drum roll

The photos tell the whole story.
The first cut.
I have NO idea what I am doing.

Micah was watching, what else, trains! on You Tube to occupy him. Unfortunately the head bobbing with each choo-choo-choo meant he nearly lost an ear one or two times.

So cutting the fine hair on the head of a constantly moving two-year-old is up there in the category of "Life's Greatest Challenges"

Like he just stepped out of a salon....or from under his mother's haphazard scissors...

The irony, of course, is that I didn't touch the front. I just LOVE it how his hair falls in his eyes and he has to brush it aside.


(and that $300 highlight job is au natural, baby)

Twinkle, twinkle

The bonus about our new house is the stage. You may recognize it as the fire place hearth, but given the fire place is merely "decorative" (who the hell needs to have a fire crackling in the grate when it is 72 degrees in winter), it serves a dual purpose. Micah is becoming quite the showman (we're particular fans of Micah's own special rockin' breakdown near the end of "Twinkle, Twinkle"):



And for devoted fans and grandparents: a second (slightly shorter) video with actual (two-year-old-level) guitar playing

Hodge-podge moving stuff

Just to back-track quickly. Pre-move, while Zack and I were living the high life in Berkeley, we went for a Chez Panisse dinner and were dorky enough to have our photo taken in front of this Berkeley iconic eatery:


YUMMY! Too bad they don't deliver to Southern California. Then of course there was the saying goodbye bit. Here Micah bades farewell to his pals Lucy and Nikko:

(I'm just trying to keep Micah from not toppling her over, not forcing him on her.)


But that all seems ages ago, since the boxes, picture and shelf hanging, organizing and re-stocking:

And no, the little toy kitchen actually is not ours. Unfortunately the movers thought so and I'm just hoping there isn't some poor child back at UC Village (land of the discarded Little Tikes plastic monstrosities) wondering where his kitchen went. Oopsees.

Despite what you may think, moving with a two-year-old wasn't nearly as painful as one could imagine. Not with so many cardboard TUNNELS around:




Of course it helped that I'm neurotic and had the place unpacked in under three days, effectively cutting down on the time we were living out of boxes. While we were feverishly finding a place for everything and putting everything in its place, Micah managed to entertain himself:


You get the idea. There were 27 such photos on our camera by the time we noticed he was being suspiciously quiet. But we are here. Home. And it feels nice.

made it

We made it to Ventura. The advanced guard (Zack) arrived by car on Sunday night, our worldly possessions came on Tuesday, and Amy and Micah completed the move by flying down Wednesday evening. More details and pictures to follow. For now, imagine a house full of boxes and Micah fascinated by everything.

Inverness

Ahhh Marin County we will miss you. As mentioned previously Micah's birthday coincided with a staff beach day waaaaay out in Inverness, over many a cattle grate and winding dirt road down to a secluded cove directly across Tomales Bay from Marshall. We took a boat across to pick up some fresh Hog Island Oysters to BBQ:

The highlight for Micah was the slog in the mud, given it was low tide. I had left his crocs on but when one got suctioned in the mud and the squishy cool stuff gushed between his toes, he gleefully cried, "No shoes!"



We let him steer the boat, but he caught on to the fact that it needed a key...



There were also cool culverts to explore:

The highlight for Zack and I was the quick kayak we got in while Micah napped on the beach. We forgot the camera, but it basically looked like this:

only
1. It was in California, not New Zealand;
2. I weigh more now and opted to not kayak in a bikini (the fat-factor and the fact that this was a work related event); and
3. Zack managed to not sunburn himself as disastrously as he did this fine day in the Abel Tasman back in 2005

Future album cover

Image courtesy of Don Carlos.

Pipe dreams

Okay one quick glimpse from today. Here Micah takes a more literal take on pipe surfing:

two

We have spent the most lovely day out at Duck Cove in Inverness, which included so many fun activities that we'll have to describe all in another post. This post of course is devoted to...drum roll please....MICAH'S SECOND BIRTHDAY! Woo hoo!



With the celebrations spanning weeks now (the first "Happy Birthday" song having been sung in LA back in May, then the daycare party, then the work party today in Inverness that coincided with Micah's big day and the big party at Steam Trains still a week away) Micah is really catching on to this whole birthday thing...

grownups again

Today we escaped up to Napa with Jen and Nick. Here we are at Sterling Vinyards.

Don't worry, we didn't leave the kids in the car in the parking lot. Nanny and Pop-pop were kind enough to spend the day with Micah and Aunt Katrina took care of Nikko

THANK YOU!!

cooperation

Evidence that Micah is a big boy:
1) He can play interactively with Ben.
2) He manages not to grab everything.


We're so proud. Really.

cupcake batter!!

"Milk in the batter. Milk in the batter. Mix it. Scrape it. Make it. Bake it."



Ahhhh, nothing like cake batter for breakfast. Yum.

new bed

We got rid of the crib, which meant saying goodbye to the crib mattress upon which Micah has been sleeping since he learned how to climb out of the crib. Time for a new, big-boy bed!




This comfy new bed was perfect for our sick little Bapu.

What a cake!

Last Friday was Micah's daycare birthday party, which he shared with Wade. Amy baked a gorgeous cake

and everyone sang happy birthday for the boys.


Micah was all bundled up because he was very sick that day.

Mother's note: I was going for this cool retro thing with a pastel Tiffany's blue-green with red color scheme that just came out, well, Christmas-y. Oh well. It tasted good.

Nikko is one

Nikko celebrated his first birthday at the end of May. He was nice enough to visit en route to his birthday visit to the Little Farm.

He liked his present from Micah:

Family in LA

Just before Memorial Day we joined the Grossman family gathering down in LA for cousin Corinne's adult Bat Mitzvah. All three Grossman siblings (Aunt Marcia, Grandpa Bernie, and Uncle Nick) got together for only the second time in decades (the first being our wedding).


We visited the home of Corinne, Stacey and Lia, who was very kind and generous while playing with her (second) cousin Micah.




We enjoyed playing with Lia and friends, as well as Aunt Cindy, Cousin Adrienne, and Bill. Here we are all together after Corinne's Bat Mitzvah.


Micah was very excited to see Grandma and Grandpa-- though his first confrontation with Uncle Nick and Grandpa side-by-side left him speechless. Below Grandma dispenses some birthday cake, in early celebration of his birthday. Thank you to Aunt Marcia for the tool set. Micah loves it!