Back in the Engineer's Seat Again

Finally!... Matteo got to run trains with Papa Bill. The poor kid was nearly beside himself waiting for the railroad to get cleaned up, equipment to get fixed up, batteries to charge, and everything else Papa Bill has been doing to reinvigorate the railroad this past week.

But, today; it was train-running day!

Photos: http://jf2.com/pbjrr/120115.html

Incoming!

Let’s set the stage… A wonderful fajita dinner is about to be had. Matt has all the meat nicely sliced and has put the sliced meat in a serving container. All the while, Matteo has been perched on his stool, as close as he can possibly get (which means, of course, smack up against whoever is working) at the kitchen counter carefully monitoring what Daddy Matt is doing. Matt makes a rather grandeose gesture to mark the completion of the meat by lifting the cutting board high to pour all the remaining juices and crunchy scraps over the meat. As the yummy goodness is pouring over the meat in the serving dish, Matteo yells, “Incoming!…”.

Matteo's Birthday Party = Logging Competition

One of the many beauties of a large extended family is that all manner of interesting activities pop up that might never have occured to a smaller group. Take logging, for instance. How many times does that pop to mind as a fun birthday activity - for a 4-year-old?!

Just so happened that cousin Mario's Cal Poly Logging Team was having a competition the weekend of Matteo's birthday... Done!

We spent the bulk of the day at the Swanton Pacific Ranch (just north of Santa Cruz). Just hangin' out at the competition, watchin' all the action, and eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It was very cool!

http://www.jamie-foster-photography.com/Other/111112-Cal-Poly-Loggers/

We've got some Baby Seals

There's a "safety officer" in every organization, right?! You know, the guy who's always pointing out risks, keeping scissors off the bed, basically the paranoid guy. Jamie's that guy at the Compound. And he was never so pleased when Tracy found this fabulous child water safety program for infants and toddlers.

It's the Baby Seals Swim Academy: http://www.baby-seals.com/. AJ is pictured at left having learned to go to his "starfish position" when he finds himself in open water. This can buy him some precious seconds or even minutes for help to arrive.

Good job, Tracy!

More photos: http://jf2.com/111019/

Lots of May Birthdays

And this year we chose to celebrate them all at once at our local Irish Pub. We threw in a little Italian nonsense for Matt, too! Our May birthdays go from the in-house patriarch in his 80s to the number one young one at 9. In addition to the 3 "nuclear family" birthdays, we celebrated a couple other family birthdays as well!

Photos: http://jf2.com/110507/