Yosemite: Spring Break 2013

Yay, Spring Break!!!  And Yay for Brian having vacation to take a vacation.

We took the train/bus to Yosemite to stay in the Curry Village tent cabins. I assure you, they had 300% less contamination than last year.


Brian will have more to add. But here are the first round of pictures.

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Photos from Portland trip

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Train Trip!!!!

We headed on the train for a quick overnight to Sacramento. Love the quick getaway! The girls loved the train, loved the hot tub and heated pool, loved the free breakfast, loved getting everyone up at 4:30 AM, loved the railroad museum, loved checking out the capitol building. All in all a good trip.

Sacto Dec'12, a set on Flickr.

Davis Dadventure™

Last weekend the girls I and got out of town on the train and headed to Davis for a night.  Great town.

Many thanks to Dr. A for financing the operation.

If you see a photo below that looks like the kids are having melted leftover ice cream for breakfast, well, that's what it is.

Waiting for the train


On the aforementioned train


It's a redwood forest in the central valley, of course
 

Rock climbers under I-80


Hamming it up by the pool


KFC, baby!


Ice cream treat


Goodbye!

Seattle Domination!!!!

This weekend, McMiller Inc. is in Seattle, visiting Stunt Dad and family. * Our long weekend has been composed of overnight yeasted waffles, a trip to Costco, visiting an awesome park with lots of ride-on toys, an outing to a play gym at the Y, a swimming trip, a rainy visit to a beach, much cousin craziness, extended bedtimes, and enjoyable glasses of wine and TV after the kids are asleep. Our girls loved seeing the newest McFeely boy cousins** and getting more time to play with Liam.  Thanks for the great visit!!




* I have zero pictures because I didn't bring a camera, but hopefully some of Brian's iPhone pictures and movies will make their way here.
** Holy moly, twins are a lot of work.  I bow in honor to all mothers and all families with these special two-fer blessings.  

It's gonna be a long week

 Brian left last night for a week long training in PDX. This is the longest he's been away since Robin has been born, and the second longest time he's been gone since Erin was born.

But.... he's thoughtfully set me up with so many playdates and outings at grandparents/cousins houses that we will be reeeeaaaaally busy.

Also he left this:

a present for each girl, for each day.  That's 12 presents people!

Brian is an awesome Dad.

And he also got a present for Mommy each day: 

I love this man. 

This week might go faster than I think. 

Little Slice of PDX comes to Orinda

We had our first official visitors last week!!!!  These guys braved the long, overnight drive to sleep on our fancy Ikea sofa bed for a few nights.



I didn't get all that many pictures, but since Christie is basically an unpaid professional photographer at this point, she took over that job.



We smooshed three car seats into the Prius and set off for adventures, checking out the Oakland Zoo, the California Academy of Sciences, and the local pool. We ate some good burgers, bacon, prosciutto,  pork. There was a lot of meat. And there was lots of talking, kid wrangling, catching up and fun. And one round of preschooler-toddler soccer:




Thanks for the great visit, Darren, Christie and Henry!   Now it's official: hotel McMiller Orinda is open for business!

McMillers Invade Sacramento, 2011 style

That's right. We took another short train trip up to Sacramento. We swam in the American river (somehow not pictured.) We ate fish n'chips. Twice. We met up with these guys. We saw the Railroad museum. We took a horse-drawn carriage ride through Old Town. Really, we did it all. And had a great time.

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Cousins in Jammies

The neat thing about our Thanksgiving trip to San Diego was that the girls got to see some of their cousins, one brand new, one just far away.  In order of ascending height: Megan, Robin, Liam, Erin.  Matching PJ's courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa.  It was so neat to see them all interact in their age-appropriate ways.

Just a bit more on San Diego Thanksgiving

The turkey was amazing, all the sides were wonderful.  Uncle Matt and Aunt Sharon, with a 2 month old Megan, were very brave and generous to host so many people in their lovely house.  But two more things I have to share about San Diego and why it's such an awesome place:

1. The beach. Even though a cold spell had temperatures at an unseasonable low of mid-60's, it was perfect beach weather.

2. Mexican food.  Delicious, nontraditional Mexican food.

It's a very San Diego Thanksgiving

Carne asada burritos, here we come! 

Wish us luck on our overnight drive.  Trust me, sleeping awkwardly in the car in shifts is significantly preferable to two cranky little kids cooped up in five-point-harnesses for nearly a day. 

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.

McMillerPDX rocks Valentine 2009 San Carlos style

Last weekend we traveled to SFBA to visit Ms. A's family.
Activities included:
* Valentine dinner (composed salad, gumbo, chocolate fondue)
* Bath taking

* Dog petting (not pictured)

* DeYoung museum
* Hot fudge sundaes at Ghirardelli Square.

Road Trip!

This weekend we headed to Seattle to see Dave, Linnea, and their too-be-named kiddo. They're calling him "Champ" for now.


We did some swinging. Erin signed "more, more, more" until she almost went all the way around:


We did some walking. It got very cold, but it was very pretty:


We did some swimming at the new YMCA. Erin swam and splashed until she was blue from the cold. She ignored chattering teeth and splashed until her parents dragged her out:


Not pictured: we had outstanding beers and burgers, read good magazines, enjoyed half-caf coffee, and ate at one of the best bakeries in the world. (No, really, they had a huge trophy.)

A great weekend. Thanks, Westerfeelys!

More Annapolis & D.C

Erin, Uncle Heath, Grammy at the National Gallery.

Erin, Grandpa, Uncle Garreth splish splashing in the pool.

McMiller family paying their *ahem* respect to G.W.

Busy weekend visit by Erin

This weekend I visited my Grammy and Grandpa.  

Grammy and I had a good time playing. 

I got to meet my auxiliary Oma Joyce.

I inspected the local wildlife - this creature is named "Andee." 

I went on a picnic with Grandma and Grandpa McFeely.

All these adventures sure makes a girl tired!