Finding Balance in San Francisco

Summer Fun in Foster City

We had a great time in Foster City last night at the summer concert series. The kids ran around all night, partying it up and having a great time


Caroline, Clara and Hugo (who turned 1 the day before) joined in the fun. My dad took them over to the rec. center in my parents' boat and we all had a nice little picnic.

My sister-in-law Sarah is due July 23rd with a baby girl... despite being at the very end of pregnancy she's been in great spirits and a very good sport.

At one point, my mom and I took the kids over to a stage, where they paraded around and hammed it up.

They played the 80's anthems all night... ABBA, Bon Jovi, Michael Jackson, Madonna... perfect for our little dancers.

We went to NASCAR today!

Ryan's childhood friend Jeff Patterson works for a NASCAR team and happily got us "hot" passes at Sonoma's Infineon Raceway today, which meant that we were treated like VIPs!

I've never been to anything remotely like NASCAR, but it sure was fun. Lots of production and entertainment value overall. When we first got there they had 4 superfast jets (like the Blue Angels but not the Blue Angels) flying overhead, and before the actual race began there were helicopter acrobatics (who knew a helicopter could fly upside down?), parachuters, fireworks, a Rolling Stones cover band and a slew of cannons fired.

Here's Jeff and Ryan down on the track before the race.

We got to be right out by the cars on the track

We also got to see all the stars.  Here's car #9 driving Kasey Kahne, who started off in first place ("pole position") and wound up finishing 33rd.  After Kasey are, respectively, Jimmie Johnson (who was in the lead for a good long while) and 3rd place finisher Jeff Gordon (and child), who also walked right by us before the race started. I guess I should have gotten them to sign something for us, though I'm not sure what I'd do with it once I got it.

We spent some quality time over by Kevin Harvick's car pre-race. Kevin and his wife pictured below. Kevin was driving car #29, one of the cars on "Jeff's team" (actually Richard Childress' team, but who's counting). Kevin raced strong the whole time but then got in a spin-out on one of the final laps, taking the drivers who were then in 2nd and 3rd place with him (bummer!). Kevin wound up coming in 30th.

This is the inside of Kevin's car:

Jeff hooked us up with fantastic seats right in the pit, behind the Pit Chief (or pit boss or crew chief or whatever you call him). We sat where the guys in blue shirts are sitting in this photo (Ryan in the hot seat in photo below that- I like the shot of his sunglasses in that photo):

This was our view of the track (#24 is Jeff Gordon):

In the photo above you can see our headseats... we got to listen to the Kevin Harvick talk back and forth to the Pit Chief with those headsets.

Here's the pit crew leaping out for 1 of 2 pit stops by Kevin Harvick (this pit stop lasted 11.8 seconds):

we had full access to the whole place with our "hot" passes.  Super fun.  I felt very cool.

The Jack Daniels car was also part of Jeff's team... driver Clint Bowyer came in 4th overall in today's Infineon NASCAR race in Sonoma, behind Kyle Busch, David Gilliland and Jeff Gordon.

Jordan and Quinn's first basketball practice

Another beautiful, hot day in San Francisco.  This morning we took our boys to their first basketball practice ever.

Coach Grey was very patient and kind.  The boys haven't quite gotten the dribble down yet, but they love running after the ball.

Coach Grey said Jordan could play even though he's 2 instead of the requisite 3 (age group is 3-5). Jordan was the smallest guy by far, but he tried hard and particularly loved it when the parents from the bleechers applauded him.

Our friend Alex (in yellow) is doing Biddy Basketball as well, and the boys and Alex horsed around together much of the class. Coach Grey had an Air Jordan shirt on, much to Jordan's delight.

All in all, a fun-filled morning at the gym.

Beautiful weather in San Francisco!

No time for blog posts- the weather is simply too lovely!

Below, a couple of photos from my mom's (the boys call her "Mama") birthday. We went up to the Mountain House in the middle of the Redwoods.

These were all taken this week at Crissy Field Beach as well.  The first one is Baby Zak Vivolo!

Sunday morning on the back deck

off to the Y now!

Saturday afternoon fun at Uncle Rick's

After a certain amount of horsing around at our apartment in the morning,

the boys and I went down to my brother's house in San Mateo yesterday to visit with him and Cousin Charlie

Cousin Charlie is a sweet natured little boy who loves to give lots of hugs and kisses

"Uncle Scott" also came over for a bit.  Scott is very much like another brother in our family

Three cheers for Saturday afternoon fun!!

Jordan and Cousin Charlie

We spent the day down at "Mama and Papa's" yesterday, and Cousin Charlie was there.  Much fun to be had.

Jordan and Charlie are about 8 months apart in age, and Charlie is expecting a sister this summer.

Much more fun to think about than paying taxes!

Happy Easter- Egg Hunt Photos

These from the GGMG Easter Egg Hunt at the San Francisco Zoo this past weekend:

Daddy is a hockey player!

We took the boys out in a driving rainstorm last night to go to Ryan's ice hockey playoff game (Quinn featured here in what we call the "Obi Wan Kenobi"coat):

The boys were delighted to see daddy in his hockey gear:

 Daddy played with jersey #2

The boys watched some of the game (especially when daddy was sitting in the box in front of us):

but spent much of the time horsing around:

and of course we had many obligatory lion roars:
Ryan's team lost the game, so that's it for Ryan's ice hockey until the fall. At least we caught daddy in full regalia last night!  The boys had a wonderful time.

Off to the zoo... hope the tigers don't eat us!!

Jordan's first snow, Quinn's first time skiing

We had a great time up in Tahoe this weekend- Quinn's first time skiing and Jordan's first time in snow.
Photo above was taken at about 6:15am, Jordan's first time waking up to snow out the window. Quinn was only too delighted to talk with Jordan about it.  Thats Mt. Rose there in the background.

Then we got the boys all wrapped up and ready to go out. Jordan went to the daycare at Northstar and Quinn came with us. We thought about putting the Mighty Quinn in ski school, but it was full... we were happy to be the ones to show him how to ski, anyway.

We got snowshoe/cross country ski passes at Northstar, which entitled us to ride the gondola up to mid-mountain and use their extensive cross country trails.  We went out on snow shoes and Quinn rode the cross country skis that his Nana gave him for Christmas.

Quinn was a terrific sport about it, and was relatively comfortable on skis before too long.

Quinn kept horsing around, eating the snow, jumping, laughing, throwing snowballs. It was fun, lovely day. An excellent first day of skiing for the little man.  On a different day, Ryan and I parked the kids with a babysitter and skied all day just the 2 of us at Squaw.

All in all, a fabulous way to spend President's Day weekend.