July 8, 2010 - Happy 4th of July!

Mommy and Riley in her new luxury raft

Floating with Daddy

She had the best raft of the crowd

Riley checked the grill (we ordered take-out, no one wanted to work on dinner; Riley was disappointed in the lack of BBQ)

Then she made sure the tunes were rolling

More play the next day, with Dean in his giant box fort

Hanging with Kaitlyn on the floor

Riley, Daddy and Dean on the deck before fireworks

She discovered the brown sugar

Yummy!!!!

We love long weekends! We spent our holiday enjoying the weather, good food and our wonderful friends. Saturday we visited Steve and Lisa (less than 3 weeks to go!) and hung out in their pool. Riley got a new raft that allows her to sit up and float and has a sunshade, she loved chillin in the pool, we couldn't get her out. All the adults were quite jealous of her pimp ride. Sunday we had a BBQ with Dave, Kellie, Dean (3.5 years old) and Kaitlyn (7.5 months old) Vahlsing. Riley loved playing with energetic Dean and followed him everywhere. The Vahlsing's have an amazing house in the Oakland Hills that overlooks Oakland, San Francisco and surrounding suburbs, so we had a great view of fireworks from several different towns. Of course, its the bay area so the marine layer rolled in as the sun set, preventing us from seeing SF's fireworks over the water. Oh well, it was still a wonderful 4th of July.

As usual, Riley found some trouble this week. She recently discovered the pantry and likes to get out food, smash all the cereal bars and occasionally eat some BBQ potato chips (so much for avoiding junk food). Last night after dinner, Chad and I were relaxing and Chad commented, "She's being so good, she's just kind of spaced out in front of the pantry." Riley, quiet? RED FLAG! Chad could only see her back, he couldn't see her eating brown sugar off a wooden spoon. Needless to say, I've moved the sugar since she went straight for it 1st thing this morning.