Annie and Angelina Visit LaLa Land

Gretchen's youngest sister, Annie and her beautiful, gregarious daughter, Angelina visited us for nearly a week.  Annie is thinking about relocating to Los Angeles and attending school at either Cal State LA or CSU Fullerton.

Leif was smitten with his cousin and couldn't stop smiling when Angelina was in the room! 

Many memories were made - a full moon hike on Thursday (Angelina learned about redwood trees and seed pods), the Barnum and Bailey circus on Friday, a day at the beach and a local park on Saturday, and breakfast at Norms on Sunday with Angelina and Annie going to a water park afterwards. 

A huge thank you to Annie for watching Leif (sleep) while Kris and Gretchen went to the movies and saw The Dark Knight (with the rest of Los Angeles)! (Our second movie since Leif was born.)

WE hope to see more of Angelina and Annie in the near future.

Kris and Gretchen - a DECADE together

Today, Kris and Gretchen celebrated our 10 year anniversary of the date we first met...also the date that we experienced love at first sight. Ten years have brought us many happy moments and we wouldn't change a thing. We spent our 10 year anniversary on a full-moon hike with the Tree People and Annie and Angelina who were in town visiting.

A brief summary of our ten years together: we met at UC Santa Cruz - Gretchen was attending a summer college immersion program while Kris was visiting his cousin, Erin, who was Gretchen's residential/dorm advsior. We spent our first date at a Grateful Dead cover-band concert where we discovered our many common interests. Kris returned to San Diego, and Gretchen remained in the Bay Area thus embarking on a long-distance relationship. Kris eventually relocated to the Bay Area and joined the California Conversation Corps while Gretchen finished her senior year in high school. We attended Gretchen's prom together, arriving in style in our Volkswagon bus.

We then went to college at Humboldt State University: great classes, coastal fog, wet redwoods, hackey-sack, hippies, progressive ideals, study abroad in China, student government, rallies and prostests, lifelong friends, tofu, Woman of the Year, and ANOUK (whom we welcomed into our lives in 2000 as a two month old wolf-pup).

After college, we moved to Sacramento, Kris became post -production supervisor on an independent film and a producer for CBS 13 News. Gretchen was an Executive Fellow at the State Treasurer's Office and then Deputy Policy Director for the Angelides for Governor campaign and then an Associate for Riverview Capital Investments. Above all, we cherished Sacramento for the time we spent with our best friends: Mo and Doug and Mara Jade and Trevor and Jocelyn and Mikey. We also bought a house (not the best decision, if not the worst decision we've ever made) and got pregnant.

A little over 9 monthes ago, we packed up and moved ourselves to Los Angeles (the house in Sacramento is still on the market...know anyone interested in a cute urban cottage with an orchard?) - Gretchen began her new job as an Executive Administrator with Canyon Partners in late December and Kris is presently working at the Jim Henson Studio.

Over the past decade, we've seen our relationship grow stronger as we've supported one another through the good and bad times. We have so much to be thankful for, but we can both agree that what has had the most impact on us as individuals and as a couple has been Leif - he's changed us in so many ways. And we are so lucky and happy to have him as our son!

Leif's First Political Meeting

 

Last night, Gretchen took Leif to his first grassroots political meeting whereupon we learned new ways to help elect Barack Obama as our next President. Leif did very well - many were awestruck by the little guy's eloquent razzberries - and we almost made it through the entire meeting until Leif announced that he had enough politics for the night and wanted to go home immediately.


Regardless of your political ideology, we encourage you to REGISTER TO VOTE. Just click on the box to the right "Rock the Vote".

Sunday - Cashless and in the Park

Kris had to work today and Gretchen had intentions of a grand day with Leif...but it didn't exactly go as planned.

You see, Gretchen recently suffered from a bout of identity theft whereupon a thief attempted to pay for thousands of dollars of traffic citations and a new T-mobile account with her debit card number. Thankfully the thief only got away with $850, of which Gretchen's bank "finally" returned to her bank account (it took 9 days).  The bank issued a new debit card to Gretchen....

but-low-and- behold, after a 2.5 mile hike to the Beverly Hills farmer market and an attempt to get cash from an ATM, Gretchen learned that her PIN number was no good, and therefore could not get cash on a Sunday.  So we stopped at PinkBerry for some nerve-soothing frozen yogurt - at least they accept credit cards!  

Gretchen and Leif then strolled to the Bastille Day celebration in West Hollywood (tack on another mile) to partake in French food and music.  Unfortunately, the French don't accept checks for the $5 entrance fee from Vikings or Scandinavians.  So what's a mom to do when cashless and in the park?  Introduce Leif to the wonderful world of grass and dirt!  Needless to say, Leif doesn't need much to be entertained and he thoroughly enjoyed himself.  

On the way home we ran into Linda, Rodrigo, and Valentina which got a big smile from Leif.  

Saturday Extravaganza

We started our morning early thanks to the wakeful declarations coming from the nursery at 7:48am.  After feeding, changing, and playing with Leif, we packed up the little man and jetted down to Manhattan Beach for breakfast at Uncle Bill's House of Pancakes - which we loved! The decor was old Hungarian cottage and the food was greasy spoon perfect!

Next we walked down the Pier and watched the locals fish, jog, and talk on cellphones.  We also stopped by the local library book sale and found a surprising number of people gathered at such an early hour.  We strolled along the main street window shopping and couldn't pass up a "tattoo onesie" from Spout - pictures of Leif covered in "tattoos" forthcoming!  We then waited for Leif to wake up from his nap before venturing down to the beach - finally the morning fog  burned off at 11:30am!

The beach was great - clear water, clean sand, and few people (unlike Santa Monica beach).  Unfortunately, Leif (again) didn't take well to the ocean (envision the sad muppet face) and stayed on the sand in the shade while Kris and Gretchen took turns swimming in the ocean .

We had a lovely lunch at Il Fornaio - glass of wine, calamaretto fritti, caprese,  and pizza cristina.

Then we embarked on the epic journey to acquire Kris an iPhone which involved visits to both the Beverly Center and the Grove and a 2.5 hour wait in line.  Kris will be notifying you of his new phone number shortly, but a gentle reminder sent to him via email wouldn't hurt!

We returned home right after sunset, fed and changed Leif - whom quickly fell asleep - and mused on what a wonderful day we had.

In A Nutshell

Grandma Karin and Grandpa Jim visited us this last week and adored/fawned over Leif daily - their company was much appreciated!  

Last Monday, we celebrated Kris' 28th birthday - will someone please remind him that he's still YOUNG?

We spent the 4th of July quietly ignoring the hub-bub of the beaches with an impromptu gourmet BBQ with Mimi, Madison, Dylan, and Landon, as well as Devon and Amy and Amy's mom.  

Kris spent yesterday with Devon doing "car stuff" and producing "man-debris" in the driveway, and Gretchen began the frustrating - nail biting - task of learning how to drive a stick-shift (she's nearly mastered 1st and 2nd gears).  

Today, we conquer household chores and play with Leif - notice that he's got the whole world in this hands, and he can't almost fit it in his mouth.  :)