Hidden Villa Farm

Luke isn't afraid of mud puddles.
Stollin' down the boulevard with his buddy.Celery!Chickens!Pigs!

Hiking in Palo Alto

Headed up the road today to our favorite after work hiking spot; now Luke can hike it on his own.
Starting out on the panorama trail overlooking Stanford and the bay.Mom and son enjoying the open fields at sunset.I won't mention the part where Luke threw up in the car on the way home because other than that, it was a very pleasant afternoon.

Happy Halloween!

Luke was a fireman for his first Halloween. We met up with some friends and trick-or-treated in Mountain View.

Luke is walking around everywhere now.

Here's Luke with his firehose, ready for any emergency...

Bedroom Decorating

Natalie got a plant and headboard to make our bedroom into a oriental tropical paradise.

Luke eats a burrito

We found out Luke really likes burritos this evening at the concert in Cuesta park.
We love walking here for a picnic dinner and watching the bands on Thursday evenings -- wish they did it more than just 3 weeks in the summer.

Mountain View Moms

Natalie has an awesome Mom's group that she hangs out with here -- usually it's just the moms, but this time the kids and dads were invited...
Here's Luke hanging out with his new buddy who actually has hair. All the kids are ~9-10 months old. Getting together gives them a good chance to show off their skills and exchange war stories of the first months of life. It's amazing we got this many kids to sit in the same place at the same time...
Learning to walk little by little...

Hiking at Rancho San Antonio

Still trying to check out all the cool hikes that are only 10 minutes from our house. This time was Rancho San Antonio with Natalie's mom.
Luke loved checking out all the animals at the farm in the middle of the hike -- especially the roosters and the cow.Big sunflowers!

Happy 4th of July!

Patriotic little guy...
In this one you can see his 4 teeth...
We spent the 4th with some families from church at the Halls' place with lots of little kids running around. It was a wild party featuring games of Outburst and Blockus while watching Toy Story. Here's Luke and his friend Annelisse waving their flags...
Luke really likes corn too...

Video: Luke at six months

Luke playing, laughing, and floating...

Organizing the Garage

To celebrate the President's Day Holiday Natalie and I emptied out of the garage, made sure everything was in a bin, labeled the bins ("Random" was not allowed as a bin name), swept out the garage (my favorite part), and put it all back in--except for the stuff that went in my 4Runner that's going to garage sale or Goodwill. We do this every 6 months or so to make sure we're not accumulating stuff. Oh, and I'm selling a HP docking station w/ LCD monitor and a couple sweet graphics cards on Craigslist. Notice Luke's pack-n-play on the left, he helped by providing comic relief.

Date Night

Last night Natalie and I went on our 4th date night since Luke came along. Natalie has been under the impression that she doesn't like Indian food, so I set about to prove her wrong and took her to Shivas in downtown Mountain View. It worked, she likes curry now -- just needed a taste of the good stuff. Then we walked down Castro St. to Red Rock Coffee, a non-profit cafe run by a local church, where we drank tasty hot chocolates and ate a peppermint truffle while listening to a young guy play the guitar and attempt singing. The building has been there since the late 1800s and we enjoyed sitting by the corner windows on the second floor for a bird's-eye view of Mountain View nightlife. We came back refreshed and ready for another night of interrupted sleep.

Concert in Cuesta Park

Natalie and I walked down to the neighborhood park this evening to enjoy a picnic and a fun cover band, and ran into some neighborhood friends and Younglife kids while we were there. It was great to see everyone outside enjoying the beautiful weather.

To get a feel for the crowd, imagine 200 young couples, each with 2-3 active kids -- we saw two of every stroller on the market.
Languages we overhead these kids speaking: Norwegian, Russian, Hindi, Mandarin, Tagalog, Korean, and even some English.

Will I be on Google Street View?

I just happened to be outside helping a neighbor move his BBQ when I saw one of Google's Chevy Cobalts drive by with its spherical video camera on top. Once they update their Mountain View pictures, I'll have to see if I made it on.

Sold the Civic in 5 Hours!

We decided this morning that we should get rid of our small 2-door stick shift to make room for a bigger family sedan -- but we didn't know it would happen so fast. I put the 1997 Civic on craigslist at 11:00am and it was sold and gone by 4:00pm.

It's a perfect car for the college girl that bought it; we gave her a good deal because the paint was lookin' pretty bad. Now we need to find its replacement.

Fish Tacos

We fried our own fish for fish tacos tonight... yummm.

Prom Hair

My amazingly multi-talented wife is extraordinarily good at doing prom hair...And hair and makeup for any other event for that matter. I'm impressed. This one was a Mountain View high school prom.

Video: Happy New Year!

The 2007 countdown...

Merry Christmas!!!

From our festive little living room...

Video: Cheerleader Skit

Natalie and I had the honor of providing comic relief at the 2006 South Penninsula Younglife Fundraising Banquet this weekend. The event was a success and many funds were raised for a great cause--Denny Rydberg, the president of Younglife, even mentioned us in his speech! Woo hoo!! Enjoy the video...

Moving to Mountain View

We moved into our cool duplex in Mountain View today. Thanks to the Younglife guys for all the help!! We finally got to get all our stuff out of storage in Livermore after 7 months! Wooo hooo! The backyard looks like it will work out well for croquet tournaments...