Sunday, April 27, 2008

Happy Birthday to Cliona!


April is always a fun month in our house. Stephen's birthday is on the 11th followed by Cliona's on the 20th. This year my Mam and Dad came out for the birthday celebrations. Cliona got to make cupcakes with her Nan for Stephen's birthday. Then Stephen and I took off to Paso Robles in the central coast area for some wine tasting. We met up with Chris, Kathy and Scot and had a brilliant time. The wineries were great, the scenery fantastic and the weather was unusually warm. Chris and Kathy are expecting a baby in September so it was fun talking about those early days again. Seems like it was ages ago that we had a newborn. One evening we drove out to the coast (Cambria) and had dinner outside at sunset. It is lovely there - the coast is a lot more jagged than southern California which give it more of a wild and unruly feel.

Mam and Dad had a great time with Clio all to themselves. They set up a little wendy-house in the back garden for Clio and really helped digging out our flowerbeds. Now they are all ready for planting. On Wed Dad and I spent the day up at Gamble house in Pasadena. It's a 100 yr old craftsman house with as Asian influence and the tour guide was really good. It was interesting to hear how people used to sleep out on veranda's, thinking the clean air would prevent and cure respiratory aliments. To think LA was known for it's clean air only 100 years ago ...

And so it was time for Cliona's 3rd birthday. She knew it was coming up. I had told her when it was way back in March. She'd ask 'Is it April yet?' and then when it finally did get to April, I taught her the date and then she was really proud that she knew when her birthday was when people asked her. She knew she was having a party and at first she just wanted to invite her teachers but after a while she got into the idea of inviting school-mates and was delighted when some of her friends turned up at the house on party day. Cliona was not interested in getting anything except 'lollipops and cake' for her birthday. Anytime I asked her, that's all she wanted. She sure loves her lollipops! We decided to get her a tricycle and surprisingly she got the hang of it first try. We brought her out in the neighbourhood where Stephen taught her how to stop with her feet. Well then she thought she was the greatest. Able to stop and go all by herself. And play with all the bells and whistles that come along with it. She loves her Dora tricycle.

The party went really well too. We got a bouncy again and this year the children were old enough to be able to bounce around happily by themselves. And when they started to tire, it was pizza and cake time. It was funny - it was like a switch had been flipped. No sooner had they finished but it was off to the bouncy for another hour of fun. It was really nice to be able to have everyone over in the garden. And it was great having Gk, Kerry,Avery and Katherine there too. Mam and Dad had not seen them since our wedding and had never met Avery or Katherine so it was a bonus for them to see Cliona and Avery play together.

I posted all the pictures on snapfish as usual. HERE's the link!

Tuesday, April 01, 2008

March 2008



After Eoghan and Paul left we had about a week before heading to San Antonio for a week. We brought the whole family, even Roxy got to come along. We spent the first couple of days out in Bulverde with Karen and Bill. When we got off the plane it was 95 deg but luckily it got a lot cooler with each passing day. It was fun getting re-aquainted with the area and Karen brought us to a great craft fair where we did some wine tasting. Then Stephen and I headed downtown for a SAS conference. We left Clio and Roxy with Karen and Bill and they all had a great time. They got to go to the childrens museum and Chuck e cheese. Stephen and I stayed in a hotel near the riverwalk about a mile from the conference so we got to walk along the river every morning and evening. It was lovely. And the conference was good too - there were some interesting topics covered and Stephen did a wonderful job presenting his paper. He drew quite a large crowd - impressive as he had to present the second last paper of the conference so a lot of folks had already left. Of course we got to hang out on the river in the evenings and spent St Patricks night in a few Irish bars. Another night we went to a great jazz club. And the hotel had a workout room so we got to workout together too. Oh, a note about the Valencia hotel - the bottles of water in your room are $6 but if you go to the workout room, they are free. This might be the case in other hotels too so be sure to check out the workout room for the free stuff!
After the conference we spent another day at Karen and Bill's, spread some dirt (I love to do yard work at their place) and hung out on the porch drinking margaritas. Our last full day in Texas was spent at Jeremy & Wendy's stables. We rented a car and drove down to see her and little Jaime (who'll be 2 this summer). Unfortunately Jeremy was training to be a helicopter pilot instructor in Alabama but it was lovely to see Wendy again and to meet Jaime. What a friendly little girl - didn't make strange at all and was very generous with all her toys and books. Cliona had a great time with her new playmate. She loved the swing (of course) and the trampoline.
Once we got back to LA, Stephen took Cliona down to San Diego for Easter. Clio and Avery had a great time decorating eggs and hunting for them. The annual Greenhall egg hunt/brunch was a great success again on Easter Sunday. And baby Katherine is such a cutie - Stephen says she is all smiles and giggles.
All the photos for March are HERE