Third Time's the Charm!

Virginia celebrated her third birthday with friends on April 14 - a few days after her actual birthday.  We figured this is is the last year that we can influence her choice of theme, so we went with one of our favorites - luau!  Mimi sent her a tropical dress, and we loaded up on the wacky tiki decorations to transform our house into the Hawaiian islands.

The party was a big success.  About a dozen of Virginia's buddies, their parents, and a few close family friends came to our house to enjoy a bouncy house, gourmet Domino's pizza, and a classy Safeway cake (Virginia insisted on a Safeway cake covered with lots of icing flowers, after many months of viewing them in the bakery display).  PopPop fired up the blender to make a few mai tais for the grown ups, which were a big hit.

I guess it is official... little V is now a big girl!

Hawaiian bouncy house:

 Buddy Bella (these two are HILARIOUS together):

Kids take over the front room:

The pizza is almost as tall as Virginia:

Virginia, Kylie, and Isabel chow down:

The Safeway cake, covered in icing flowers!:

Kylie, Mom & Virginia:

Marcia (the other birthday girl), Martha, Ellie & GayGay

Leslie and Dore:

Kids enjoy cake outside:

Bouncy house madness (with James, Griffin, Bella, Violet, Tasha & Dekker):

Virginia and Tasha enjoy the bouncy house "afterparty:"

Birthday Madness

Virginia's third birthday fell on a work day this year, so her actual birthday was pretty low key.  We started the morning by opening a few presents with Mommy, Daddy, and Kim.  Thomas gave her a huge collection of Thomas the Tank Engine trains for her train set.  I gave her a new toddler doll for her dollhouse, and Lizzie sent puzzles and Hello Kitty goodies.  Virginia also received some beautiful new outfits from Auntie Lynn (one will certainly be featured on this blog come July 4) and a check for her savings account from Nanny.  Last but definitely not least was a doll from Kim, complete with its very own matching stroller, Pack N Play, and carseat!  Virginia was a very happy camper.

Thomas and I headed out to work, so Kim was on her own for the day.  Kim took Virginia to Applebee's (her favorite restaurant, by the way) with some playgroup buddies for a birthday lunch.  Although I missed the festivities, I can clearly tell from the pictures that they had a blast.

Thomas and I managed to get away a little early from work to return home for more birthday fun.  We went to Blockbuster to rent a movie (Tinkerbell and the Great Fairy Rescue) and picked up a pizza.  There's not much that beats pizza and movie night for a birthday!  Uncle Biggie and Leigh dropped by at the end of the evening, which always makes Virginia's day.  Turning three was a big success!

Frequent Flier

 

As I've alluded to in some earlier posts, one of my latest obsessions has been to collect all sorts of frequent flier miles and travel points for my family so that we can travel with Virginia as much as possible.  This got me to thinking...just how much has she traveled anyway?  And to where?  On which airlines?  I thought it would be nice to track all her air travels so that she can have a record of them when she's older. 

I put together a nifty spreadsheet that tracks the days she flew, her age at the time, the airlines used, the routings (starting and ending airport, as well as places where we changed planes), her travel companions, and the purpose of the trip.  I plan to keep this spreadsheet updated regularly and print it at important intervals to include in her baby book.

Putting it together was pretty easy, as I had all the electronic airline receipts in my Gmail account archives.  I did have to remember to account for a couple of trips where our routing changed mid-trip (Virginia has survived two flight cancellations, but we've luckily been traveling to or from the NYC/CT area both times where we have been easily rerouted to other airports).

This spreadsheet allowed me to easily crunch the numbers.  Since she has just turned three, I figured this was an appropriate milestone to tally things up.  So, without further ado, here are Virginia's travel stats:

Total trips flown: 15

(Includes 13 roundtrips plus 2 multicity jaunts)

Segments flown: 44

Airlines flown: 8

(AirTran, Continental, Delta, JetBlue, Southwest, United, US Airways, Virgin America)

Airports visited: 15

(ATL, BDL, CHS, CLT, ECP, IAH, JFK, KOA, LAS, MGM, OAK, ORD, RDU, SNA, SFO)

Upcoming trips planned: 4

(San Diego in May, Montgomery in June, Hawaii in July, and Connecticut in September)

(These upcoming trips will add 2 more airlines to her tally - American & Alaska - as well as 2 more airports - DFW & SAN)

Happy toddler travels!

Some Bunny Loves Easter

Easter Day proved to be just as eventful and exciting as the Alameda Saturday Spring Scramble.  Virginia awoke to find that the Easter Bunny had been very generous to her this year.  She set off almost instantaneously through the family room finding the eggs he had hidden and dove into her Easter basket with gusto.

After a quick breakfast, Virginia donned her Easter best and we got in the car to go to church.  We went to St. Clement's Church in Berkeley (the church Thomas grew up attending) to meet GayGay and PopPop for the service.  Last year visit to St. Clement's had been a bit of a bust, with Virginia crying the whole hour she spent in the nursery.  For weeks after that event, she had repeated to us: "Mommy and Daddy at the church, I crying!"  So we were understandably apprehensive about dropping her off again.  

She's clearly grown up a lot in a year's time, because she handled the drop off like a pro!  We came back an hour later to find a happy kiddo showing off the Easter egg she had colored during class.  And she even took a potty break with the teacher while she was there.

After the church service, we headed out on the lawn for an Easter egg hunt.  Virginia found quite a few eggs, and quickly discovered she was a big fan of Reece's peanut butter cups.  We then headed over to a bakery across the street  Virginia chose a large sugar cookie with sprinkles all over it and proceeded to lick the sprinkles off and hand the cookie back to me.  Classic.

Reece's peanut butter cup in mouth:

Licking sprinkles off:

After church, we were off to GayGay and PopPop's house, where Virginia discovered that the Easter Bunny had dropped off another Easter basket.  Lucky girl!  We had a nice brunch and more candy and admired GayGay's tulip garden.

The Harveys then set out for the Claremont Country Club for pony rides, a petting zoo, and yet another egg hunt.  Talk about a full day!  Virginia had a blast with the animals, but her favorite activity was sitting in the dirt in her gorgeous hand smocked dress and scooping sand with a fellow toddler.

We finished the day with a nap and dinner at GayGay and PopPop's house.  We had all the Easter fixings and a visit from Uncle Biggie too.  I think this Easter is going to be hard to top!

Eggs and Scrambles

Virginia was REALLY excited about Easter this year.  Mimi sent a batch of Disney candy eggs in the mail a few weeks before the holiday, and we spent many hours "practicing" egg hunts with these.  When the big Easter weekend finally arrived, Virginia was ready!

We started the weekend's festivities on Saturday with the Alameda Parks & Recreation Spring Egg Scramble at Crab Cove.  This event is a complete free-for-all... with so many kids, they just rope off areas of grass for each age group, throw treats all over the grassy area, and send the kids in to grab them.  The whole thing is over in about 60 seconds.  And the treat selection is quite eclectic: the usual chocolate treats are there, but they've also been known to include 100 calorie pretzel packs, Capri Suns, and oyster crackers.  But the kids seem to enjoy it, so that is all that matters.

This year, we met up with a bunch of Virginia's playgroup buddies.  We played some games and toured the Crab Cove discovery center.  We tried to see the Easter Bunny, but the line was too long this year.  We'll get there earlier next time.

Virginia was decked out in her Easter best - a hand-smocked dress made by her Great Granny that Lizzie and wore as children.  She got so many compliments and was definitely the best dressed kiddo there.

Checking out Crab Cove Marine Life exhibit with buddy Abby:

Playing the ring toss:

 The playgroup kids James, Kylie, Isabel, and Virginia clearly up to no good:

Even though she was a few days shy of her third birthday, Virginia got to hunt with the big kids:

Enjoying a well-deserved lollipop with Abby, post-hunt:

 With mom!

The event was clearly a great success, but imagine our surprise when the local paper came out a few days later, featuring Virginia and her buddies on the front page!  Of course, Virginia was being her usual silly self and had her Easter basket on her head.  Never a dull moment being a mom to this one!

Shampoo, Cut, & Style

With Virginia's third birthday and Easter rapidly approaching, we decided it was time for her to get her first haircut!  We had definitely been putting it off for too long - with her beautiful curls, her hair was a complete rats' nest each morning after sleeping on it.  And, at times, poor little V had a bit of a mullet (in a totally cute sort of way, of course) as her hair grew more quickly at the back of her neck.

After a little Yelp research, I located a kid-friendly salon on Park Street in Alameda and booked an appointment.  We arrived to find that instead of boring salon chairs, the salon had race cars for the kiddos to sit in.  Plus Dora and other videos on demand!  Virginia was skeptical, but lured by Dora and the promise of a lollipop if she behaved.

I'm happy to report that the haircut was a success and that Virginia got her lollipop.  And Mommy, Daddy & Kimmy are happy to report that we can now brush through Virginia's hair without needing to use half a bottle of detangling spray each time.

The finished product, complete with a little braid and bow!:

A Bachelorette Weekend Away From Wormy

In early March, I got my first weekend away from Little V in many months... I was off to New Orleans to enjoy the bachelorette party of my friend Amy (Virginia's godmother).  Although I was sad to be away, it was a short and easy trip and it was great to catch up with my old friends and make new ones.  Here are a few highlights from the weekend.  We can't wait for the wedding in Cabo in May!

Historic bar in the French Quarter:

Beignets at Cafe DuMonde:

Bourbon Street still had a few Mardi Gras decorations remaining:

Law school roomies, Meredith and Amy:

Tahoe, With Toddler

In case you haven't been following the news, California has been having quite the drought this winter.  We've been glued to the Weather Channel and doing frantic snow dances, but the mountains at Tahoe have pretty much been bone dry through February.  Finally, we bit the bullet and decided we needed to take a trip to Tahoe no matter what.  Little V wanted to ski!

My latest passion has been following all sorts of travel deals blogs (one that all traveling moms out there need to read is MommyPoints), so I decided to find a way to do Tahoe on the cheap using miles and points.  As luck would have it, the Ritz Carlton recently build a slopeside resort at Northstar-at-Tahoe, which is where we wanted to go anyway.  Northstar definitely has the best kids ski programs, and it was pretty much the only resort that had any snow coverage, as they have invested heavily in snow-making.  Even better was the fact we could use our plentiful Marriott points earned from credit card bonuses and business travel for a room at the Ritz.  Score!

We loaded up the car early on a Saturday morning and made it to Tahoe in record time.  We pulled up to the Ritz to find a legion of bellmen who unloaded our skis from the ski rack and took them to the "ski concierge."  We would later find that we would never have to lug skis or boots during our whole stay - the staff takes care of everything, including helping you in and out of your ski boots.  Amazing - and especially helpful when you have a toddler in tow and an extra set of all her ski things.

View from our room:

The pool area and hotel (swanky!):

Virginia had her very own crib (which was stocked with a baby toiletries kit and outlet covers - they think of everything):

After checking into our room and getting a bite of lunch, we managed to get Virginia an early afternoon ski lesson.  She was pretty worn out from the travels and getting close to nap time, so the first lesson was not much of a success.  But it was a start!  Meanwhile, Thomas and I traded off skiing and watching her.  Here she is in her first lesson of 2012 (and waiting to take her first ski lift ride ever):

Thomas hits the slopes (note the totally dry valley behind him and the "thin cover" sign!)

 After (unsuccessful) nap time, we hit the hot tub and then headed to dinner in the Village, a short gondola ride away.  Virginia had a blast watching the ice skaters at the rink there and eating a delicious Japanese dinner.

Ready for a night on the town:

Bento box and chopsticks (before you get too impressed with her exotic culinary taste, you might spot that the kids bento box included french fries!):

By the end of dinner, she was nothing short of WORN OUT.  She fell asleep on my shoulder walking back to the hotel and Virginia never falls asleep anywhere but in a crib!  Here she is upon return to our hotel room:

We got up bright and early Sunday morning in time for Virginia to take a one hour early bird lesson.  Since she isn't quite three, she was too young for ski school and we thought three hours of ski school would be too much anyway at this age.  She took to skiing much better this time... here she is tearing up the slopes:

After Virginia finished her lesson, we went back to the hotel for a swim and to pack up our room while Thomas skied.  We ate a nice lunch at the Ritz and then loaded up the car for the return trip to the Bay Area.  Virginia slept for much of the trip:

It was a great weekend away.  I only fear we've been completely spoiled for next year - once you get used to the Ritz, it is hard to go back!  Guess we'll have to stockpile the Marriott points for 2013.

February Friends

Virginia has turned into quite the little social butterfly as she nears her third birthday.  It is exciting to see her really interacting with other kids, playing games, and working out conflicts (well, sometimes, at least).  She has a good group of friends in her weekly playgroup as well as other friends from the neighborhood and the park.  Here she is with some of her best buds:

Virginia and Abby spend a lot of time hugging: (the matching shirts were totally unplanned!)

Virginia and Tasha enjoy outings to Fairyland:

At Build a Bear with Kylie and Isabel (her partners in playgroup crime):