These Are a Few of My Favorite Things - Age 5

Starting this year I'm going to ask Drew a series of questions for his Birthday and then I will ask these same questions every following birthday to watch as his answers change.  I think it'll be a fun glimpse for both us and him as he grows up to see what was important to him at various ages.  First up - age 5.
What is your favorite TV Show?
 Mike the Knight
What is your favorite movie?
The Sandlot
What is your favorite book?
 I Spy
Who is your best friend?
Jayce and Troy
What do you want to be when you grow-up?
Fireman
What's your favorite sport?
Baseball & Soccer
What is your favorite game?
Temple Run, Fruit Ninja, and all the Angry Birds (all iPhone apps)
What is your favorite toy/thing to play with?
My Angry Birds (and Angry Bird Splat Ball)
What is your favorite thing to do/hobby?
Go to School
What is your favorite food?
Chicken and French Fries and Pizza
What is your least favorite food?
Hot Dogs
What is your favorite subject at school?
Race and swing on the swings and play

Mommy's Birthday Letter to Drew - Age 5

Drew,

While five years seems like such a long time in your world, today I remember how just "yesterday" you came into our lives changing our world forever - for the better.  Happy 5th birthday buddy!

In the past  year:

• we've seen you graduate from preschool
• start Kindergarten (TK to be exact) 
• make new friends
• listened every morning to the amazing tales you tell about your dreams that night
• achieve that 42" height that lets you ride all those "big kid" rides 
• take on new tests like conquering levels in your favorite game Angry Birds or tackling Temple Run 
• celebrated with you when you decided you were ready to stop wearing pull-ups at night
• started going to the "cinema" to watch movies
• marveled at how your writing and artwork has improved
• watched your fascination for Rocky Balboa start to turn to all things Angry Birds (who knew that if Rocky & Angry Birds were in a match together, the Angry Birds would win?)

With every year I watch you grow, I grow as well.  While my patience may be stretched thin some days, my heart and love for you always overflows.  You are the smartest, most amazing child and we are truly blessed to have you in our lives.

Some of my wishes for you... I hope you keep that perfectionist side of you, but learn to give yourself a little slack.   I hope with age you learn to find some patience with the world as well as yourself.  I hope you find friends that challenge you as well as support you - and I hope you offer the same in return.  I hope you always thirst for knowledge and continue to strive to learn all you can.

Thank you for being the great boy you are - keep it up.  Your Daddy and I couldn't be prouder of you.

Love,
Mommy

Cheering for Purple in a Sea of Red

Last month we got a night out with my Brother Matt and Sister-in-Law Rana thanks to my Aunt and Uncle.  They gave us some preseason 49er/Viking tickets and Grammy offered to watch both Drew and Adrina.  SCORE!

Well that was until we got on the road and realized not only is there a Niner game, but also the Giants were home as well.  Needless to say the traffic sucked!  What should've taken about 45 minutes from Lafayette where we met up with my brother - was over 2 hours. 

By the time we parked, ordered our first beers and found our seats, we missed the entire first quarter and most of the 2nd.  Oh well, it is what it is. 

Don't you love that fan trying to sneak his way into our picture?

I have to say our seats were awesome!  We were on the 50 yard line and could see everything!

Too bad it didn't mean the Vikings won - yes I'm a Viking fan.  You can take the girl out of Minnesota, but you can't take the Minnesota out of the girl.

The final was 17-6 49ers.  

The newlyweds at the game... trying to stay warm.

I have to say we had a good time, but I did have a few gripes. 

1. The 49ers definitely needed a new stadium.  The sound system and most everything about Candlestick sucked (this was my first and only time at the "Stick").
2. The Candlestick concessions staff was horrendous.  I spent the entire 3rd quarter trying to find Dave's chili cheese fries, because he was like a pregnant persona and had to have those damn fries.  While I gave up and decided to stand in line for a beer right next to our seats- Dave continued to search for his fries.  I remained in the line only to be the next person to be served and was ignored because they were having problems with all the other customers who wanted nachos, but they'd run out of cheese.  So I move over to the bottle beer line to only have security cut-off alcohol sales 4 minutes before the end of the quarter (no alcohol sales after 3rd quarter).  I was two people from the front of that line.  I go back and sit down to find Dave coming moments later with his cheese fries (they ran out of chili) and a damn beer!
3. I thank my lucky stars that we didn't bring Drew.  The SF crowd is not what you'd call family friendly at.all.  Drew will need to be a teenager or later to go to his first football game.  Dave even said Raider Fans are tame but get a bad rap next to the Niner fans.  
4. Summers in San Francisco are flippin' freezing!  We thought we were back in a Minnesota winter for a bit there...
5. SF traffic blows!  It took us more than 2 hours to get there and about 2 1/2 to get back to Lafayette to pick up our car (about 20 minutes from home).  So if you factor we were at the game maybe 2 hours - we spent 4 1/2 hours just trying to get to and from the stadium.  That sucks.

Despite all of that, we still enjoyed the experience!  Thanks again to Uncle Doug and Aunt Connie for the tickets.  They were back in Minnesota and couldn't go - so we lucked out. 

Wine a Little, You Feel Better

Sometimes when you wine a little you feel better.  At least when you take some time to pick up a few wine shipments and enjoy your family's company.

The weekend of Dave's Birthday (the beginning of August) we went to Lodi to pick up a wine shipment and they had a great little band and some food for wine members. 

So while we were only going to pick-up and run, we ended up enjoying a little down time.

And then we handed the camera over to Drew....

Not bad for an amateur. 

Who Is That Kid in the Picture?

So in a strange twist of fate, we found a new family member that Drew resembles.

A couple of weeks ago my parents were sifting through some old photos trying to "name that family" member who looks like my niece.  She found a picture of my Mom with her brother and some cousins and determined my niece Kady has some attributes of my Mom's cousin.

Then they looked at the other kids in the picture......

Does anyone in that picture look familiar?



When Drew was shown that picture and asked who it was, he matter-of-factly said "It's me".  I suppose it was more in the tone, "Duh.... it's me".


The kid in the center is my Uncle Mike - or more commonly referred to in our family as "Otto" (but said like "OOOOTTTTOOO").  The little girl to his right would be my Mom. 


See the resemblance?

This picture was from a few months ago when Drew was going to Grammy's for the weekend/night.

When Drew was a baby - maybe from around 9 months until just before his 2nd birthday he looked a lot like my brother did as a baby - although everyone agrees that Drew has his Tata's eyes and always has.

But no one put two and two together until this photo that he resembled Uncle Mike/Otto.  Not even GG - Uncle Mike's Mom.

So the question is what Drew will look like this when he grows up?

That picture was from our Trip to Minnesota just after Drew's 2nd Birthday - or 2 years ago for those bad with math.

Day at the Beach

Have you ever had one of those days, when it's over and you look back at everything, and you think to yourself "now that was a perfect day"?  Well we had one of those nearly a month ago when we enjoyed a day at the beach to celebrate Dave's birthday.  Despite the fact it wasn't a typically sunny summer day, we had the perfect day at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

One of the bonanzas was despite the crazy traffic on the way down, we scored with some offsite discounted parking.  For those familiar with the Boardwalk it's rather congested when to get close where there's limited parking... and forget about trying to figure out the traffic when the lots are full.  We loved getting shuttled in rather than battling the lots.

Once we arrived we enjoyed a picnic lunch.

That was followed by some Beach Volleyball (the Olympics were going on the weekend we went and beach volleyball was one of Drew's favorite sports).

Not sure if you can see it but our "beach volleyball" was a small (and I mean small) inflatable ball.  It's sort of camouflage with the  building in the background.  Dave and Drew played this for a good 30 minutes.  I joined in after a bit - I was a bit sore from running 10 miles that morning preparing for a race.

After a bit we convinced Drew to check out the water...

 ... it was rather chilly.  We had a great time playing "chase" with the waves.

I love that look on Drew's face as he's running from the wave.

Then it's Mommy and Drew's turn to play "chase the wave".

And then Mommy thought it would be a great idea to take some pictures with a wave in the background...

...that is until the wave nailed me in the ass!  Mommy had to go back up to the blanket and try and dry off.

Once Dave and Drew had enough of the water we headed up to the Boardwalk and hit the rides.

 

While Drew had a blast on the kiddie rides Dave snuck in some of the "big kid" rides.  The Boardwalk was PACKED despite the overcast weather.    After hitting a few rides Drew and I made our way back to our blankets on the beach to wait for Daddy. 

Then the three of us played Frisbee for a good hour.  I have to hand it to our 4 year old - he is good at Frisbee!  I'm not sure if it was the kind of Frisbee we had or just his natural athletic ability - either way he was a lot of fun to play with.  After about an hour the skies unleashed and the rain that was holding off all day, came down.  So we packed it up and headed into the arcade - to use the tokens that came with our wristbands.

At 8pm we decided to call it a day and caught the shuttle back to the car and decided to find a local pizza joint where we could grab a bite to eat.  Drew stuffed his face then started falling asleep mid-bite.  We then laid him down where he snoozed until it was time to go.

As Dave and I drove home - we both reflected on our day saying it was the absolute best day.  One of those memorable quality family days you will look back on for years to come.  What made it extra great was we spent a whopping $26 dollars at the Boardwalk - $6 for parking and $20 for my ride tickets (Dave and Drew had wristbands). We didn't spend a nickle on food while we were there!

We're currently planning our next trip back to the Boardwalk before the "season" ends.

Beginnings - Kindergarten Here I Come!

While we just ended a chapter last week, we also started an exciting new chapter this morning - KINDERGARTEN!  Well Transitional Kindergarten (TK) to be exact.  For those that don't know or didn't recall we decided to put Drew into TK - a two year Kindergarten program because of his late birthday and to help give him that confidence boost later in his education career.  Our school district offers the TK program - one of the first in the state.  This is the second year for the TK program in town.

Since it's such an important day - starting school we have a plethora of pictures!  Before school I tried to get the obligatory before you go to school shots, but my subject was being rather silly.

This was about the only decent picture and he had to do it with his blue "kickball".

Then we headed off to school for some more pictures and we tried not to melt away.

While I normally cringe at sharing the name of Drew's school online, I had to get the shot.  Poor kid had to look right into the sun to appease his mama.

Then we walked across the front of the school to head toward his classroom and wait with all the other kids who also were trying to avoid melting away (temperature around 9am was hovering close to mid to high 80s).

Drew was a good sport and smiled for a few more pictures before we were let in.

Following directions like a good boy and standing on the yellow line waiting to be called into class.

Drew's the line leader as he follows his teacher - Mrs. Ferren - into his class.  I have to admit, I was happy I was wearing sunglasses as I watched my little boy enter the classroom as such a big boy.

They started off in a circle singing a song - Drew was a bit bashful and wouldn't do the movements and since his back is to me (he's in the cream shirt closest to the camera) I couldn't tell if he was at least singing.

They let the parents linger for about five minutes to hear that song and listen to all the kids talk about their backpacks.  Then we were given the boot.

 I thought Drew was going to get a little sad as he was waving goodbye and was getting ready to hang up his backpack.

 But he held up like a trooper!

So while he was in school for his 90 minutes I made a costco run (I took yesterday and today off for his first days of school) and then came back to meet him at the gate.

Here he comes....

They kept the parents outside the Kindergarten gate until we announced whose child was ours.  I asked Drew what he thought of his first day... here's what I got:

He said he was good to come back to school again tomorrow!