Livin La Vida North Berkeley

The view from my lounge spot - Strawberry Canyon Pool - UC Berkeley

Em has come here with the boy a couple of times since we landed in the middle of a heat wave today was my first day joining them - although parking is a pain, and there doesn't appear to be any good public transit options this is a Rockin Outdoor pool with a massive shallow end for the kids to enjoy and today it was also the location of some Butch Soup as I found myself swimming with some other EB butch daddy types.

Apple Picking & Touch A Truck

We headed out to Shelburne farms in Stow, MA. for apple picking this weekend. This photo is really decieving though becouse you don't see the CRAZY crowds -- really really crazy crowds - there was a line of cars to get into the place & park, a line to get into the orchards & pick & lines at the store, the donut stand, the games & bouncy house.... We ended up in a far corner where there was a somewhat abandoned sand box eating our picnic lunch & thinking we could've just gone to the park behind our house. But then we wouldn't have 124 apples to share - want some apples????

ALSO - we would have missed the FABULOUSNESS that is ACTON City's Touch A Truck day!!!!

Yes boys & girls - we have every type of truck a three year old could aks for AND MORE - there were diggers, cherry pickers, big Mac Trucks, Poice Cars, Motorcycles & even a Police Command Center. Fire Trucks, Ambulance - & you could go inside them & play.... even a school bus


And

A MOTORBOAT....

Monito really dug the motor boat - plus they had it set up so that you climbed up a balance beam to get in and came out down a slide --- WOW

and finally our lil firefighter chillin on a digger.

Goodbye Party at Hoyt

A Juggler came to the playground this morning to do an end of summer show for the kids. It was a special treat for a couple of the boys who were leaving day care and going off to school (Dia & Mathew).

It was fun to have a little party & the monkey & Gabe enjoyed it to since they are also getting ready to start school in a few days. It seems like this summer just flew by & now all these little three year olds are off to preschool.

wow.

Finally - No Rain

TIME TO GET WET!!!!

Dragon Boats

Sorry -- these photos are a little late - I have been a bit slow to update these days. We are having the weirdest June - a couple of days of beautiful weather (usually the weekends) and then 4 or 5 days of gray and rainy. Its kept me a bit out of sorts. and You all know that I will be bitching about the summer heat in no time at all....

But on a good note the fun events along the Charles have begun full force. We had the River Fest last week - lots of arts but no photos (sorry) and the week prior was the Dragon Boat Fest. Blasto & I went down at the end of the afternoon to check out the food, the taiko drumming & off course the boats




You can't tell from these shots that people were convinced that it was going to start pouring rain any minute.... the clouds were all at my back.

I do dig having a river as my almost back yard.

I Scream, You Scream ...

He had just woken up from his afternoon nap & was indulging in a bit of "snack" when we heard the ominous notes of The Entertainer ringing out. Lil Mister then insisted we grab my wallet and run down the street (me carrying him as he had pj's and no shoes on...) to visit the Music Truck and get an Ice Cream. & truly how often can a mere $2 buy such joy & happiness? - plus he shares with his momma!!!

Summer '08

Here's a shot of the "triplets" (with Kristen in the background) ... I can't believe that summer is winding down & there are going to be big changes on the morning playground - a handful of our nannie playmates are off to start school next week - we had a big party for their sendoff on Friday with food a pinata and cakes.... And tonight I found out that our bestest gal pal ever -Lila (center) got accepted into preschool starting NEXT WEEK--- its only in the mornings but I am feeling somewhat distraught. On the other hand I know it'll be great for her & she is definatly ready to take this step. I can't imagine letting our little monkey go off to school though -

Balance Beam

Happy Pride Day

So here I am at 4 in the afternoon watching a live feed of the SF Pride Parade on my computer - & seeing everything from Charo to Cyndy Lauper to Fire Depts, Gay Wanna-Be Dads, my old Synagogue (Rueben looked cute) and even BadRap the group to supp0rt Pit Bulls as pets. There are also floats by Air New Zealand, Virgin, MACYs (apparently they have a big gay CEO) ... yep we may be a rainbow people, but our money is clearly still very green.

So its pride in SF & here I am in Cambridge ... other friends are scattered around - Portland, LA, New York. Other friends are travelling in Europe or on camping trips this weekend. I think this is probably the first parade I haven't been at least partially at (other than the year we moved coasts...) in 30 years.

So here we are celebrating a bunch of dykes & drag queens fighting the cops, (now with corporate sponsorship) & celebrating another state allowing us to get hitched. Big rainbow kisses to all my peeps who are walking & riding down Market St. today

Geese

We rode the bikes down to the Charles River & visited with some of the baby Geese. The mama's & dad's weren't completely thrilled by lil Blasto --- but he was pretty into them.

Cambridge Block Party

After a trip to the beach on Friday we joined Farah & DGina for the annual cambridge dance party infront of city hall - imagine seeing oodles of your neighbors all doing the macarena & you get the picture of the fun that we were in for.

The lil monkey didn't really know what to make of the dancing......

BUT He certainly enjoyed doing the limbo with Uncle Dan and the Ice Cream sandwiches that followed.

Beach Day

Chasing Butterflies

The lil monkey & his best girlfriend had some fun chasing "butterflies" (actually a moth) last week. It was so much fun to watch them running across the field screaming butterfly, butterfly.... below is a picture of the little moth after it was so worn out that it had to stop and land on the fence for 5 minute.

Trip to the Pond = Part One

We all (Jeff, Me, Alex, Kath & our respective kids) piled into the cars Monday morning and headed out to a pond-lake out by Walden Pond, but not Walden pond. It was a bit buggy but good swimming & wading.

Trip to the Pond - Part Two

When we got back to the parking lot from our morning at the pond I saw that Jeff had a flat tire. - He wasn't totally surprised at first because he had had a slow leak before.

But when we realized that Alex's car ALSO had a flat tire we began to wonder how we had such bad luck between us. Luckily BOTH cars had their spares in place and Jeff was a whiz at changing BOTH tires quickly & pretty painlessly in the 90 degree heat. He didn't even complain at all.

I found it easiest to just stay out of the way and sing songs to the kids as we waited to get on our way.

When we got home & looked at the tires it turned out that they had BOTH HAD THEIR VALVES SCLICED OFF. Someone is up for some really bad karma - can you imagine ... vandalizing two cars both with 2 car seats in them on a 90 degree day.

We owe Jeff a big batch of cookies.

Hello Harvard, Hello Summer

It's reunion time on the harvard campus and apparently that means SPRINKLERS get turned on. Kristen & I found this spot as we were bringing the kids home from playing at the playground on Oxford St. It required a stop & strip as you can see. Yeah for waterparks!!!

We're off for the weekend

The lil Monkey loves his "country estate"!

Bye Bye Xan (and Emily & Bill)

Our friends from the new moms group at Eitz Chayim - that turned into mama coffee at Andala that turned into Thursday happy hour playgroup have gotten a great job in CA - so its off to Davis. We wish them well and hope to see them on the other coast.

Lobster Dinner

Met Adam, Ila and the kids in New Hampshire, headed to Maine for dinner & had a crazy great lobster dinner.

A Photo from Grandpa - Monito on the Cape