Candids with Nana and Abuelita

Last week, Nana and Abuelita came for a visit and to help watch Sam since I went back to work. Below are some fun candids and a picture of all four generations. Sweetness.

Dough Boy

We decided to make pizza dough today. Here's a play-by-play of Sam's culinary expertise:

Start with some yeast and warm water...

Add olive oil....

Salt....

Flour and mix, mix, mix....


Now, we knead. Fold once...

Fold twice.....

Punch, punch, punch and repeat....

Izzy, as usual, in her "supervisory" mode:

Dough!!!!!!!!!!!!

Exercising some rolling pin skills....

Adding sauce to the ameoba-like pizza....

Some ham....

Lots-o-cheese....

And the masterpiece.....

(Here's the pepperoni pizza I made. Yum Yum)

Discover This!

Today, Sam and I headed over to Vallejo to visit the Discovery Kingdom theme park.

Here's what I discovered: It's hot in Vallejo and the theme park is expensive. Mystery solved.

Despite the heat and the amount of cash we donated to the amusement park, we had a great time. Ben and his mom, Kim, also joined in the festivities. There were several roller coaster rides, games, etc. but we stuck with Thomas Town, Looney Tunes Seaport, Tava's Jungleland and any apparatus that had water flowing from it.

Here, Sam gets to control Harold the Helicopter (insert theme music here):


No visit to Thomas Town is complete without posing with your favorite conductor...I love how seriously Sam took his pose here:


Sam and his favorite mom....


Sam and his favorite train...


When Ben arrived, the boys took Harold for another spin in the sky:


As mentioned before, we made it a priority to keep the boys wet because it was so hot. Apparently, Discovery Kingdom is aware of this reasoning in parents because there were multiple places that looked like the one below and some were even larger:


After the boys ran through the water, they decided to shoot me with their Eva-like laser while waiting for our 45 second roller coaster ride that was so jarring I broke a rib and got whiplash (I'm not exaggerating, I swear...ask Kim):


The boys dried off pretty quickly and so we decided to get them soaked again...Here the are, dry as a whistle and looking cute:



...and now they are soaked. Fun.


One of the best parts of our day was watching the show performed by Shouka, the killer whale. Let me tell you something, she has mad skills! She also got us wet (She, too, is aware of the theme of the day....that whale is a genius).



All I can think of when I see this picture is, "Chug, chug, chug..." I wonder if this is foreshadowing the future?


In Tava's Jungleland, they have a cool safari ride:

Apparently, there was traffic....and Sam was stuck at the end:


To say Sam was "tired" is an understatement...I carried him for quite a distance back to the car and this is what he did upon entering:

And this is what he looked like twenty seconds later:

Camping '09

This weekend, the Marsh family went camping with the Shinn, Sandoval and Viner families. Here are some stats to put everything in perspective:

Number of Adults: 8
Number of children age four or younger: 7
Number of sick adults: 3
Number of "mildly" sick children: 3
Distance, in miles, for the Viner family: 420
Distance, in miles, for the Shinn family:35
Distance, in miles, for the Sandoval family: 30
Distance, in miles, for the Marsh family: 8
Number of nights at campground: 2
Number of nights Cathy and Isabella were at "Le Hotel de Marsh": 2
Average "start time" for bedtime at campsite: 8pm
Actual "bed time" for children at campsite: 10pm
Number of naps taken by the children during camping trip: 0
Amount of showers taken by children: 0
Amount of showers taken by one adult over a two day period: 1
Number of marshmallows consumed: 2 bags (large)
Amount of raccoons that visited site: 3 (large)
Estimated arrival time of raccoons: 8pm
Method of removal of raccoons: Art chasing them away with flashlights
Number of hiking expeditions led by Art: 1
Number of children attending hike excursion: 4
Number of adults who went to help Art: 1
Entertainment of choice: Drinking
Amount of alcohol consumed: Insurmountable
Visits "off site": 2
Amount of times Brad threatened to throw Cathy in the water: 6
Amount of times Cathy told Brad he'd be "going down with her":7
Number of drives to a restaurant because no one wanted to cook: 1
Number of deer spotted in the area: 3
Number of mosquitoes: 1 million
Ratio of annoyed parent to happy parent at any given time: 1:7
Amount of times parents asked kids to not throw dirt around: Over 100
Amount of times children paid attention to the request: 0
Amount of dirt that embedded itself on children: 1 ton
Estimated number of consecutive showers needed to take dirt off of children: 4

Camping with friends and family: Priceless!

Brotherly Love

Sam loves Isabella like crazy. We're very lucky parents. Every day, he asks to hold her and cuddle with her. As you can tell from the pictures below, she loves him as well.

Hair Design 101

All of you know that Isabella has a good head of hair. Recently, Sam and I decided to play with it a bit. This hair design comes courtesy of Sam, hair designer extraordinaire:




And since she has "big girl" hair, she's also ventured into "big girl" chairs. Now that she's over 20lbs., Izzy B has a new view. Her favorite is when Sam is sitting across the way because he reaches his hand out to her and wacks her fingers. She loves it.