My Kids & Me

Remember field day from elementary school? Remember Revenge of the Nerds ? That’s Game Day…and it was freaking awesome!  Game Day includes events like dodge ball, kickball, capture the flag, steal the bacon, tug of war and tons, tons more.  There’s this grand points system to determine the champs.  There’s pre-event trash talking, in which I participated of course. While there weren’t too many Lewis’, Gilberts and Poindexters, there were a few Wormsers, but no Boogers thank goodness (that I noticed). Team Red I didn’t notice any official cheerleaders, but there was tons of spirit.  In fact, our team won the spirit competition by miles.  Though that does seem kind of like getting a participation trophy when you lose overall.  But we did have referees. Our team took it’s theme from the Kool-aid man…Oh yeah!! We plastered campus with signs like this: Ray and I rode down on the shuttle bus together to Greer Park in Palo Alto. Does Ray’s passion remind anyone else of

There are so many beautiful parks and miles and miles of trails in Pleasanton.  There are several parks within five minutes of our house and jogging and biking trails crisscross the city.  Have I mentioned the weather is glorious?  It’s perfect for bike riding.  When we ask the kids how they like California, the first thing they always say is that they love the weather.  They’re outdoors so much more than they ever have been.  There aren’t any bugs or mosquitos, there’s no humidity and NO POLLEN!!!!  I feel like they have the freedom here that I had when I was a kid.  They take off on their bikes and generally do a great job of coming home at the agreed upon time.  The overall environment of P-town is perfect for raising a family.  Somehow we actually had last Saturday afternoon free.  It was a beautiful 72 degrees outside and I took the boys over to the playground on the edge of the neighborhood.  It’s so much easier now that Henry can ride a two-wheeler. The swings are so cool!  T

Yesterday was the 102nd “running” of Bay to Breakers , a 12K race that takes you from the Embarcadero (Bay) to Ocean Beach (Breakers).  This was my first race since moving out to SF and the longest I have run to date.  I’ve been doing a 10K training program, for no particular reason other than it keeps me motivated, and I was scheduled to run 6 miles, so B2B came at a perfect time. I had asked on Facebook if I should run for a time or enjoy the experience; I tried to do both.  I started in the E corral, which is where all of the madness typically happens with all of the walkers.  Upon arriving via BART and making my way to the start line, the Bay Bridge was in full view.  This never gets old.  It was a gorgeous day to run! I moved my way to the front of the corral to avoid as much of the huge crowd as possible.  The crowd was well behaved due primarily to increased security required by the Boston Marathon bombings.  There were quite a few completely wasted people, some just drunk