A bit over a week ago we celebrated Jordi’s birthday! Now before the kids were born Jordi used to go regularly rock climbing with a friend and he enjoyed it. Then we had kids, and him spending an entire weekend morning disappearing and then being super-tired after wasn’t exactly working for us, and his friend moved away. But no more! The girls wanted to give Jordi a chance to go rock climbing with them for his birthday. So on his birthday morning we went to Quebrada and then off we went to the local rock climbing wall. Where it was strangely super-parked up. We went inside and found out that they were having a competition and were all disappointed. But Jordi took the girls in to show them the walls and the competition, where he found out that they were only using the bouldering walls and that the climbing walls were completely empty. So it was even better than normal actually! They had a few self-belay setups as well that would retract the line automatically so Jordi could climb too. We all had a good time, Ewan was napping and then watching from my back. Josie made it almost up the whole wall! Celia enjoyed giving it a go too.

Then we hit up Costco for a cheap nearby pizza lunch. We relaxed in the afternoon for a while before going out to dinner in Davis Square with my parents at a burger place before returning home for some yummy ice cream cake. Happy late birthday Jordi!

Just in under the wire, right before bed. Guess they found the story intense. It was “Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 3”.

Earlier before I got the camera set up, George was also on the scene, and Ezzy is just out of sight off camera left.

Our goal for this trip was to spend a lot of time seeing people. Not doing anything in particular, just visiting, getting the kids to get reacquainted with everyone and hang out. So we did a lot of hanging out, and thankfully people came to us to hang out as getting three kids in the car at any particular time when everyone’s so off schedule is tough. Some day we won’t have any more nappers and it should be easier. That’s my theory anyway. So what did we do? First off, the girls did a lot of puzzles. Josie would easily do six a morning. We got everyone into it!

Another major attraction were the pets. It’s always a small zoo at their house with a dog and at least one cat, often two.

One of the highlights for the girls on every visit is taking Simba for a walk. Josie is finally old enough to hold the leash and actually not let go. She still needs to learn a more gentle touch, but once we got the hang of which voice commands to use and got some practice, she and Simba were enjoying those walks together. Celia actually bowed out of taking the dog at all surprisingly, and walked her baby around the block with us each time in her stroller.

We had a lot of time and attention from Javi as he got to meet his nephew and hang out with the girls.

Jordi’s friend Arturo even came over to visit. Josie asked where was his wife? ah, marriage pressure from a 5 year old.

And in the following picture please kindly replace Arturo with Gilbert in your mind, as Gilbert was napping, so Arturo jumped in to round out the group shot. And give several of us bunny ears in other shots.

I like how his head blocks the light on the wall a little behind him. I don’t like how he works late at night often.

It was a gorgeous 50 degree February day here in Boston today, so I dragged Jordi outside from work for a few quick photos to enjoy the nice weather.