12 weeks!

July 18th, 2013 by alex

 

 

Hard to believe its been 12 weeks already! Sienna is the sweetest baby. Mornings are the best, she just smiles and smiles…Screen Shot 2013-07-18 at 10.14.38 AM

Utah and Colorado

July 8th, 2013 by alex

Whew, we made it home. It was a long haul, but totally worth it to see Page and Sienna meet new friends at each stop. We didn’t spend more than a day in one spot, lots of driving, but the RV made it a fun adventure.

We left Los Gatos on Wednesday night and stopped in Tahoe at the Naylor’s house. Brendan roughed it in the RV while the girls and I snuggled inside.

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Thursday we awoke early and made the long haul to Logan, UT where the bike ride was taking place. We made a lot of little stops along the way so Page could get out and run/ride around.

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We made it to Logan before sunset and scored a RV spot in the fairgrounds where the ride was taking place. We had all of Friday to take it easy, swim, fix up the bike, and greet friends as they arrived. The ride on Saturday was for Kelley, a good friend from Park City. She has recently been diagnosed with MS. I chose to ride 75 miles. Kelley’s sister brought along her 3 year old, Gage, so Page had a blast hanging with him while we rode. They went to the zoo and lounged around waiting for the Mama’s to get back… The ride felt great, didn’t reach 100 degrees until the last hour, thankfully most of the ride was under cloud cover which kept things cool.

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After the ride, we loaded up and drove to Park City. We parked at Mike’s and pretty much moved into his house for 2 days. We got to catch up with some friends from Backcountry over a BBQ and Brendan got in a ride of the Flying Dog loop, a PC favorite. We took a walk down memory lane and hit up the Park Silly Market for a monkey puppet show, took the girls for a too hot hike and hit the High West Distillery to cool down. Maybe its the hormones but I found myself crying a few times missing the PC life…

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We left PC early Tuesday and tackled the long drive to Silverton. We stopped in Fruita, CO to check out the dinosaurs. Then to Ouray to soak in the hot springs. We stopped off at the top of Red Mountain to pose for a pic, Page was soaking in the beauty of mountains, she wanted to stop everywhere and take pics… We spent the night at an RV park in Silverton. Brendan woke up early and tackled the bike climb on Kendall Mountain, he has some great pics on his Instagram account, @bshenanigan (mine is @ippygibby). We quickly cleaned out my storage unit, grabbed my diaries from when I was a kid through post college years and my cherished box of pictures and all the dishes Mom brought us from Mexico. Feels good to finally have my belongings out of that town, but I am sure we will be back. The San Juans never truly leave you…

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Now onto Durango!!!! Oh, how I love Durango and all the people in it. We took a quick dip in the Animas River and then headed up to Kennan and Cheryl’s place for a little get-together. Nan, Rob, Sailor, Mark and Dylan came up and there were lots of laughs. Its fun to see all the kids grow up and what a cool bunch of kids they are. We crashed in the RV and woke up early to head to our final destination, Pagosa Springs. But not before a quick stop at Bread to say goodbye to Nan and Rob, Rob generously loaded us up with a couple bags of fresh goodies from his Bakery.

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Oh these two are too cute. So many RV snuggle sessions…

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Last stop, Pagosa Springs to visit a good friend from my high school years, Dawn and her family, Gary, Marlowe and Harper. They own a pub in London, The Marksman, but spend time in CO every year to be close to Dawn’s parents. Fires have been raging all throughout this area, but Brendan and Gary hit the Pagosa River trail for a mountain bike ride. I took a 4 hour nap with the girls, how did that happen? We caught up over a lovely dinner and reminisced over some local Honeyville wine… Our last day was jam packed with a 4th of July parade on Main Street Pagosa and then off to Hidden Valley Ranch where Dawn’s parents have an amazing *cabin* at the foot of the Wimenuche WIlderness. It was also sweet Marlow’s 5th B-day. Page was introduced to pinatas, baseball, bucket walking, but best off all, she was able to spend some quality time with her new BFF, Marlowe. After the picnic, it was time to leave. The long 17 hour drive was ahead of us…

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  1. Alex doesn’t give herself enough credit for her bike riding exploits. She averaged over 30km/h (think Tour de France speeds) for most of the ride in that heat. Nine weeks after giving birth!

    Comment by brendan — July 9, 2013 @ 2:23 pm

  2. It looks like you all had a good time. What lovely memories

    Comment by Grandma Anne — July 10, 2013 @ 1:19 am

Road Trip!

June 27th, 2013 by alex

We rented an RV to take all our bikes and the girls on a whirlwind trip to Logan and Park City, UT and then down to Telluride, Silverton, Durango and Pagosa Springs, CO. We are so excited to see the mountains and good friends!

Last chance to donate for Alex’s MS Ride!

June 26th, 2013 by brendan

Alex is riding 80 miles on Saturday and Sunday to raise money for Multiple Sclerosis.

Donate here!

America’s newest National Park

June 26th, 2013 by brendan

Pinnacles National Park is about an hour and a half south of our place, and the closest campsite that I could book two days before the weekend during school holidays.

You may think you know of the place from Post in which Page goes spelunking and other feats of derring-do. You would be mistaken. That adventure was to Pinnacles National Monument, which was but a pale shadow to Pinnacles National Park. Pinnacles National Park became a National Park this year and is way better!

This time, I took Page AND Katya. The girls’ job was to set up the tent while I … I did something really important ..

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Once they had finished their jobs, the girls were let out to play with the local gang who were chasing rabbits.

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I gave them a choice of going for a swim, or going for a hike. Page, of course chose the swimming pool, which was freezing. She only jumped in once and then spent the rest of the time lounging by the edge.

We then went off for a hike to a reservoir (which may be familiar to connoisseurs of fine art) and through some caves.

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Throughout the weekend, Page was mimicking everything Kayta did, even if that meant running into dark tunnels.

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I mentioned fine art earlier. Aunty Ayla took one of our photos from Post in which Page goes spelunking and other feats of derring-do and made a painting of it last year. Here I tried to recreate the scene.

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It was bat mating season, so we weren’t allowed in all the caves. We still had enough fun.

In the evening after a hot dog and Rore Smore dinner, we trotted off to a ranger presentation about Condors which are being reintroduced into the wild at the Pinnacles. Page and I left early, leaving Kat to take it all in as a future veterinarian would.

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Our biggest adventure was on the Sunday morning. After packing up. That is after Kat and I packed up (Page practised driving the car) we hiked 4km each way to the Balcony Caves.

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While I had to crawl on my hands and knees at times, Kat was climbing up and over boulders and up and down slopes which would have given her Mother and Sister heart attacks. This is why I take the girls camping.

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Both of them were very well-behaved and had a great time in the outdoors. It is much more fun hiking when you are accompanied by two singing angels, even if their trail mix eating habits are a bit weird.

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Those eyes!

June 23rd, 2013 by alex

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  1. In the top picture she looks like Page. But, with her eyes open she looks different.

    Comment by Grandma Anne — June 23, 2013 @ 11:37 pm

Movie Makers

June 16th, 2013 by alex

Kat (formerly known as Carson, she is going back to a shortened version of her birth name, Katya) and Page made their first stop motion movie, check it out. The only thing missing was Jamesio!

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Nature from Bartelby Shenanigan on Vimeo.

  1. Love it.

    Comment by Craig — June 16, 2013 @ 10:49 pm

  2. That’s awesome – I will show James tonight. What did you use to film it?

    Comment by Peter — June 18, 2013 @ 6:14 pm

  3. Brilliant. Future Logie award winners. Yeah!

    Comment by Ayla — June 19, 2013 @ 6:58 pm

  4. Stop Motion. Canon 6D to take the shots and the credits video. Editing with Windows Movie Maker.

    Comment by brendan — June 26, 2013 @ 12:14 pm

  5. Logies!?!!? Not one to brag, but I have already won TWO Emmies…

    Comment by brendan — August 31, 2013 @ 5:40 pm

NYC

June 16th, 2013 by alex

What a fun trip to NYC! It was a bit of a whirlwind but we had a great time. We took the redeye and arrived early Wednesday AM. We were able to get into the hotel early which was a relief, pumping and traveling can definitely be tricky. We had a few hours to kill before dinner with the NBC people and other couples, so we walked to Chelsea and had lunch.

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The Today Show experience was very sweet and fun. The other Dads were really great guys. We made some new friends, Julie and David also live in the Bay Area and have a 2 year old daughter. We hit it off right away. David is a film producer and Julie works as a consultant. We are psyched to meet up with them again up in SF.

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The Today Show was a bit silly, of course, but fun. It was really interesting to get a behind the scenes look at the production. You will have to ask Brendan what he thought, but he was definitely relieved when it was over. But its a Father’s Day we will never forget. You can get a glimpse of the other winners here. If you want to watch a recap of the show, click here.

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We had a nice nap after the show and decided to walk to the Lower East Side to catch some dinner at the Fat Radish. About half way down, we got caught in a nasty rain storm, but we made it. Yummers!

Friday we ventured back to Chelsea to check out the High Line. Just a block away from our hotel, we ran into JIMMY MAC! So awesome…

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We walked through some great neighborhoods, day dreaming about living in NYC.

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We ended up at the Chelsea Markets and met cousin Ben for lunch while on his lunch break from shooting a TV show. It was great to catch up and talk babies, as they have a little boy arriving in October. Then we cruised back to the hotel for one more pump before getting on the plane.

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The car service NBC scheduled was an hour late so we ended up missing our flight. Such a bummer but we made it home a day late and I have never been so happy to see Page. Sienna was a great traveler, such a fun trip!!! Thanks to Grandma Sam for watching the Pagie back home!!

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  1. Congratulations to the three of you for going through with it. It was good that you were able to include those “extras” while in New York and Sienna was so good. I eagerly await Part 2

    Comment by Craig — June 16, 2013 @ 11:19 pm

2 babes in nyc

June 12th, 2013 by alex

We made it to NYC. We had a fun dinner with the other couples. The show will be taped tomorrow and shown on Friday. If you are in for some laughs definitely tune into the Today Show on Friday. The segment will appear in the 4th hour.

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  1. Well I am surprised. I didn’t think it would happen. Someone who disapproved of My Family stickers still echoes in my mind. Anyway good luck. We don’t think we will see it as we only get a hour.

    Comment by Grandma Anne — June 13, 2013 @ 2:41 am

  2. We managed to see a small segment. Sorry you didn’t get the big prize but hope it was fun

    Comment by Grandma Anne — June 14, 2013 @ 10:08 pm

The Artists

June 6th, 2013 by alex

Kat (aka Carson) is here visting us til the end of the month with Grandma Sam. Tonight we had a fun art session on the pavers. Page has been having so much fun with Kat. Shopping for swimmers, going to the pool, being artists…

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