Marine World

Jack's cousin Avery who is newly potty trained was given the reward of going to Marine World for being done with diapers. And, lucky for Jack(still in diapers):), we were invited to come along, Jack's highlight was going to Thomas town and riding Harold the Helicopter and Thomas the Train. He was in heaven. We spent the rest of our time seeing the animals - Jack's favorite were the penguins. We also saw a sea lion show and a dolphin show.

Celebrating Christmas...

This Christmas we had a lot of fun and activity. One of the most exciting things that happened was the birth of Jack's cousin, Owen David Ahlem. We're sad we can't meet him because he's in Texas but very excited to have a new cousin.
As for Christmas, we headed into Turlock Christmas Eve and spent the evening with my cousins and brother at the Annual Ahlem Christmas Eve. Surprisingly Jack wasn't scared and walked right up to to sit on Santa's lap with cousin Avery (who was a bit less enthusiastic).


We spent Christmas morning with my twin brother Mark, his wife Lindsay, Avery and my grandparents. Here's Jack and Avery in their matching pajamas. That night we had Christmas dinner with my parents who just came in from visiting their new grandson nephew in Texas.

And, although we went to Grandma and Grandpa's for Christmas day, we still felt like we had a somewhat "at home" Christmas the next day opening stockings and Jack opening gifts from Grandpa John and Grandma Christy

Tree Time

We decided because we won't be traveling a long distance this year, it was definitely time to get a tree. So, we headed down to Santa's Tree Farm in Half Moon Bay and cut down our own. It was a lot of fun, although it did take us longer than expected to find the right tree. Jack mostly enjoyed running around the trees, falling in the dirt and directing dad as he sawed down the tree.

A Holiday Week of Travel

We had a full week of travel this past week, and a great time seeing family. We started off visiting Scott's dad, Grandpa John, in Borrego Springs at his house in the desert. It was beautiful and relaxing and Jack had the time of his life digging in the sand and playing in Grandpa's fish pond.

Next we headed to Scott's mom's house and spent Thanksgiving with the whole family. We did a 5K Turkey Trot which has become a tradition over the past 3 years. Jack enjoyed playing with his cousin Noah and all of his aunts and uncles, going to the beach and being spoiled by Grandma;) Thanksgiving was delicious as always when Grandma Christy cooks.

On the way home we visited friends from college, Jason, Amber and Hayden in San Clemente and headed back up north making a stop at my parents to shorten up our drive. Jack spent the morning with Grandpa Chuck having breakfast at the coffee shop and riding around in a dump truck.

We laughed when at one point in the trip Jack said, "We're going to a lot of houses". We're back at home now and Scott's looking forward to starting a new job. Not sure if I mentioned it earlier but Jack has given up his naps now so I'm hoping this week we survive:)

Fire Engine Tour

This weekend we took a tour of the fire department around the corner from our house with a bunch of Jack's other fire-crazed buddies. The firefighters showed the kids the inside of the fire department including what was in their fridge - which Jack was pretty interested in. But, the highlights of tour were spraying water out of the fire hose and sitting in the fire truck.

Fishies!

Scott's had some time off before starting a new job, so we are taking the opportunity to do some fun activities. We took a trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium with Jack this week to see all the "fishies". We also had a chance to see Jack's friend Claire who recently moved to Monterey.

In Texas

My brother and sister-in-law, David & Cari and their kids, Claire, Eric and a baby on the way moved to Texas a few years ago and Jack and I finally visited them last week. They live in Dalhart, a town which is very opposite from Redwood City, in almost every way:) The cousins had a great time playing and it was fun for me to catch up with Cari in person. Here's some photos.

Chicken on the Run

We were wondering if Jack would fully "get" the concept of trick-or-treating this year but he proved to have no problem with running wildly from house to house collecting candy. He and 14 other friends rampaged the neighborhood. It was a lot of fun and chaos. Here's a photo of him in his chicken outfit, just imagine him clucking and flapping his wings and you'll have a visual of the evening.

The Baby Inside

Jack joined us today when we had our ultrasound of the baby. Most of the time he was trying to tamper with random items in the room, luckily Scott kept him pretty busy. To answer everyone's questions, we are still not finding out if it's a boy or girl. At one point the ultrasound tech asked us to look away so we wouldn't be able to see and Jack said, "Look at that!" So, maybe he can tell you whether he's having a baby brother or sister. He also repeatedly said, "there's the mouth". It took an extra long time for the ultrasound because the baby kept moving around and they had a hard time getting pictures of the spine.
We'll all just have to wait till March to find out the news...

Grandpa John

This past weekend Jack's Grandpa John came up to visit from Oceanside (near San Diego) for Scott's birthday. We celebrated all weekend long. Saturday we went to the Farmer's Market in SF and headed to Half Moon Bay for the evening. Sunday we hung out together and Scott's dad took care of Jack so we could go out, always much needed:) Jack loved having grandpa here and is already asking for him to come back.

Beach Day

Jack has had a cold/cough this week and although it isn't enough to keep him from bouncing off the walls we're trying to keep from spreading it to his friends. So today I decided to take advantage of the proximity of the beach and head over there for a picnic. We had fun playing with his diggers in the sand, laughing at seagulls and getting our feet wet.

Family Vacation in the Northwest

We just got back from a great time away in Seattle for vacation with just our family and then the San Juan Islands to see our friends Chris & Jen and their new baby Thomas. We spent our first two nights touring around Seattle. Jack enjoyed the fountain near the space needle, Olympic Park, the Pacific Science Museum, running around Pike's Market and eating at the Spaghetti Factory (oh how our restaurant choices have changed with a toddler in boot).


At Pike's Market he loved seeing all the fish and in his exuberance slipped in fish juices so we took got to hang out with a fishy smelling boy for one day. Another place in Seattle we enjoyed were the locks. We were there in perfect timing for Jack to see a drawbridge open for boats to come through the locks and then have the bridge close again just in time for a train to cross over - near heaven for Jack.
Our friends Chris and Jen treated us to a great weekend in the San Juans. We left from their place in Bellingham and Chris drove us out in their boat, which Jack loved. We spent the weekend visiting Henry Island, Roche Harbor, hiking and eating really good - Chris and Jen are amazing hosts. A plus for Jack was the small excavator parked right outside the house we stayed at. Washington was beautiful and catching up with old friends was the best!

Pretending to Be...

Lately Jack has been pretending to be lots of things. This photo shows his most recent occupation: a construction worker. However he is also quite talented at being a cat, a mouse, a snake and right now aspires to be a fireman. He even practices putting on his imaginary fire boots.

God is in the Bible

This week Jack moved up to the 2 and 3 year old class at church and he loved it. Mostly he talked about the big grey open trucks they had. This class is a bit more structured, they have a singing time, go to the park for a bit, do a craft and Bible story. Later that afternoon Jack opened his hands and put them together like they were a book and told Scott, "This is the Bible Daddy. Do you know who's in it?" Scott asked Jack, "who?" Jack replied, "God, and now we close the Bible". I love how kids process things. Later Jack took me to his room, pointed to his children's Bible and said, "God is in the Bible."
We've been telling him God tells us about himself in the Bible but he's with us everyday. Obviously a hard concept for even I to grasp.
Anyways, this is a great age!

Round 2!!

We are very excited to share that we are expecting a baby, due March 1. I'm going to use this as my excuse for not blogging in awhile because this time around I quite a bit worse than in my pregnancy with Jack.
Jack seems excited about all the talk of a baby however I'm not sure he completely understands what is going on. Most of the time he says I have a baby in my tummy but sometimes it is daddy or even himself that has this baby in their tummy:) I'd like to keep the gender a surprise for us this time around but Scott doubts I can hold out (which makes me only stronger). So, we'll see.
The next year will be busy for our family because my sister-in-law Cari is due in December and my sister-in-law Lindsay is due in February...we're excited to have kids so close together.

Hanging out with Cousin Avery

Lisa's twin brother Mark, wife Lindsay and daughter Avery were recently in San Francisco for a mini vacation so we had the opportunity to take the train up to San Francisco to meet them for dinner. It was so much fun to catch up with them. Avery is just 3 months younger than Jack and they loved chasing each other and running around the streets of San Francisco. The night was a little later than expected since we missed our train back to Redwood City by 2 minutes and had to catch the last train at 9pm. Oh well, it was well worth it and there's no place Jack would rather be stuck than a train station.

Grandma and Grandpa's House

We've been very fortunate in the last month to have Jack's grandparents take him for a few days...first just to give mom a break and the following weekend to let us take off for the weekend to Stinson Beach to celebrate our anniversary.
Jack did all kinds of fun things with grandma and grandpa such as playing at the river, swimming, driving grandpa's loader and flying to their house was probably the highlight.
Although he's been well taken care of, he's been having a lot of bumps and bruises. Here's a photo of him after he came back from his vacation with the grandparents (he fell on their brick sidewalk and immediately scratched his face at our house when he got home). Since then he's multiplied his bruises and cuts.

A weekend with family

We just got back from a fun weekend with all of Scott's siblings and their families(3 sisters and one brother). We rented a house in Morro Bay and had a great time at the beach, playing bocce ball, eating too much Mexican food and hanging out in San Luis. Jack loved seeing his aunts and uncles and baby cousin Noah.
It was a lot of fun to hang out because most of the time when we see them its not all together. Unfortunately I did an awful job as the photographer because I only came home with a few photos of Jack and Noah and none of the rest of the family - sorry!

All Boy

We're having a great time with Jack right now because he's talking a lot more to us and getting more and more active. This last week he had several experiences, both good and bad that goes along with being a boy:
Among the bad were a split lip on the playground & some bruises from having 2 fingers in the path of a closing window in our house. He's fine, but it was a really sad experience for the parents.
Other than that he's jumping off everything possible and does a lot more pretend play mostly involving animals and trucks. However, we've learned that all animals growl with Jack, even rabbits.
Here's a photo of Jack at Half Moon Bay this past weekend.

Fire Truck!

If you are ever in the car with Jack and a fire truck passes by you'll hear an ecstatic "fire truck, fire truck, woohooo". So, you can imagine his excitement when he got to meet a fireman, touch the hoses on the truck and even hug the wheel at the Foster City Arts & Wine Festival. Here's some photos to document this obsession.

Hello Lizard

Today, while peacefully typing away (Jack was napping), I heard "movement". It sounded as if something was moving a piece of paper. At first I jumped, but it subsided so I typed more. Again it happened, this time I fled the room and peaked back inside, but nothing. So, this continued for a few minutes...typing, noise, Lisa running out the room, bravely re-entering...repeat.
Finally I swore I saw a lizard's head pop out from behind a box lid that was leaning against the wall. I took up position near the door jam and lobbed Jack's toys at the lid until it toppled over revealing a lizard at least 6 inches long. The next logical step was to leave the room and lock the lizard in by stuffing pillows in the doorway (ok, so the lizard could still escape under a pillow, but it made me feel safer).
I have finally re-entered the office, but no lizard. I imagine he has taken up residence nearby, inside the walls or the closet. And, I don't feel very comfortable about a reptile being able to enter my home. Will I see something larger tomorrow? I have a feeling I'm going to have a nightmare about a lizard bringing one of the neighborhood squirrels in.

Cruising in the Caribbean

We just came back from a week long cruise in the Caribbean with Lisa's family. Here are a few of the highlights (& lowlights):

- Family. We had a great time catching up with each other and watching the cousins play.


- Wildlife in Barbados - we were right next to turtles, monkeys, wallabies & even touched a peacock



- Clearest Water Ever - the water was gorgeous, especially in St. Maarten & St. Thomas. Jack loved the beach and ran right into the water even regardless of whether he was in his swimming gear or not.



Food - It was plentiful and great, but Jack went almost 4 days eating hardly anything. He did not consume one vegetable or fruit (even a banana) while we were there. He had a fever one night, and actually through up on the dining room table near the end of our cruise (yep, disgusting...I whisked him back to the cabin pretty quickly after that). So, although he had a great time in the pool and on the beach he was out of sorts.
Oh, you can order room service anytime for free so that was cool. Here's cousin Avery below enjoying her cookies for dessert.


Scuba - We went for our first scuba dive and it was amazing. We aren't certified yet, so it was a 25 foot dive but we still saw a baracuda, lobster, and other colorful fish.

Cruise Ship - The thing is HUGE. Jack loved seeing the ocean from our room and woke up every day saying, "I see the ocean". We even went to an ice skating show. This is a great photo of my niece in front of the ship.