Ooh I wanna take you.

I feel good that Marco just doesn't know that not all five year olds jet off to Aruba for summer vacation. Nineteen hours door-to-door, red-eye flights, snacks at midnight, and football in the airport at 1 a.m. with our pilots, were all taken in stride by Marco. 

 

Pool time was a necessity in hot, hot Aruba, but we also found time for a quick Island tour, beaching, snorkeling, family beach baseball, eating, drinking, playing with wild iguanas, celebrating Taki's birthday, attending "kid's night out," and meeting plenty of new friends.  As an only child (both of us), I'm pretty proud of his ability to cruise up to any kid, throw his pool rings in the water and entice that kid into an hours-long game.  A little glimpse into his future... one of his new friends asked if he could Facetime with him after.  Ha!

 

He spent every moment possible in the water, barely glancing at me as I begged for a photo or for a wave from across the pool to let me know he was okay.  Once, he slipped out of my sight, so I swam over and found him bellied up to the swim-up bar with his hand up, "Excuse me sir, may I please have a chocolate milkshake?  THANKS!"  Yikes.

 

On our way home, I asked Marco his favorite part of the trip.  After pushing past his stock answer "I don't know," he added, "Well, it was just all so good.  But I guess it would have to be... doing handstands in the pool."  Worth it.

 Dressed up so cute.... until he accidentally fell in the pool.  Oops.

 Balashi brewery!

 

Thank you to the Romioses for a fantastic adventure!

RIP Nap

Jinx.

I wished the day would come when Marco would be tired for bedtime. A devoted napper for five-plus years, Marco's exciting, full and long days of Summer are wearing him out.

Ride all morning... swim all afternoon... his daylong train trip to the California Railroad Museum didn't get him back until 7 p.m.!  "I wanted to close the train curtains and take a nap, but my friends wouldn't let me."

Three DAYS into summer camp and he nearly cried himself to sleep on the couch.  He actually sobbed, "Maybe I need just a little nap."  Exhausted.

 

At least Marco and cousin Lucy have an agreement.

photo credit: Grandma pic after the Exploratorium

Traitors

We love Oakland.

Sometimes it's hard to tell that we're avid Oakland fans as we cheer on the Giants and 49ers, send our kid to Catholic school and head to Moraga for tee ball. 

Luckily, Marco has taken the reigns and become a HUGE Warriors fan.  Yep, we bandwagoned and Marco couldn't be more thrilled.

Since he can't stay up past halftime to see the end of the game, we DVR it and he watches in the morning while we're getting ready.  His groggy good morning greeting was routinely, "Don't tell me what happened in the Warriors game." 

He reeeeeally wants a hoop on the front of our house, but our street and house aren't exactly perfect for that, so he settled for a Nerf set in the guest room.

"Mom, I'll be Curry and you be Bogut."
"Okay, I'm shooting for three!"
"No Mom, Bogut doesn't shoot for three.  Bogut dunks.  Curry shoots for three."

I'm already outmatched.

Prop 8

Marco has asked us several times if boys could marry boys.  Jeff and I decided that we'd go ahead and get ahead of the law on this one and go with yes. 

His reponses on different days: 

"Oh good.  Because I think I want to marry Niko.  We can live together when we're 18!  Did you know we don't even have to live with our parents?!  But, we'll probably have two girls live with us too."


"So, I can marry Nolan if I want?" 
"Yep." 
[Pause.] 
"Mom?" 
"Yes?" 
"I don't really want to marry Nolan." 
"I know."

Sweet Disposition

Could this be the sweetest accidentally-captured video ever?