Happy Father's Day

We had a good Father's Day hike at Wallace Falls. We followed the Woody Trail and made it to the Upper Falls (map) before turning around. The trail was too muddy for Ryan to walk, so we had to carry him the entire way....

Lunch in the Courtyard

Memorial weekend in Santa Barbara

First, I feel I need to apologize for my photos in this post. I accidentally grabbed the wrong camera bag, so I got to Santa Barbara with my old Nikon and the wrong lenses. This explains why nearly all the photos were shot using the same wide angle lens.

Our friends' wedding in Santa Barbara.
I wasn't in the photo-taking mood, so I managed to only get one photo of the newlyweds...



Ryan met Kira (the bride's niece) about a year ago. Here's a link to a few photos from their first play date and below is a video of Ryan and Kira at the wedding reception....


Annual I Madonnari Italian Street Painting Festival at the Santa Barbara Mission.
In the seven years that we lived in SB, we never once went to this festival. Now as tourists, we found it so interesting that we had to go twice. We went there on Saturday just as the artists were beginning and then again on Monday to see the finished product. It was pretty amazing what they were able to do with just chalk. The slideshow below contains two sets of before & after photos....


It was nice seeing A/C and the Twins again. It was nearly one year ago that we last went to the Santa Barbara marina and took photos of the three kids. I'm glad we were able to recreate the shots....


I introduced Ryan to my favorite Santa Barbara smoothie. I think he likes it too...


Here's Amelia now....
(link to Amelia and Ryan in March 2010. Check out Ryan's flat, pre-helmet head)


Goleta Beach....

Quarterly Report

I can't believe it's been nearly 3 months since our last post. We've been extremely busy. In April, I started a new job and we moved into an apartment in Redmond. We would have preferred Seattle, but due to the location of Ryan's daycare (my aunt) and the additional $500 for a comparable Seattle apartment, we settled on Redmond. So far we've been quite happy with the location. We're one block from Trader Joes, two blocks from a phở restaurant and Starbucks, three blocks from a shopping mall, the Redmond farmer's market, and Gymboree. And though we haven't had time or nice weather to appreciate it, we're also only three blocks from 27 miles of continuous, car-free bike trails (Burke-Gilman Sammamish Trail).

Ryan saying ABCs (approx April 10th)....


Here's Ryan seeing the apartment for the first time....



Cherry Blossoms at the University of Washington (April 16th)....


Skagit Valley Tulip Festival (April 17th)....


Easter brunch with Nanna and Gramps at the club....


We went to the Seattle Aquarium while Brooke's brother was in town (April 30th)....


Making pastries with my cousins in our new apartment....


Wine tasting, then beer tasting with Carol in Woodinville, WA (10 minute drive from our apartment)....



Ryan after bath...