Life with Boose and Finch

Ro's birthday turned out great!  We invited all of the kids in his daycare class and dropped off a few invitations at his preschool.  We also invited a friend of ours who brought four out of five of her own kids to hang out, too.  The only family members who arrived were my sister, B's grandfather, and B's aunt, but that was okay because it gave us a lot of time to talk to the other parents.  I even managed to exchange phone numbers with another mom to maybe have some playdates! Unfortunately, we've been pretty busy every weekend since so I've been dropping that ball.  I am pretty excited about that prospect though because then there's a good chance that Ro will have lifelong friends from his diaper ages.  I enjoy time with all of my friends, but I've found that those are pretty special. After waking up, B left to go biking for the morning and we started the day off with a Starbucks breakfast.  Ro loves getting an everything bagel with cream cheese w...

I had been trying to plan a trip to visit my Aunt Jane and my Aunt Jean in Illinois for awhile.  Eventually, I heard that one of them was having dizzy spells and other health problems.  I figured that now would be better than later to go -- even if it was in the middle of summer time.  Ro will be starting pre-kindergarten in a few weeks and airplane tickets were just going to get more expensive until next February.   Day 1: We left Fresno Saturday just before noon.  Ro was raring to go on the trip until he realized how long it was going to be.  It didn't hit him until we got on the ramp to go from 99N to 152W.  Then he needed to use the bathroom and we tried to use a side road to convince Ro to go to the bathroom next to the road.  He's told us jubilantly before that one of the grandmas let him pee on a tree, but he just couldn't pee or defecate on the ground next to the car.  We packed him back into the car until we exited...

I hope you had a good Independence Day!  We definitely did. It was long and tiring, but we made only good decisions with low expectations. Other than being Independence Day, it was also my mother-in-law’s birthday. I invited her over earlier in the week for an indoor barbecue. Ro had spent the night with her and so B woke me up at 7am (I could have slept until 9am) anxious about getting the tri-tip ready in time. I had already marinated the tri-tip in soy sauce, garlic, and olive oil per  this recipe . Of course, I realized that I forgot to get spinach for a peach salad. And then I forgot to buy a cake. So, I had to run to the store a couple of times during my preparation time. During the whole time, B had Caddyshack (1980) playing on the tv, but he helped arrange the food and serve everyone. .  In the end, I managed to grill the tri-tip, chicken sausage, shrimp skewers, aspasagus, and corn. I tried to do squash, but burned it all. My mother-in-law brought over Ro...

Despite saying that he was done biking after doing his AIDS/Lifecycle ride, B has still been out biking on Saturday mornings.  Also in true Father's Day fashion, B wanted to get away from us for Daddy Time not being with his family.  (I'm really joking.  The joke between B and I is that for Mother's Day, it's all about how the mom is surrounded/smothered by family and the dad goes fishing in a far off land maybe with beer and another likeminded dude for Father's Day.)  During this last Saturday morning, I thought Ro and I could go out for some fun.   We started the morning off with breakfast at Benediction ($23.44) eating/sharing French toast bites, scrambled eggs, thick cut bacon (Ro), orange juice (mine) and apple juice (for Ro).  I really love this little restaurant, but B doesn't really like it that much, and so I thought it would be fun.  Ro loved to draw in chalk on the tables.  He didn't really like the bacon very much, but probably bec...

Hi, all! I still haven’t figured out how to use this space. I have a family to think about while posting.  Our little family consists of me A, my spouse B, my three-year-old son Ro, dog Caboose and cat Finch. I love my family, listening to podcasts, doing stuff in Fresno, CA, traveling, and exercise. Lately, I’ve been trying to get back into shape to do 10 mile runs. Our family has also been surviving with only one car and so I’d like to share a little about that to let other know that is it possible to live in Fresno without two vehicles in the family. We all also really love all forms of travel. Enjoy!