Howe's Life: August 2015

This month has flown by! Jam packed with work, trips, and fun summer activities. There have been beach trips, pools trips, dinners with friends, and general playing at home.

Pool party at The Lams

Whitney, Olivia, Madeline, Eleanor, Julia

Sister time

Ballet Madi

When it's too hot for clothes

Lots of dress up recently

"i'm hot"

The happy couple - Madi and Brennan

Look at that bird!

Baby in a bucket

Madeline's new favorite way to lounge

We celebrated the coming of San Diego's warmest month with camping at San Clemente. We definitely did the lazy camping experience - cooking only one meal and bringing in pizza, Pedro's, and bagels for the rest of our major meals. The kids did a ton of digging and playing at the campsite and at the beach. Madeline was great with the campground potty and even Ella gained an interest in the potty over the weekend. Eleanor also gained an interest in being carried around in the backpack, by the end of our trip she would climb in by herself and snuggle up to help me get her situated! As usual, Madi thought the tent was for jumping and spent hours playing on the blow up beds. I love our giant tent!

Just in case anyone wanted to see how much sleep I get and why :)

As soon as we had unpacked and showered from camping, I packed back up for a week away. The teacher professional development I helped lead was awesome. First grade teachers are a ton of fun to work with - happy, curious and willing to play at being a student. I did get yelled at by one teacher (she was a little stressed that we were not giving away any answers), but even she got through it by the end of the week. While I was away, Matt handled the family with no problems at all. He instituted a new night time routine (jammies, teeth, three books, girls in bed together) and even managed to keep the house fairly clean! Basically, I never need to worry about traveling for work again since Matt can totally handle the kids without me (or traveling for vacation . . . Houston and Robyn here I come)!

Renee brought Wendi and Kathy to stay overnight as part of their trip to California. We had a lovely two days of relaxing in the backyard, walking the OB pier, and watching trash tv. Madi was so excited to have her Aunt Wendi and Auntie Nee both in her house. Having my friends visit made me miss our high school days of lazing around together, talking about whatever was in our heads for days on end. I hope my girls get the same relationships with friends when they're big kids. I spent the rest of the week painting the kitchen cabinets. Now the counter tops look even worse, but that might be a good thing since I may get new counters now.

A walk with the Lewis women!

Wendi, me, and Renee (in our usual order)

Lower cabinets in retro mint

The women of 49th Street had our first Mom's night out halfway through the month. We hit up Blind Lady and stayed out until the kids were in bed. It was an awesome night and hopefully be followed by many more Mom's Nights.

The girls spent the weekend with Grandma T and GrandKarl while Matt and I went to San Francisco for the weekend. The Lams and Kellys spent the weekend with us and we all felt like we were enjoying the freedom of our younger days! We attended Randy's wedding Friday evening at the Berkeley Botanical Garden. So beautiful and Matt even liked the trees! On Saturday I got to meet up with Erin for brunch on an adorable street in Berkeley that reminded me of Cat and Jeff's neighborhood. After riding the cable car, having Irish coffees, and walking around Pier 39, we went to Eat Drink SF Saturday night. Oh my goodness - this was the best event! Tons of restaurants and wineries to try, Michael Chiarello was there, the food was amazing, the wine was yummy, we ate until we couldn't eat another bite. After breakfast Sunday morning, we headed home to pick up the kids and dogs. It was a wonderful weekend away! (The girls had fun too. Eating ice cream and pizza, going to the petting zoo, and basically exhausting Grandma T for three days. Thanks Mom for taking them!)