the chaos and everyone enjoyed each other's company. Eric and Kristen prepared a beautiful and tasty turkey diner with all the sides and three pies and neglected to take any pictures of the feast. We did get lots of nice family photos and plenty of picture of cute little baby Clara. 

 

Nathaniel turns 5

Nathaniel turned 5 last week. He spent his birthday party playing in the park with some of his best friends. The party featured all of his favorite orange foods, Doritos, Cheetos, Cheese crackers and Oranges. Lillian practiced her burgeoning balloon animal making skills creating balloon creations for all the little kids. In a major change in birthday protocol, Nathaniel decided he wanted a lemon meringue cake instead of the usual Swedish Princess Cake. Eric took the challenge in stride, creating a layered cake with layers of lemon custard and cake, covered in a billowy toasted meringue. As always with Eric's cakes, it was both delicious and a true work of art.

Halloween 2016

Grammy made some custom Batman and Robin costumes for the kids, Eric decided to put on his best Indiana Jones garb. We trick or treated with some friends dressed up as the brides of death and the 1% until the kids ate too much candy. Kristen debuted her fancy new camera that can actually take decent pictures in the dark, so we don't have dark blurry photos this year. Hooray!

Castle Rock

We recently visited Castle Rock state park, an old favorite that we hadn't been to in many years (since they don't allow pets). The park at the crest of the Santa Cruz mountains features several huge rock formations with many small caves and crevices to explore. Unfortunately the park has gotten so popular that we had to park a mile a way and hike in, but the kids enjoyed the hike and had great fun finding "bunk-beds" in the rock formations.

New Cousin!

This past week traveled to St. Louis to visit baby Clara, Eric's brother's new baby and the newest addition to the pack of cousins. Lillian was smitten by baby Clara and took every opportunity to hold, cuddle, feed, play with or soothe the tiny baby. Nathaniel enjoyed her company also, but not nearly as much as he loved uncle Matt's collection of board games. I think we have another gamer on our hands.

Lillian turns 9

We celebrated Lillian's 9th birthday recently.  She had a big birthday bash in the park, with balloons, balloon animals, and water balloons!  Our big discovery for this party were the packages of water balloons that come pre-mounted on a hose attachment, so you can fill them 30 at a time with the hose in about 10 seconds, straight from the package.  You don't even have to tie them, as the water causes them to fall off the hose, sealing the balloon with a tiny rubber band!  You can see them filling (and hear Nathaniel giggling) in a video here on Facebook.

Lillian decided she wanted to keep the tradition of Swedish Princess Cake for birthdays going.  This year it was covered in green marzipan, with an albino, marzipan snake crawling across it.

Biker Buddies

Last weekend the kids geared up for a bike ride out to Deer Hollow Farm. The farm in Los Altos Hills is about 6 miles from home and only slightly uphill. Lillian kicked-butt going up the hills on her mountain bike, Nathaniel rode along in the baby seat. At the farm we pet a baby goat that was only a few days old and watched the silly chicken antics. Nathaniel insisted that we take a picture of the chicken that jumped the fence into the bunny pen so that it could snack on the rabbit food, it was hilarious.