Sushi Date Night!

Grammy and Papa graciously came over to take the girls and Brian and I went out on a date!  Woot!  We went to a local sushi place, Blue Ginko, for some excellent raw treats.

Dinner was over very quickly.  Sushi doesn't take very long. My parents had taken the girls to Fentons, and we didn't want to get home before they did. So we went to Metro for a cocktail.  Then to Loard's for an ice cream cone.

Totally bursting at the seams, we went back home.  The girls were taking a bath, energetic and happy.  Very energetic.  Apparently Robin ate half her body weight in ice cream.  She was up until 10:45, long after we normally go to bed.  But she snuggled and watched my favorite show with me.

A great date night!

The McMillers Have Given Notice!

See ya, apartment!

We're all lined up on the house purchase:

• Received final loan approval? Check.
• Inspection didn't show anything terrifying? Check.
  
• House appraised to sale price? Check.
• All buyers contingencies removed? Check.
  
• Given 45-day notice at apartment? Check.

Close date is September 16th, we take ownership September 18th, and we're out of our apartment October 14th.

We'll have a month of overlap where we've got both the house and the apartment. We're going to use the time to schlep all our stuff over to the new place, go through years of crap, and do some minor repairs.

By the way -- this photo from the apartment's website is what we see off of our balcony. I'm definitely going to miss the pool.

Pizza, acrobatics, music

Friday night in Lafayette:

Walking around outside the pizza place.


Then more kid-oriented live music.

Wacky Times in the East Bay

That's right, nothin' but crazy shenanigans in Lamorinda.

Mount Diablo Challenge

For the past few weeks I've been thinking about running up the local peak, Mt. Diablo. It keeps sitting there, saying, "Hey, B, I wonder if you can run up me. I'm probably pretty fun. Check me out.". So, Sunday morning was the First Official Brian McFeely Mount Diablo Challenge. 20 miles, 3700 vertical feet. 4 hours 11 minutes. Four Clif Bars. Many salty pretzels. Two tarantula sightings. Booyow.

It's a big, squat mountain, and it was interesting to be on foot moving up it -- it felt just like they say, like moving up the side of a big, sleeping monster. Views were beautiful but smoke from fires in the state obscured the bay. Ms. A and Erin met me at the top and drove me home.

Pool Party!

Dr. A, Erin, and I are just back from the pool. It was sweet!

Instead of creepy people, there were totally normal people. Lots of kids, maybe seven families. We all got to meet people, and Erin liked jumping from the edge of the pool into my arms. I guess that's how we parents roll on Saturday night in Lafayette, yo.

OK, Lafayette, you've won this round.

p.s. Erin pooped twice in two hours while swimming. Twice. Three swim diapers, people.

The McMillers Have Landed

What a crazy few weeks.  Allow me to summarize:

• Graduation
• Packing up house
• Driving truck 13 hours down to Lafayette (the cats travelled admirably well in the cab with me)
• Unpacking all our crap, and I do mean crap -- all of it, with the wonderful help of our families
• Weekend celebration for my Mom's 60th birthday
• Meeting extremely weird people in our apartment complex.  Not the fun weird, either.  Creepy weird.
• Heat wave
• B working remotely
• Dr. A starting work in SF tomorrow
• E being juggled by her parents and extremely kind grandparents until daycare starts in September

Thoughts on Lafayette and California:

• It is extremely hot and dry here in this state.  It goes against my survival instinct to go outside.
• Lafayette is surrounded by hills covered in oaks.  Very pretty.
• There ain't much here here.  Money magazine calls the downtown "manageable".  Humph.
• Not many people between high school age and middle age.  It's sort of weird to see no one with oddly-placed piercings.
• Where the hell are the swings, people!  My child needs to swing!

Lafayette is currently pretty terrifying to me.  I feel the same as at the end of a long travel abroad, when you just want to go home, just want to see something familiar.  For the time being, doing my best to suck it up and ignore the knot in my stomach.  Good thing the apartment has a sweet pool.