Ella's Eight!!

OK, so she was actually turned eight eight months and five days ago, but it (not unlike April 15, 2008) was a day that none of us would ever forget:


love you Ella

As always we could never possibly thank our family for their generosity and for making our lives extraordinary, mahalo.

a day in the big city ...

Getting geared up for the holidays we had an incredible opportunity to see the Lion King.  It was a made possible through generosity, generosity for which we are incredibly grateful - thank you.

some images are here.

Thank you for leading us into the season of by example.

Tenth Annual Pumpkin Cutting Party ...

This year was our 10th annual pumpkin cutting party and they continue to be a great highlight to one of our favorite times of the year.  Is it possible they are getting more and more fun?

We flew in a special judge from SanDiego and the custom shirts she brought as prizes had everyone doing their absolute best work work:

Here is Karli's first ever video for this blog:



some throwbacks:

nine eight seven six five four (undocumented somehow?)Three Two One inaugural - otro 

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to the DECADE!

its absolutely mind blowing to imagine that Ollie has been with us ten years ... of course its even harder to imagine a life without my favorite dude.

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*its important to recognize how many amazing people in Mexico, Marin, and Hawaii that should be expressedly thanked and represented in this film ... unfortunately they aren't - but we are in your debt and you have our heartfelt gratitude - you make our life so wonderful, thank you.

Happy 2016 ....

We rang in 2016 in style this year enjoying some of the best snow that Tahoe has seen in years - certainly since our arrival in California.  It was amazing how quickly the kids progressed, getting to stack up seven consecutive days will do that.  As usual we are spoiled and so very thankful for the generosity shown to us, it helps us enjoy incredible times.

Fun in the snow and lots of improvement:

IS it the REASON for the SEASON?

Ok, so that may be a little un-PC but it has seemed that the last few years I have needed the December Break to get caught up on, to go through, and to finally wrestle some of our summer images into something worth sharing*

First Up:  Killarney

This was a big, massive, humongous year in our family - it was the year that we sent both of our kids to summer camp for the first time!!  Yup.  Two weeks of fun for them at my Alma Mater - Camp Wanakita, and two weeks for Karli and I to enjoy and reconnect with each other - while missing them greatly every single day.

We spent the first week, here in California - enjoyed hikes, fancy dinners, hot tubs, and general futzing around the house.  Que Rico.

The second week was monumental.  Karli had done a three day canoe trip (with no sun) in Algonquin a few years previous, but the seven dayer I had lined up in Killarney would be unlike anything she'd done before.  Thankfully, she loved it.

 But did the kiddos like summer camp?

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Then there was the maiden voyage of our newest family member:  Cassidy.  Cassidy was a family father's day gift and is an absolute dream come true for both Karli and myself.  It's a screen free zone and is filled with laughter, adventure, and good times.  The first trip was a journey up to visit Liz, Ian, Anna, Benjamin, & Elsie in Squamish - a raging success but we all wish we could have done the same journey over three or four weeks instead of the ten days we had.  We'll work on that one.  :-)

*although I am not sure either of these are "worth sharing" these videos are increasingly becoming our family's memory (right or wrong), so I really need to try and keep up ...