Trip to Palm Springs

Two weeks ago, we went out to Palm Springs for a weekend of relaxing before the baby comes. Although Robyn is winding down her last quarter at UCLA and needs to finalize her last two scripts, it seemed like a good time before things really get busy. We got in Friday afternoon after a quick stop at the outlet malls and spent most of the weekend relaxing. Robyn got a motherhood massage and Jack & I went to an outdoor zoo called the Living Desert. One of the attractions is the largest model train set I have ever seen. It's HUGE! I didn't think I was going to be able to get Jack away, but eventually we went to see the giraffes, zebras, bighorn sheep, etc.

One common activity was feeding the ducks that were outside our room. Jack had an absolute blast chasing them and having them eat out of his hand. On Sunday, we couldn't leave until we fed the ducks which turned out to be more work than we thought since most of them were hiding from the wind. Eventually we found some on the 18th fairway of one of the golf courses and managed to feed them while staying out of the way of golfballs.

Jack Riding His Bike and Trike

One of Jack's new favorite hobbies is to ride his tricycle or bicycle (depending on how he feels). He's getting good at both of them and likes riding around the backyard or around the neighborhood. He rode is bike over to his friend Zion's house which is about 6 blocks away! Oh yeah, and he likes to ride in his footed jammies.

Jack's Third Birthday Party

On February 9, Jack celebrated his third birthday. Yep, hard to believe he's three, but he is! The party was at a place called Joey's Gym, which is a big play place. Jack, Mommy, Daddy, Nanny, and Poppy all got there early to setup which gave Jack lots of time to play on the equipment before the other kids got there. He loved that and by the time the kids started showing up, he'd already started sweating. The kids ran and played and followed along with a bunch of games. After playtime, they had cheese quesadillas, rice and beans (all of which Jack declined in favor of fruit and cheese). For the cake, Jack wanted ice cream cake with the Cars theme and a big Lightning McQueen on top. He loves ice cream, but still doesn't really like the cake part.

Baby #2: It's a Girl!

We're excited to announce that not only are we having another baby, we found out today that it's a girl! We are really excited for her anticipated arrival on April 6. Above is a picture of the beautiful girl.

Halloween

Ok, so we're not as timely with the postings as I would like, but at least I didn't go three months between postings this time.

Last week was Halloween and we took Jack over to his friend's house for a little trick or treating and a lot of running and playing. He had two potential costumes and tt took a bit of coaxing, but he eventually opted for "Mater" from the Cars movie.

At his friend Zion's house, the kids (mostly boys) ran around for a bit, as boys tend to do, and then the dads took all of the kids trick or treating in the neighborhood. He was hesitant at first, but then soon learned that if he went up to the house, they gave him candy. Pretty soon he was running out ahead of me with his little green jack o' lantern dragging behind and yelling, "there's another one Daddy!" He also learned that if you just kept standing at the door amongst a crowd, the owner of the house would sometimes forget that they had given you candy and would give you another piece. We hit pretty much every house we passed with the exception of one where the owners had gone all out on the decorating. I'm talking smoke machines, giant spider webs, tombstones, and some sort of goblin booth at the front of the house. Jack stared at the house for at least minute and then said he wanted to just go to the next one.

In the end, he got tons of candy, which I think he has sort of forgotten about, and had a great time.

Back From Hiatus

If you're reading this for the first time, which you probably are since I didn't email anyone when we started this blog three months ago, you may have noticed the big gap between the posts. The reason is simple, Kristen showed me how to set it up a while back and then I forgot/got busy/got lazy, etc. I did think about updating several times, but I never got to it. Anyway, the Paris blog is back and I'll try to keep up this time.

This was an interesting weekend with an unusual combination of events. Our anniversary was this week (9 years for those keeping track) and we went to a great French place for a romantic dinner. The next day, we drove an hour and half into Riverside county to a demolition derby at the fair. Jack loved watching the colorful cars crash into each other and I must say Robyn and I had fun too. If you haven't been to a demolition derby, it's worth checking one out. Jack also hit the petting zoo and even rode on the back of an elephant! What's a trip to the fair without an elephant ride?

Other than good restaurants and dusty fairs, we've been busy. School has started again for Robyn, Jack is attending preschool, and I've been working on the fresh pomegranate season.

More to come, I promise.

First Post

Ok, Robyn, Brad, and Jack now have a blog! If you're lucky, Robyn will post something creative. If not, you're stuck with Brad's informative but boring posts. Let us know what's going on with you!