Growing cousins

Here are photos from 2007 and 2010 of all of the Ruane cousins - a growing group!

2007: Aidan, Elsey, Rae, Miya

2010: Griffin, Siena, Kiana, Aidan, Elsey, Rae, Miya

On the third week of Christmas... Blizzard!

On our third week of Christmas, we visited with the Ruane side of the family. Sunday, we drove from Uncle Chris and Aunt Lauren's to Uncle Gabe and Aunt Karen's house, where we stayed till Thursday. Thursday we all drove down to Los Osos to see the rest of the Ruane cousins and introduce ourselves to Griffin Mathew Ruane, who is Uncle Matt and Aunt Devon's new baby boy.


While we were with Gabe and Karen, we enjoyed visiting the Bay Area Discovery Museum, walking through the giant redwoods at Muir Woods, and catching up together. While we were with Matt and Devon, we caught a sunny day and went down a three-story tall tube and went ice-blocking down the grassy slopes at a great park nearby.


After a wonderful visit where Aidan had a blast racing around with cousins, we all drove back on Sunday, expecting to return for NYC first thing Monday morning. However, a blizzard hit the east coast, and our flight, along with about 3,000 others, were canceled in New York. So, we are still in San Francisco! We are scheduled to fly back on Thursday morning, and are hoping that works out!


Fortunately, our being here has had a silver lining: my dear friend Julia went into early labor at 27 weeks of pregnancy on Sunday night, and being here meant that I was able to visit her on Monday and Tuesday (she has been put on bedrest there), while Daddy took Aidan and Kiana on the street cars in the city. We are hoping all the best for her, and are now staying our last couple of days with Gabe and Karen (again!) before trying to go home again on Thursday.


Things have been a little crazy, so this is a short blog post this week - I'll update more next week. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all! XOX

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!

On our second week of Christmas, Kiana got ANOTHER tooth! Aunt Lauren discovered it on Saturday: pretty amazing!


This week was tiring, what with two teeth cutting through for Kiana, both kids having a hard time switching over with jet lag, and Daddy being gone at his conference Sunday night through Friday (and so both kids waking each other and me up in the middle of the night!). Despite that, it still was wonderful to hang out with Uncle Chris and Aunt Lauren, Aunt Frances, and Lauren's family (parents Jim and Cinda, brother Jonathan and sister-in-law Ashley).


On Monday, we all drove to San Francisco to visit a trampoline park called The House of Air, which had connected trampolines the size of Olympic swimming pools (floor and wall), which was one of Nana (Grandma Ross's) Christmas presents - we had a blast! Aidan played in a kid "jump house" and loved it, while Chris, Frances and I relived in large scale the days of having a trampoline in our back yard as kids! Afterward, we met Daddy at the food court at Westfield Food Emporium, which was delicious. The kids passed out on the ride home, which made the whole evening even better!


Tuesday, Chris & Lauren gave us a tour of their C17 airplane! Aidan and Kiana both got to ride in the cockpit and walk through the giant interior. It was pretty amazing, and was definitely the highlight of the week!


Aunt Frances left for Hawaii on Wednesday, Jonathan and Ashley left on Thursday, and Daddy came home on Friday. Even though it was sad to say goodbye, I was so happy that we overlapped with Frances at all! I miss her already. (XOX) We were all thrilled to have Daddy back on Friday, and things at night for me have gotten much more manageable (at least the kids aren't waking *each other* any more, and I can focus on Kiana while Alex deals with Aidan!) After Christmas church with Chris & Lauren and Jim & Cinda on Sunday , we all said goodbye and drove to Fairfield to start our third week of Christmas with the Ruane side of the family - starting first with Gabe/Karen/Miya/Siena. It's going to be fun to see all the cousins together!

On the first week of Christmas... Tooth!

With family all over the place, Christmas for us ends up being a month-long holiday extravaganza. This was the first week of Christmas for us, and we celebrated twice!



On Wednesday, Grandma and Grandpa Ruane drove down for the afternoon for our first round of presents. Our plan was to visit the Holiday Train Show at the Botanical Gardens after Aidan got out of playschool, and then open presents with Daddy at dinner time. However, Aidan ended up coming home with a 101 degree fever, so we vegged out and watched The Grinch, before opening presents. With medicine, Aidan felt good enough to have a great presents-unwrapping time later, so tht was good! Immediate hits for him were a Mack truck (to add to his "Cars" collection) that Daddy got, and a new wallet from Laurie (toward his new interest in money)!


Aidan was sick for a couple of days, but was much better by Saturday morning, when we flew from New York to San Francisco to start our two week long holiday trip. The kids did a very decent job on the plane (Kiana napped abou 3 of the 6 hours, cried/complained only about 30 minutes; Aidan was great throughout. On the trip, Daddy realized that Kiana has cut her firts tooth (bottom, middle-right)! Talk about exciting!!!



When we arrived, we were all happy to see Uncle Chris and Aunt Frances at the airport! The drive home was more difficult (Kiana cried about 45 minutes!), but once we got to Chris & Lauren's it was wonderful! Chris and Lauren are hosting Chrismas for Lauren's family this year (Lauren's parents Jim and Cinda, her brother Jonathan and his wife Ashley) as well as some of Chris's (us and Aunt Frances), so it's a lot of fun.


Sunday, we opened more presents with Chris and Lauren and did a second round of Christmas. Aidan was psyched about his doctor's kit and jacket from Uncle Chris and Aunt Lauren (with a real working stethascope!) and some amazing plastic bugs from Aunt Frances. Kiana continued to be most interested in the paper, though she loved the rattles and pink giraffe, too.


Sunday night, Uncle Chris drove Daddy to the BART stop so he could get to his conference in San Francisco that he has to attend this week. (We will stay here until next Monday, and he will meet back up with us this Friday when his conference is done.) We missed him Sunday night but had a wonderful time singing carols and reading A Child's Christmas in Whales (thanks for instigating the childhood memories, Aunt Frances!). I love this part of Christmas!


Things at night are a little exciting, since the kids have not figured out how to get over jet lag and are very wakeful and up around 3-4AM, but I'm hoping things will change soon! And in the meantime, it's worth it to see family!














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