Boys, Boats, and the City by the Bay

In an impressive last hurrah, summer has decided to finally settle in around here. We've been shivering and wearing fleece jackets for the last few months, squinting our eyes in the fog and dreaming of sunny days at the pool. Now, all of a sudden, the temperature has leapt up to 90 degrees, 95 degrees, 100 degrees and we're all sweating, staggering around, and bitching about the lack of air conditioning. That's human nature for you. The grass is always greener...

In any case, some of Max's preschool colleagues decided to take advantage of the warm weather for a boat ride to San Francisco, and we were only too happy to tag along. It was a great adventure, if a bit chaotic. We had six boys tearing around the ferry boat, literally climbing the walls, yet thankfully we managed to avoid losing anyone overboard. Back on land, we explored Pier 39, checked out the seals, engaged in passionate, teary battles over a loan crab leg found on the deck, rode the overpriced carousel a few times, purchased some tourist schlock, fought over a pay telescope with views of Alcatraz, scarfed some lunch on the run, and sent our blood sugar levels through the roof with mammoth ice cream cones. Then it was back on the ship, more tearing around, and a short drive home from the Alameda ferry terminal. Both of my boys are dead asleep right now, the surest sign of all of a summer morning well spent.

Swimming Footage

Today was the last day of swim lessons, so I decided to bring a camera to document Max's progress. Clearly, I should have done this on a different day, because today was mostly a free-for-all with pool toys. Even still, I captured a few moments. Max is front and center with his teacher and another little girl in his class.

June Lake 2010

It wouldn't be a vacation with small children unless there was some element of disaster involved, and this year, disaster -- thy name was "Hand, Foot, and Mouth Disease." Poor Henry fell ill a couple days before we left -- fever for two days followed by mouth sores. By the time we hopped in the car to drive up into the mountains, Max was also running a fever, and in a particularly delightful turn, he managed to throw up all over me in the back seat. I knew my fate was sealed at that point, but it took a couple days for my own symptoms to set in. I lost a lot of valuable vacation time to this stupid illness, but there were at least two pluses: (1) I got to stay home by myself and read (The Passage by Justin Cronin is every bit as addictive as the publicity hype would like you to believe), and (2) I didn't gain as much weight eating crappy vacation food because my throat was too sore. Hurrah!

By mid-week everyone was feeling much better and we somehow managed not to infect the rest of the family. We spent a lot of time fishing and exploring old favorite lakes and discovering new ones. We hung out with the extended family and celebrated my mom's retirement after 23 years of teaching. As always, the week went by too quickly and I'm already dreaming about next year...

Dodie and Henry check out boats at the Gull Lake Marina

The view from our condo did not suck

One of my favorite pictures of Max. He's getting so big!

Another favorite shot taken at Silver Lake

Is this boy cute or what?!

Dodie, Max, and Henry at Ellery Lake

All the ladies (and Max) at Ellery

Singing songs around the campfire

Morning at Silver Lake

I had to bribe them to get them to pose for this shot

Dodie and her sons-in-law

Toasting my mom at her retirement soiree

Family Poker Tournament (Scott was the big winner!)

David and Nicolle (yes, she's knocked up!)

Video Clips

A couple video clips discovered on our old camera: