What happened? Season Greetings!

Last blog was October 7th and now it's December 8th, omg! We've had a great fall season and really enjoyed Halloween at the zoo then trick or treating with neighbor friends. For Thanksgiving we took our last rode trip of 3 to Pismo Beach and then onto Santa Barbara where Greg caught a ton of rockfish that we were able to bring home.

Lady Notte is just settling down for her last long month. Her constant movement is slowing down as we both get bigger. Right now it seems she's head down though we have a C Section scheduled for January 10th. We'll leave the rest up to the gods. Speaking of gods, thank god for Amazon...my holiday shopping and nesting has consisted of me waking up early or before bed adding things to my Amazon cart and then shipping them near and far. I hate lines, I love Amazon.

Work has been going well for both of us. I just got to do a district professional development for all new teachers on PBIS (Positive Behavioral Interventions & Support.) I'm trying to create a strong presence around this great philosophy and hopefully gather interest for a district position next year where I'd be able to support schools in their implementation. My grad school classes have really complimented my new job and it's been great. I can't believe less than two weeks left. Then I might be back for a couple days after the New Year before I go on leave until May!

Cody's been in undies since October and doing awesome. He was rewarded with a sweet firetruck. We're so happy and lucky that it was actually the daycare that encouraged and supported us to take the plunge and go all undies. He's in a swim class without us on Saturdays too, he's such a big boy! The first class was a demo in torture as the four little ones screamed for 30 minutes, now there's three left in the class and they are great and swim with one of two instructors and wait patiently for their turn in between. Then Greg and I hop in the pool (so liberating when preggers) and we all swim for another half hour together. It's been a good Saturday activity with the recent heavy rains.

While we look forward to time off and celebrating the holidays, it will be our first Christmas without visiting family back home. I'm sure they'll be lots of Skyping and plenty of family favorite foods to keep us connected to those we love. Happy Holidays!

Fall is in the air

Yikes, August 1st was my last blog. The end of summer and start of fall came quickly, but with much fun and excitement. Cody and I got used to our new jobs: his at April Fender's Full of Wonder Daycare/Preschool & mine at BTSA (Beginning Teacher Support & Assessment) Consulting Teacher for my district. We're both very happy and making new friends. I also started graduate school at the San Francisco State University for my Masters in Admin and that's been a great complement to the new job and place at the district office. I'm seeing another side of education and it's quite interesting and I'm learning a lot.
Lady Notte and Greg are doing well too. The little lady had a good 20 week check up, and although little at the time, doing well. She kicks a lot more than Cody, I'm wondering if that's because she has more room to jam around (since Cody's cord was fused together.) In a couple more weeks, I'll officially be in my 3rd trimester-the final haul. Right now 26 weeks.) Greg's been enjoying work and playing in a softball tourney and weekly league. Speaking of living an active lifestyle, our siblings have been super athletes: Uncle Jonny won his flutag competition in front of 80,000 Philly fans, then rode 75 miles the next weekend for charity and today I'm waiting to hear how Aunt Paige and Uncle Kyle did in their marathon. I just found out that Noah finished the Chicago marathon and the Ashleys are on their way back to Kentucky.
We had a great trip back east in August-hanging out in Pottstown with family and having fun on the tractor, pond and with the trains of course and then Cody and I went to Utica and loved Sylan Beach and getting ice cream with family. Then back to Philly, PA and went up to William Penn's Hat, the Please Touch Museum, and the Reading Terminal. Great trip and flights!
Now school's been back for more than a month. Cody does a gymnastics class on Thursdays (though the instructor must think they're more like 20 than 2-a little intense; only for one more month. It started pretty chill, but a new instructor has different expectations. My pregnancy expectations of troubled veiny legs has returned with force and I'm stuck in medical compression stocking all the time. Oh well, it's worth saving the look of my legs post baby. It's just been hot here-last week two days near 100!
We've been quite social in September-going to Gordan and Stella's birthday parties and leaving Cody with the great sitter and going to Harmony by the Bay Musical Festival to see Matisyhau and Jimmy Cliff plus more others too. It was so great and Cody got the best sitter report of all times.
We're sad that Grammie broke her leg recently, but happy that Pops and Grammie had a great trip to Turkey. Yesterday we had a "I can't believe we live here" road trip: drove across a clear Golden Gate Bridge to Point Reyes National Park, played  at Limontour Beach, went to a farmer's market, an Oyster Farm for lunch and Lagunitas Brewery for some live music and a beer for Greg-three more months for me! Today we just got back from a bike ride to the park and the store where Cody picked out a new tooth brush and paste. (He's recently declined in his morning routine enthusiasm.) We're excited for next weekend's pumpkin patch field trip and camping near the coast with friends in Pescadero and then for Mandy and Sabi's trip out here. Ahhh back to those Eagles, hopefully Vick will have a better 2nd half. Go Birds!

Road Trippin' and Growing Up

I'm sure I write this a lot, but WOW I can't believe it's been a month since my last entry. Cody and I having been keeping busy with swimming on Mondays, art class on Tuesdays then fun adventures the rest of the week. I had a good 14 week ultrasound where they were convinced it was a girl and also said everything looks good. Yes! I put a pic up on the end of the last blog of her.

We had a real birthday party for Cody at Burton Park in San Carlos only 3 weeks after the real deal in Central Park with the largest ever Diego cake. He's really grown up too-he's been going pee on the potty (3x today!...for stickers and M&Ms of course) he's repeating back everything we say, he started going part time to his new big kid daycare where he's the youngest and loves being with the older kids, and rides a tricycle (actually went himself and threw out his binky in exchange for it-I just wish the helmet fit him better.) He rode on a bunch of kiddie rides all by himself on the Santa Cruz Boardwalk while Greg was fishing with friends. It was so awesome as 1 other random couple from this area arrived as the rides were opening and Cody and his new friend he met-Dylan went on ride after ride-I was psyched to watch and take pictures and not squeeze my pregnant belly into mini ride seats!

Greg and I are having summer fun too. After his bday party we got a sitter and went to String Cheese Incident at Berkeley's Greek Theatre. Yes, they were still awesome and that's without 1 beer! Then last weekend with Cody we took the new Subbie into new areas for us of Northern California. First we drove at night to Garbersville which is the start of Avenue of the Giants (Giant Redwoods that is.) The next morning we drove through trees, Cody played hide and seek on the trails, and we worked our way up the coast to Patricks Point State Park. It's cool on the coast in summertime. We walked through Eureka and had a snack before setting up our camp closer to Trinadad. Cody totally took advantage of vacation and hopped into our bed each night including our sleeping bags in the tent. I think he's too big for the pack n play finally-well we got a lot of good use from it. We made good camping food-which a little skunk that night really enjoyed Cody's maca crumbs and nearly scared me silly (silly=locking myself for a couple minutes in Subbie-while Cody slept unknowingly in the tent.) In the morning, we hiked to the ocean and explored tidal pools filled with crabs, anemone and starfish. We also "hunted" for agate-semi precious stones. It was such a green, lush, cool, beautiful environment, but it was time to heat it up so we drove I-238 inland to the Trinity Alps which is south of Mt. Shasta. We stayed right outside of the gold mining town of Weaversville; it is so beautiful and not touristy. The Griggs Family of 4 met us up at our VRBO house and Nolan and Greg tried hard to catch the epic salmon run up the river. Christy and I, when our angler husbands weren't fishing, managed an also epic 10-12 mile river kayak trip through some gentle rapids-totally preggers safe and super fun. There was a nearby super cold but pristine swimming hole near our place that felt awesome in the 90+ heat. On our drive home Greg and I contemplated our next trip there and buying a boat and kayak-that passed the 4.5 hr ride as Cody slept and then watched Toy Story on the Ipad. Perfect Cali Stay-cation.

This week I found out that my petition was accepted to SFSU for their Master's Program for the Fall so I quickly got my application in and am just waiting on a couple of recs so hopefully I'll start classes my first real day back to work-August 27th. Gotta get back to the Olympics-they've been keeping us up to midnight!

Summer Fun Coast to Coast

4th of July brought fun and chilly fireworks outside our house. We had a nice BBQ with the Goldfarbs and Nolan. Then today Susan, Abbie, Cody, and I went to the nice Oakland Zoo. That's been a snap- shot of summer just in those two days-hanging out with family/friends and going on little and big adventures. The school year ended on June 15th and Cody and I started another summer of love together going to swim lessons, art class, story time in the library and countless parks. Then we flew to a very hot NYC for his birthday and Sara and Dorrian's wedding. Cody and I met up with Harlem friends Mike and then Sarba and loved catching up. We also went to Central Park and the History Museum. Dada was in CT for a Gilead Presentation then joined us and Greg's parents in NYC to announce we're expecting again in January! Both couples got to celebrate at great dinners in NYC. The next morning Barb organized yummy treats for Cody's 2nd birthday party in Central Park. Then we traveled to Long Island-with apparently everyone else in the universe-for the beautiful wedding. It was great catching up with college friends in person. Everyone looks great and is happy. I can not believe it's been 12 years since we threw a great graduation party and left little Oneonta and Hartwick College. We got back to a nice temperate Cali and I interviewed and got a new job for next year! I will be working out of the district office as a traveling consulting teacher for both new and struggling teachers. I'm really excited to see another part of education for this 1 year leave of the classroom. We're excited Mandy and Noah have successfully completed their stints in Ohio and Paige and Kyle bought a great house in Colorado that is no where near all the awful fires that hopefully seem to be subsiding. Well Cody's up from nap-time for another adventure. I love summer.

Family Time and School's Out for Summer!

Ahhh, today was last day of school. Now I have time to blog and clean and most importantly relax and have summertime fun! May started with my mom and dad and Paige coming out to visit. We went up to the city and walked a little bit of the Golden Gate Bridge, but as you can see it was very overcast, cold, and windy-typical San Fran spring/summer, I'm glad we live on the Peninsula. Monday, they all went to the SF Zoo where I'm not sure of Paige's judgement as seen by her feeding Cody to the crocs, but it sounded like they had a blast. Greg and I had to work-boo, it was my state STAR testing and Shirley our daycare was on vaca so we were lucky to have family come out, watch Cody and show him lots of good times and love. Mom and Dad took him to Coyote Point Park and on the Cal Train to another fun park. They were even here for Cody's second play appearance in our school's musical 13 which was awesome! The following Saturday we went to the Maker's Fair again, it's a huge fair of all things invention-lots of demos and super interesting, creative people. We got solar eclipse viewing lenses and brought them up to Mark and Courtney's ranch to see the solar eclipse. It was gorg up there of course and pretty cool seeing a "bite" out of the sun. Later the next couple of weeks we saw Venus transverse the Sun.

For Memorial Day we headed down to San Diego for the first time since we've moved out here to hang with Mandy and Asa who were taking a course and celebrating their 5th birthday respectively. We had a blast-even though we could have been hanging out just in the room for how much fun Cody and Asa had hanging together. Some highlights were going to the zoo, running through waves at Coronado Beach, watching Cody and Asa running around with kites at Seaport Village and just catching up with the always busy Mandy. Oh, we also had great experiences on Virgin flights which we're taking soon back to New York for Sar and Dor's wedding!

Then it was June and we camped with the Goldfarbs at Memorial State Park. It's a great site with lots of fun stuff for kids. Last weekend we went back to Tilden where we had Cody's naming ceremony. I love that place. Wow how Cody's changed and more changes this summer- besides his talking up a storm and following lots of directions this summer we're getting rid of the bink for sure, moving up to a big kid bed and practicing a little potty training.

Today was his last day at Shirley's. She has been super great and got him a shirt, plane spoon, and lunch box today. We've really been happy with our first daycare experience and look forward to our next at April Fender's with older children. I've been non stop thinking of my future-been at Borel for 4 years and it's been great but I need to take classes so I've explored a bunch of options and think I've narrowed in on another Masters in Admin at a local private college. But right now I'm most looking forward to Greg's enchilada's that I can smell right now, sleeping in a little bit tomorrow, then heading down the coast to the ocean since it'll be 95 here. I've been to our pool at the our gym 3x this week. I want to go there at least 3x per week with Cody doing swimming and me yoga. Yay, summer Jes is here. Can't wait to hear Paige's recent adventures and see Barb and John, maybe Uncle Jonny in NYC next week. Then see them again in August and Utica family too since Cody and I will be taking Amtrak up to Utica to hang out! Yay-one more time-it's summer!!!!!!!!!!! 12 years of teaching and it always feels awesome to finish a year and enjoy break.