This morning Lily, Isaac, and I were sitting close to the heater vent and watching the Wonder Pets on TV when I said, “Look it is starting to snow.” Lily happily looked out the window and said “Thank you God for the snow!” It was such a beautiful comment, and one that I am trying to repeat to myself as our weekend gets interrupted (dance canceled, driving more difficult, etc).
To be continued…Isaac just woke up from a nap
Sorry for the long-ish outage. We moved the domain from one host to another, and the process took longer than anticipated.
I’ll be bringing our galleries back online in the next day or so, and I’d expect Amy will be posting again soon 
Thank you all for your patience!
-Ben
Driving with Lily and Isaac in the car can be tiresome (when they are arguing) or entertaining (when they are conversing). I am choosing to share a particularly fun conversation they had on Saturday evening in the car.
Lily: When I grow up I want to be a crystal maker, a doctor, or a school teacher
Isaac: When I grow up I want to be a chicken
Lily: Isaac! You can be anything you want to be when you grow up, like a knight or a king
We are all back to our regular routines of school, work, dance, and hopefully the gym. It was a really nice few weeks filled with family, gifts, snow, friends, parties, and Rock Band. I had lots of fun home with Lily and Isaac and I am missing them on this first day back at work.
I took Lily to school this morning and realized that she really did miss her friend Collin from school. Over the break she made cards for Collin, talked about him constantly, and wanted me to invite him over (which I didn’t get around to doing). When we arrive he was waiting for her, wanted to tell her secrets, and then they walked around the classroom holding hands. All very cute and innocent, but still a little funny to observe as her mother. I suppose if I was to pick a friend, I would choose Lily too. She is fun, creative, and very kind.
Isaac was excited to take Josh to school this morning, and continues to tell me that he wants to go to Josh’s school next year. While this isn’t possible, Isaac will get to start preschool next year. In the meantime, he will continue to occupy his time running around the house holding his play sword, shield, and often with just a shirt on with his underwear. He is definitely potty trained now, but I guess he feels pants can be a nuisance.
I still must apologize for my lack of pictures, but I have captured many magical moments. We also finished our New year’s cards last night so they are getting printed today, and we hope to send out shortly. At least these cards have a few pictures.
We had a magical, white Christmas. So many great moments and memories, and it is really fun to celebrate with Lily and Isaac. Aunt Karen, Uncle Brian, Grandma and Grandpa flew to Virginia to learn about Santa, his elves and baby Jesus from Lily. Isaac too enjoyed waking up to the surprise of Santa’s presents and loves his new “monster” truck, play horse, and remote controlled bus. Santa knew that Lily likes beautiful things so she found a “diamond” heart necklace, a new baby doll, and a unicorn (to go with Isaac’s horse). Scooby Doo is a current favorite in the house, so Velma, Daphne, Fred, and Shaggy also appeared Christmas day. We also all enjoyed our presents from all of our friends and relatives. We are so lucky to have generous and thoughtful people in our lives.
I have not been good at keeping up this blog, and I am months behind now in pictures. I also haven’t gotten our New Year’s cards organized yet, so hopefully I’ll find time to get these created and mailed out. At least when they finally arrive they will be a happy piece of mail in January.
November came and went with lots of excitement and no time to update the blog. I braved the flight to Oakland with Lily and Isaac and they are becoming good travel companions. We all enjoyed seeing family and friends and the nice days made up for the very early mornings (thanks to the time difference). I took quite a few pictures that I am excited to post, but unfortunately something is wrong with our gallery right now. The pictures will show fun trips to the park, a day in Fairyland, a visit to Healdsburg for Lila’s first birthday, and some play time in between all this excitement.
My trip to CA was right in the middle of a large work project so I returned to long days and nights of getting a global project launched. The project is now in motion and I am enjoying the work, which included a very brief trip to NYC. Fortunately, I was at a good stopping place right before Thanksgiving so I was able to enjoy our few days in the West Virginia Woods.
The Rossi family (minus David who had to work) met in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia for a Thanksgiving weekend in a cabin. We all enjoyed the time together and even managed to have fun without Internet access, cell phone service, and only three TV channels. Instead we spent our time cooking, bathing in the same springs George Washington used, playing Apples to Apples, listening to local music, and exploring the PawPaw tunnel. The weather was a bit too chilly for hiking, but we explored the best we could (even if that meant we had to explore the local bowling alley one day).
December started with a grand “welcome to winter”. We had snow yesterday and enough that our neighbors were able to build a snowman and I had to purchase snow pants for Lily and Isaac. We spent an hour playing in the snow which was long enough for me to realize that I really do not like snow. I prefer to stay warm inside and look out at the pretty white covering.
Halloween with Friends
Lily and Isaac were very excited for Halloween this year, and we tried to fit as much as possible into the fun day. Lily had her dance class where they wore their costumes in class and performed for the parents. I took some fun pictures and two short videos, but we still need to figure out how to show the videos on our site.
Then we went to Izzy’s Alice in Wonderland birthday party, where Maria had transformed the backyard into a scene out of the movie. She is so talented, and creates magical parties. Unfortunately, right before the party Ben’s car decided that its trick would be that it would no longer start, so sprinkled throughout our evening was a little bit of a car fiasco. This trick is followed by a treat though since Ben is now getting a new car, hopefully on Thursday. Too bad that the car wasn’t handed to us from some neighbor instead of one of the multiple chocolate bars
After the party we went trick-or-treating to a few houses with some friends of mine from work and their two kids. We had to quickly move through some rain, but the night was still fun. I have posted a few pictures in Isaac’s gallery.
We have had an eventful few days. It started last Friday when I received a call from Katy saying that Isaac fell of her bed. This required a trip to the emergency room and one stitch on his eyebrow. Fortunately he survived the emergency room and the few days with the stitch and it is now out and he looks fine.
The trip to the emergency room didn’t delay our planned trip to the North Carolina Outer Banks. We did an extended weekend at the beach with some friends and had a great time (even with some overall sickness in the house). The weather was beautiful and we even played on the beach in bathing suits. The North Carolina beaches are deserted at this time of the year, with many stores and restaurants “closed for the season.” It is quite a different beach experience than the California coastline, and when you have a beautiful October weekend like we did it makes me wonder why more people do not continue to enjoy the beach in the fall.
We are looking forward to a fun Halloween weekend. The house is already filled with candy, so we may start giving our candy to the trick-or-treaters, but we will keep that as a secret between you and our blog.
We went to the most amazing sand dunes at Jockey Ridge State Park in North Carolina. This video shows one of the reasons I love my daughter. She just ran right up the mountain, no hesitation. The only reason I don’t have her reaching the top is I needed to stop filming so that I could try to catch up.
Nonna and Papa came to visit this weekend, but they did not bring the California sunshine with them. Instead we all tried to stay warm over the unseasonably cold weekend (we even lit a fire last night). They chose to visit this weekend because our friend Jason had a wedding reception to celebrate his recent marriage. It was a nice party in DC, and a good opportunity for Ben and I to get dressed up and to go out.
Our neighborhood also had a party on Sunday to say good-bye to our neighbors who are moving to a custom house they built in West Virginia for their retirement. During this party we also welcomed the new family who purchased their house. Lily and Isaac made immediate friends with the boys who are moving in (age 2 and 5). In fact the parents told us that the five year old boy changed his mind, and now wants to trick-or-treat in his new neighborhood. Ben and I liked the parents also, and it looks like we may have some fun adventures on our street.
I posted a few pictures from the weekend in Isaac’s October Gallery.