Grammy and Pop-Pop's visit

This past week Lillian's Grammy and Pop-Pop came to visit. Lillian was treated with some fun new toys, a marathon Happy Hallow outing, and lots and lots of time spent reading stories.

Lilian and Grammy at her new picnic table.

Trying out all the rides at Happy Hollow.

Snack Time.

The Dentist

Lillian had her first real trip to the dentist this week. Earlier in the year she had tagged along on Kristen's appointment, but this time she had an appointment of her very own. She got her teeth cleaned and counted. She was thoroughly examined and even had x-rays taken. She was very cooperative, though a little confused about what she was supposed to be doing during the x-rays. Her teeth were declared to be healthy, and she seemed to enjoy herself thoroughly.

After the dentist it was lunch time, so Kristen and Lillian went to the nearby Valley Fair mall for some celebratory escalator rides and sushi boats. While perusing the Gap, Lillian managed to get Video Killed the Radio Star stuck in her head, and spent the rest of the day serenading us (the only line she picked up was "Video killed the radio star" which she repeated at least 1000 times).

Keeping an eye on our hygienist Elvie.

Cleaning in progress

Clean teeth at the mall.

Escalators ahoy!

Cousins in all shapes and sizes

Today, Lillian learned an important lesson: that cousins come in all shapes and sizes, and cousins can be mommies too. When I told her that my cousin Brooke was coming to visit today with her husband Karl and two kids Kyra and Kylie she was very excited. But when they all arrived she was very, very confused. "Where is cousin Brooke?" she asked. When I pointed out that Brooke was Kyra and Kylie's mommy, she was even more confused. "Why isn't she little like me? How can Brooke be a cousin and a Mommy?" her little mind pondered, followed by the inevitable breakdown to just repeating "Why, why?!?" Before this visit her experience with cousins has been limited to her cousins Lucas and Raquel who are other little kids. She was completely blown away by the fact that Mommy and Daddy have cousins too, that these are also her cousins, and cousins can grow up and have kids of their own (who are also cousins). The concept still seems a little fuzzy for her but she seems to have taken our word for it. Once she figured everything out, she had great fun playing tea party with Kyra and Kylie and politely sharing a table with the two sisters at dinner.

Party Girl

Last night our friend Efsun hosted her second annual Ramazan party. Ramazan Bayramı is a Turkish holiday that celebrates the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. The festivities involve lots of sweets in all forms. Lillian really got into the partying wearing a crazy hat and sunglasses, the girl knows how to party. Eric might have over-indulged in the Turkish Delight and muscat as well.

Jessie's Pets

This past Friday we hosted lunch for our friends. Lillian's buddy Jessie brought her pet garden snails for everyone to see. As you can see the snails were a big hit with all the kids.

Camping

Just as we had last year, this year we again attended our stroller hiking group's annual camping trip. We traveled again to a little spot in the hills near Soquel, CA. There we joined up with a horde of small children and their families to spend the night in a tent, roast marshmallows, build fortresses by the stream, stargaze, harass dogs, and of course do a little hiking. While the people in our family enjoy camping, Nash was in doggy heaven, running free without a leash, a creek to swim in, lots of kids to throw sticks, other dogs around who help him figure out the pecking order*, and friendly grown ups who give him snacks. This year Lillian's friend Rebecca and her family came out as well, which made for even more excitement than last year. I'm not sure how we will top the experience next year.
* Nash is a beta dog, always has been, and always will be.

Lillian and Rebecca eating goodies by the campfire.

The campfire, site of Eric's masterful marshmallow roasting.

Baby Penelope and Nash by the campfire.

Lillian at the creek with a really big stick. Nash proved unable to fetch this one.

Duck Ponds, Bike Rides and Pie

With Lillian feeling better after being sick last week we were all ready to dive right into our regular activities this week. On Friday, before heading to our usual Friday lunch play-date, we stopped by the duck pond in Central Park in nearby Santa Clara. The park is very close to where we lived when we first moved out to California and we used to frequent the pond regularly, but haven't been back since we moved to Mountain View several years ago. Lillian's love of ducks is well known so it was the perfect place to kill some time watching the friendly ducks do their ducky thing.

Today, we planned a very special outing. Lillian is getting to be a very proficient biker so today she and her daddy both mounted their bikes and set out on a ride on the nearby Stevens Creek trail. They rode on their bikes out to a spot about two miles out from our house that has loads of blackberry bushes and picked enough berries to bring home and make a super-yummy, rustic berry tart (the crust recipe can be found here but the filling was just the blackberries with a little sugar and corn starch).

Lillian and the ducks.

The Duck Pond.

Yummy wild berry tart!

Boating on the Lake

After returning from our fun and exciting vacation, Lillian fell sick with Strep throat and spent most of the week laying on the couch watching TV. By Saturday the antibiotics were doing their trick and we were all tired of hanging out at home so we headed out for a fun outing that would entertain Lillian yet not require too much effort on all of our parts. We went out to Shoreline Lake in Mountain View and rented a paddle boat to cruise around the lake. Despite a strong headwind, cramped seats, and a not-so-helpful little girl who wanted to steer the boat all by herself (we paddled around in circles several times), we still managed to make it all the way across the lake and back. We also miraculously remembered to bring the camera along so we actually have pictures of this outing.

The family making slow progress across the lake.

The view from the middle of Shoreline Lake.



This has nothing to do with our outing today but I found this weeks old video on the camera when I downloaded our pictures for the day. Lillian showing off her moves to a bad synthesized version of the Bananarama song "Venus".

Summer Vacation

This past weekend we packed up the car for a road trip. With grandparents in tow headed up to Mt Shasta in the far reaches of northern California (aka The state of Jefferson). Mt Shasta is conveniently located about halfway between Portland and San Francisco making it an ideal spot to meet up with Uncle Joe and cousins Lucas and Raquel. We rented a cabin for the weekend in Dunsmuir that was able to comfortably house the eight of us for a nice gathering of most of the Husky clan.

Mt. Shasta is a beautiful area filled with huge snow caped mountains, alpine lakes and roaring rivers. Besides the requisite shooting the breeze with the other grown ups while the kids entertain each other, we also drove up to the ski bowl on Mt Shasta, hiked from Castle Lake to Heart Lake (well everyone except Grandma Betty and Lillian), and cooled off in Lake Siskiyou.

If you are interested in seeing more pictures check out the web album from the trip. Special thanks to Grandma Betty for actually remembering to bring a camera on the trip.

Lillian, Lucas and Raquel climbing the slopes of Mt Shasta, needless to say these three didn't make it any where near the 14,000 foot summit.

Joe, Eric, Kristen, Terry Lucas and Raquel, at Heart Lake, if you look really hard you can see some snow in the background.

Lillian and her cousins take a dip in Castle lake after the hike to Heart lake which is located about 2/3 of the way up the ridge behind Castle lake.

Lillian, Raquel and Lucas at McCloud falls.

Eric, Lillian and Raquel in Lake Siskiyou with Mt Shasta in the background.

Los Gatos

Lillian's Grandpa Terry and Grandma Betty have been visiting for a couple of weeks. This past weekend we took a trip to the nearby village of Los Gatos, which has lots to keep everybody happy. There is a bike trial that leads to a park with a minature railroad and carousel,and there is also a great brew pub in town. Lillian rode her scoot bike on the trail while the rest of us walked the trail for about 3 miles round trip. After all that walking we were all ready for some nice cold beer at the Los Gatos Brewing Company.

Beach Boardwalk

This past weekend we went to the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk for Eric's company's summer picnic. After visiting Happy Hollow earlier this summer Lillian has developed a bit of a taste for amusement park rides. Although many of the rides were only for big kids, there were several kiddie rides that were just the right size for her. The carousel was so much fun that we rode it twice. But the big Ferris wheel she asked to get off of about 20 seconds after it started. Her favorite part of that ride was when it was finally our turn to get off.

Musical Extravaganza

Yesterday Lillian's daycare put on an Africa themed musical extravaganza. The kids have been busy preparing for the performance for a few weeks now and they were excited to strut their stuff in front of a room full of eager parents. Lillian was a little shy at first, especially during the Russian numbers. But by the time they got to Row, Row, Row Your Boat, she really got into it.

Tiger Lillian before the big show.


Some very enthuiastic boat rowing with her friend Taya.

Alara's Birthday

This Saturday was Alara's Birthday party. It was quite an event, complete with a pinata, face painting, ice-cream cake, and lots of time running around with all of Lillian's favorite little people. After the first girl to get her face painted got a butterfly, everyone else wanted a butterfly on their face too. Soon there was a whole gaggle of cute butterfly girls running around. After the party Lillian went over to her friend Jessie's house while her parents enjoyed an evening out on the town. Between the afternoon full of birthday party and the excitement of hanging out with Jessie in the evening, Lillian was pooped and ready for bed.

The butterfly girls, Lillian, Emile and Ellie.

Child Labor

In an effort to get back to our usual routine, we visited Full Circle Farm this afternoon. We haven't been able to make it to the farm in a few weeks, and boy have things grown! The corn plants that were only a few feet high are now huge and sprouting big ears of corn. The farmer let us try some raw corn fresh off the plant and boy was it sweet and delicious. So much so that Lillian ate two whole ears of it before we even left the farm. We also brought home a few ears to boil up with dinner. After shucking two ears at the farm, Lillian is now an expert and shucked the four ears for dinner all by herself.

Back to the Park

The past couple of weeks have been busy with holidays and travel, so we have missed out on two weeks of our regular Monday park play-date with our friends. Today we made up for lost park time by spending five solid hours hanging out at the park. Lillian was thrilled to see all of her favorite little people and even managed to make a few new friends along the way. I should also mention that today she was not our usual Lillian self but a baby bird, complete with wings. Sure the wings are fairy wings (and last night when she put them on she was "Little Kid Fairy") but today they were bird wings. Lillian has taken to pretending to be a bird, and her friend Jessie loves to play right along. Just the other day we were puzzled to see Jessie sitting on top of Lillian only to hear that Jessie was sitting on-top of Lillian in an effort to "hatch" her into a baby little bird. The pretend play is pretty cute and very entertaining for all involved.

Lillian shows off her birdie wings.

Lillian bird and Jessie bird sitting in the tree, because that's what birds do.

Klaus's House

This past weekend we visited our dear friends Ryan and Joanna and their son Klaus. They are living in Santa Monica while Joanna is on sabbatical from her professorship at Texas A&M. Since the sabbatical is about to end and they will be returning to Texas at the end of the month we decided that we should try to squeeze in a little visit while they are still living in California. The visit involved a 5 hour drive each way but Lillian was a trouper and sat patiently in her car seat for the long boring drive down the I-5, looking out the window and listening to stories on CD.

Lillian and Klaus go way back, and even though we rarely get to visit, they are always delighted to see one and other. The last time we saw Klaus, he and Lillian clicked instantly and ran off to play with little supervision necessary, the same was true with this visit. The two immediately ran off and starting having cute a toddler sized discussion about all sorts of important things.

While in Santa Monica we also visited with Lillian's Auntie Erin and had the opportunity to attend her boyfriend Preston's birthday bash. We also got to see some of the sights around Santa Monica and Eat some truly outstanding food.

Enjoying a frosty beverage while driving through the scorching San Joaquin Valley on our way to Santa Monica.

Lillian and Klaus riding the Big Blue Bus.

Lillian at the playground next to the Santa Monica Pier while we waited for the historic carousel to open.

Waiting for her yogurt at Pinkberry at the Third Street Promenade.

Klaus, being one smart cookie, is already able to read at age 3 1/2, this made bedtime even easier since Klaus can read bedtime stories to Lillian.

Happy Hollow

This weekend we made our first trip to Happy Hollow Park and Zoo. The park is recently re-opened after being closed for remodeling for the past two years. Happy Hollow has a small zoo and a small amusement park, this smallness makes it a perfect spot for small children with small legs and even smaller attention spans. Lillian had a blast visiting the animals. On the way there she informed us that she was most eager to see the ducks. The zoo had a nice variety of kid favorite animals but unlike the San Francisco Zoo there are no ducks. Thankfully she was not too disappointed with the lack of ducks at this zoo. The park also has a variety of old fashioned kiddie rides and brand new playgrounds. Lillian got to ride her very first roller coaster. When it came time to leave Lillian protested and told us that she wanted to stay there forever. Ah, if only real life were as exciting as an amusement park.

It's Pool Time

Summer has finally arrived after an exceptionally cold spring here in Northern California. So today we headed out to the Rinconada Pool. As you may remember Lillian had a grand time at the pool last year, and now that she is taller and more coordinated, it's even more fun all of us. Once she caught sight of the pool she ran right into the water and didn't come out for nearly two hours except for a brief break for strawberries.