The Family Bean

Monday, April 4, 2016

Lip Sync Battle

This isn't a very good quality video, but I found it amusing to see the difference in their personality. Veda the lyricist (she knows every word) and Adele the actress (never misses a move or a chance to look at the camera).

Papi Cleaning Fish

Adele and Winston supervising Grandpa Gary while he cleans his fresh catch from Clear Lake.

Sunday, March 27, 2016

Kid Art 2016

Winston Age 4

Veda Age 7

Adele Age 6

Veda Age 7

Crentist the Dentist

This is hilarious. This guy can't ever stop talking, including while he's sitting in the dentist chair. He loved every minute of it (mostly the attention).

Valentine's Day

A belated post, but certainly worth sharing. Our first day back from Mexico and we got to enjoy Valentine's Day with the kids.

Cincinnati Wine Festival

Unfortunately Jen had to bow out at the last minute due to a sick kid, but Steve was a good trooper and joined us on his own ;) Later in the evening, we tried out Mita's for the first time. Pretty solid.

100th Day of School

Veda & Adele dressed up for Settler Day and 100th Day of school respectively. I think they did a pretty good job representing their age and time period. Otto joined in both pics.

Girl Scouts Maple Syrup Badge

If you didn't know, Kathy is Veda & Adele's Girl Scout troop leader. You might ask, how does she have the time with a full time job, no one knows, but she does a great job with it! Anyway, a few weeks back, the girls were able to earn their 'Maple Syrup' badge with Mr. Chuck Hardy as the instructor. They learned to tap a real maple tree on their own. Pretty cool!

Adele

Adele wrote this apology note to our neighbors (and friends Emily & Luke) after leaving a present in baby Mia's toilet when we were there last Saturday. It speaks for itself....

Easter Sunday

No family in town this year, but still got in the Easter Family service at Good Shepherd, some easter egg hunting and presents from Nana. All in all, a great Easter Sunday (72 degrees & Sunny).

Sweet 16 - Chicago

We cheered hard (sometimes too hard), but in the end, it wasn't enough to knock off the #1 seed Virginia Cavaliers. Even though we didn't get the W, it was awesome seeing old college buddies for the day. Definitely a great trip.

Ben, Eric Guyer, Sachin Singh, Keegan

Eric Guyer, Ben, Ashish Shah, Keegan, Sachin

Winston's First Soccer Practice

Winston had his first day of soccer practice last week. Admittedly, we haven't been great about introducing him to sports on our own. Case in point...at the beginning of practice, the coach tells all the boys they are going to start out easy, so he says 'start dribbling your ball'. Winston picks up his ball and starts bouncing it all around (like basketball dribbling). Not the proudest dad moment I've had. I think I owe him a little more sports instructional time.

Adele's Birthday #6

When you are 6 and you love gymnastics, where do you have your party? Kids First Gymnastic of course. Adele was in heaven with all of her little Kindergarten buddies and a few neighbors. She was running from wall to wall to say hi and goof around with her friends.

Buddies

When Winston isn't riding Otto or harassing him, they are pretty good buddies.

Happy 40th Kathy

Janice pulled off a good one for Kathy...enlisting support from a few of our neighbors, Kathy got the bra treatment from Iowa City.

The other special surprise was from Kelly. She organized nearly 60 people sending cards to Kathy from all over the world, with the title...One of the 40 Things We Love About Kathy...here's a few of those cards. Pretty cool.

Snow Day in Cincy

We don't get much snow in Cincinnati, but when we do, we show off our family snowman skills.

These pics below are while I was watching the kids when Kathy was on a work trip. Winston and Adele liked the virtual reality shooter game as well as the X Games snowmobile races. Veda was more of a skee ball and fishing game person.

A pic from the zoo on a sunny day in March.

El Dinamita - Nuevo Vallarta

The food was so good, El Dinamita gets its own blog post. A must try if you are ever in Puerto Vallarta. No menu, the owner comes to your table, asks if what you like, if you have any allergies, what you don't like...and then customizes a menu for your table. Our food came out across 5 different courses, along with a full drink menu. Total bill (per couple) for the evening was less than $40. Amazing.

Best Trip Ever

Off to SLC then PVR.

For Kathy's 40th Birthday, we coordinated a trip to Puerto Vallarta with some of our closest friends (the Soffin's, McGhee's, Trigger's and Schwemm's). Spent a full 7 days at the Grand Mayan at our time share. Below are some of the highlights. Overall, it was one of the most enjoyable trips I've ever taken. The highlight was renting a 58' boat for the day, they served breakfast and a lunch and had a full bar. We drove the coastline up to Los Arcos and several other great snorkel sites (and had the chance to kayak and paddle board at each stop as well). Spent a good chunk of time on the resort, soaking up the rays, but also went downtown two nights, one dinner at Pipi's and the other at the Blue Shrimp (two of Vallartas main attractions). The best meal of the trip was definitely el Dinamita, which was close by in Nuevo Vallarta. We'll definitely be hitting that up again. Thanks to our awesome friends for joining us (and Nana & Bull for watching the kids for a full week). XOXO.