Play Time

We are now spending much of our time at Piedmont Ave School because they have the best playground and it's available for public use when school is not in session. The area is large enough that I can see him running across the field without having to chase him down for fear of cars or pedestrians. Here are some pictures of the little guy getting his cardio work out.

They all start this way

As I was going back in blogger time and reviewing my past posts I realize that I always pretty much say: we are busy, we are exhausted, Rocco is growing so fast (god, so cliche) and something or other about nothing. I've been fighting my new role as parent for a long time now thinking I have it under control and I'm still cool and I can go to work, make dinner, still go out and be a great mom but I've finally succumbed to the reality that this is not the case. I'm tired people. There is very little going out. I'm not cool. I barely match socks. I watch reruns of gossip girl. Yup, there it is. I said it!

SO life as of late has been filled with so much stuff like desperately trying to find that missing sock, finding a shoe, cleaning a shoe covered in dog poop, running a load of laundry, forgetting about the laundry for 2 days and wondering where that weird moldy smell is coming from. Literally it's this all the time, mixed in with some bad TV (thank you Hulu Plus) books and friends.

Rocco is 3 and a half and doing what toddlers do. He is cute. He is crazy. He is funny. He tests our patience and everything, I mean everything is "why?" Why can't I play with sharp knives? Why can't I eat that snail? Why can't I play with my poop? Why can't I stay up? Why do I need to bath? Why do i need to listen to you?

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

Last night I stepped away for 1 minute to put something away and when I came back he was choking Chili. This was at 8:45PM and I was so tired. I put Chili in our room, and tried to talk to Rocco about why choking the cat is NOT a good idea. He didn't get it and After a few Why's I just said, "because I said so, that's why." And after that we called it a night.

He turns 3!

His birthday came and went. We started the day with a marble maze and he ended it with cupcakes and dirt.

Virginia City

On our way home from Tahoe we stopped off in Virginia City. This added an extra hour to our trip. We made pretty good time leaving South Tahoe at 10:30 and arriving at 11:30am, just in time for a 20 minute tour of the tiny town. The gold and silver mined from Virginia City helped build San Francisco and put he Hearst family on the map.  It was only a 20 minute tour so that is about all we caught. The rest of the time Rocco was pointing and oohing and awing over something so we didn't hear much. We left at 2pm and finally made it home at 7:45PM. We spend an hour in Sacramento walking around Barnes and Noble and Target to avoid the evening traffic. It was all very exhausting, which is what traveling with a demanding 3 year old is like these days. He ran around Target for a long time, which was great. It was Exhausting for us but had to be done. We still love to travel and load up our ipod with podcasts and drive long distances, eat at weird hole in the walls and people watch. We are learning to fine tune our adventures with him. Rocco is for the most part very good on trips - but he is 3 and he can only hang out in a car or plane for so long.  Our next vacation is Salt Lake City to see Gwyn and Sarita. We are SO excited to see them, their new home and SLC.

Back from my blog free life!

So much has happened since I last posted on our blog.
1. Robyn returned to Frankfurt
2. Rocco turned 3
3. Chili has regular accupuncture sessions. Oh yea, you read that right.
4. Daniel finally built his office outside
5. This gardening season came and went with very little sun and left us with very little vegetables.

Today is September 16th and we just returned from Tahoe. We met Andy, Jen and Olivia there. It was a great vacation. It was the first time that Daniel took time off and didn't work. We spent a lot of time by the pool and hanging with the kids and doing the whole family vacation thing.  We want to have a yearly vacation using my mom's timeshare. She loved her Vegas timeshare and we will exchange it to new locations each year. We thought about her a lot during this trip. Daniel and I imagined her telling us how much she loves her timeshare. She really did so I'm glad we will begin using it yearly for family trips. It will give Rocco and Olivia to get close and for our family to have something on the calendar to look forward to. Here are a few photos of this week. I will post more of Virginia City, Rocco's birthday, Daniel's office..etc.

Weekend at Lake Tahoe IV