We Have Closed Escrow

We have officially closed escrow on our house in Campbell, and the money is in the bank! We're close to finishing the next step of the process as well, fingers crossed...

Cassie Playing with Water

One of the great things about Google Daycare is the pictures and video that the teachers send home. Cassie's teacher, Lauren, sent this video home this week with her playing with some water and paint.

Grandparents Come Visit

While Carrie's parents get to see Cassie close to once a month, John's parents don't get to visit as often since they live in Michigan. They were able to come by for a couple days after a conference up in Seattle and see Cassie for the first time since Christmas. Cassie really enjoyed herself and all the special treatment, like getting to play with Yeh Yeh's laptop.

Solid Foods

Cassie has almost completely graduated from baby foods at this point, just having a small amount of baby food fruit in the morning with her cereal. She has chopped up pieces of real food at most of her meals, like in this picture where she's making a complete mess out of some delicious strawberries.

Barbeque at Jodi and Jason's

A bunch of Carrie's friends from high school got together last weekend at Jodi and Jason's house. We had a delayed Cinqo de Mayo party for the adults, and the kids all got to run around and play with the (surprisingly) large number of kids toys that Jodi has at their house. Cassie is playing with her new friend, Leah (20 months) in this picture.

Cassie Getting Ready to Walk

Cassie has been crawling for some time now, is able to stand for several seconds on her own, and can actually take a step or two by herself. But, far and away, her favorite way to get around is walking while somebody holds her hands. She could walk around the house all day long if we let her. Here, she gets to cruise around with Nai Nai during a visit last week.

Grace and Russ' Wedding

Our friends, Grace and Russ, tied the knot a few weeks ago at the Hotel Los Gatos. Was a really fun time and a nice chance to get out to celebrate with good friends. Their photographers have a really cool style to their shooting, this picture is one that they grabbed of Carrie during the reception.

Kelsey's Birthday Party

Our cousin/niece, Kelsey, celebrated her 7th birthday last weekend with a big birthday bash at a park in San Francisco. We joined in on the festivities and had a fun afternoon enjoying the nice weather and sunshine.

In other news, the house selling is going well. We've been on the market for a little over three weeks now, and are generating a ton of interest. We've gotten around 15 groups of people at each open house, and there's probably half a dozen showings during the week where realtors bring in interested clients. We've had three offers, and have countered two of them. Fingers crossed. :)

So Big!

Cassie is growing quickly and learning lots of new tricks. One of her latest is "So Big!" where she raises her hands over her head to demonstrate how big she is.



Note that YouTube now support HD videos. If you have a VERY fast internet connection, you can view new videos that we post in glorious 720p high definition. It's much clearer than normal, but does take significantly more bandwidth. Look for the "HD" button in the lower right hand side of videos for the option to switch. Also, occasionally YouTube will give an error that the video is unavailable. Just refresh and try again, this is usually a server-side problem.

John's Hockey Team Wins Championship

John's hockey team finished up its first ever season on ice with a championship last night. We beat our league rivals in back-to-back wins to take the best of 3 series. John finished the season with 6 goals and 3 assists, putting him in the #5 spot of 23 players for total points. Our final record was 15-6-4.

Fun Vegas Trip

Our trip to Las Vegas was a ton of fun. April Fool's jokes aside, John actually did do really well at the Blackjack tables. We had amazing food, including our anniversary dinner at 2 Michelin star-rated Alex Restaurant. Carrie got to enjoy the world-class spas, we spent time relaxing at the pool, and we got to catch the really fun Blue Man Group show. This picture is the view from our room at the Wynn Hotel, obviously breaktaking. Not only did we have amazing views of the strip, you can also see the famous Wynn waterfall in the middle of the picture.

Shopping at Manolo Blahnik

One of the highlights of going to Las Vegas is that Carrie can go shopping at some of the amazing designer stores there. We took Carrie shopping at Christian Louboutin and Jimmy Choo, but she returned to her favorite shoe store, Manolo Blahnik.

This trip was to celebrate our four year anniversary. Traditionally, the gift for the fourth year is "fruit and flowers." Carrie got John a cool avocado plant because he LOVES avocados. John got Carrie a floral print dress from Ted Baker and a new pair of shoes from Manolo Blahnik. You can see her wearing the dress in this picture along with the shoes she ended up loving the most.

Happy April Fool's Day!

OK, so Carrie didn't actually hit a huge jackpot at slots (yet). We're just having some fun. But we are actually in Vegas. And we are actually having a ton of fun. Happy April Fool's Day everyone!

Carrie Hits it Big!!!!

We've only been in Vegas for a few hours and the unbelievable has already happened! On a lark, Carrie dropped a quarter into a Wheel of Fortune slot machine on our way out to the pool and hit a $15,000 jackpot!!!!! This has never happened before, and is especially ironic because Carrie doesn't gamble at all. Because the jackpot is over $1,200, we had to fill out a bunch of tax paperwork. But needless to say, our trip is more than paid for and we're going nuts! We're now hanging out at the pool so that Carrie can pick out all her spa services, and we're deciding on what clubs to go hit up tonight. Unfortunately, the new club at Wynn, XS, isn't open on Wednesdays. But I'm sure we'll find plenty of other fun elsewhere.

Las Vegas Bound

To celebrate our 4-year anniversary, we are heading off to Las Vegas tomorrow for 3 days and 2 nights. Carrie's parents have graciously come to babysit Cassie for us so that we can get some time away. Should be a very exciting time. We have plans to see a show or two, eat some awesome food, and relax. Cheers!

Our House is on the Market!

After some six months of debating it, we've decided to sell our house. We love this house and weren't planning to move this early when we bought it, but have decided to try and make the best of a bad economy. We spent all last week moving all our extra clutter and furniture into storage to stage the house, the inspectors have come and gone, the gardeners have tuned the landscaping up into pristine condition. Fingers crossed, this is where the rubber meets the road!

MLS listing link if you know of anybody who's looking for an amazing house at a steal of price. We've studied the comps in the neighborhood in pretty fine detail, and we are priced relatively low, especially considering how mint our house is in comparison.

Vacation to Healdsburg

Carrie got John a getaway to wine country for Valentine's Day. We had a chance to in mid-March to use that getaway, and planned our trip around an amazing dinner at the Dry Creek Kitchen, one of our favorite all-time restaurants. This was the first time we've ever been away from the baby overnight, while Carrie's parents watched her. But it's only about a 90 minute drive, and is good practice for our next trip to Vegas.

We stayed at the Hotel Healdsburg, where the restaurant is housed, and got to enjoy the amazing tasting menu at the restaurant. Some of the menu highlights included an amazing warm spinach salad with truffle vinaigrette and a yummy diver scallop paired with crisp braised pork belly. We both agreed it was one of the best meals we've ever had. That paired with a quiet night to ourselves and some relaxed wine tasting made for a wonderful getaway!

Spring Time in California

Daylight savings time has already brought a stint of nice, sunny weather in California. This has given us the opportunity to start taking walks outside again, and Cassie has been able to play in the backyard on warmer afternoons. She certainly enjoys the change of pace, the new feeling of wind, and watching the birds chirp and fly around.

Marketing Demographics

We received this offer the other day. Talk about demographic targeting.

"Stand in the place where you live. . ."

Cassie has started trying to pull herself up to standing on anything and everything she can find (coffee tables, our legs, our pot rack...) She's getting more and more successful as you can see here. Now she just has to learn how to get herself down once she's up!

And a note to our friends that are new & expecting moms, enjoy the first 6-8 months when your baby is willing to lie happily on their back when you change their diaper because once they are as mobile & strong as Cassie, every diaper change will turn into a wrestling match : )