Southampton - Week w/ the cousins!

Week 2 of our East Coast trip finds us with the Kieffer side of the family at Uncle Joey and Auntie Sabrina's house in Southampton. The cousins: Iyers (Nate-5, Riley-3, Ben-1), NY Kieffers (Cameron-almost 3, Colin-11 months), and CA Kieffers (Sadie-3) are having a blast hitting the beach and pool every day! The week has just begun-here are a few pics/videos so far:

Classic Kieffer kid picture: Andy-36, Joey-34, Meg-32

Iyer family at Coopers Beach - the kids love to play in the waves.

Andy, Sadie, Riley, Val, Cameron, Noni, Colin, Ben, Meg, Nate

All the cousins in the pool! Poor Colin got pulled in wearing clothes for the photo!

All of this pool time has paid off! Nate is swimming!! Here he is jumping in and swimming to the other side all by himself.

And Ms. Rileybell is doing great in her swim vest-here she is swimming with her face in the water. Cousin Sadie is quite the swimmer and seeing her has given the Iyer kids some motivation! ***7/13 update-Riley swam today w/o the vest and w/ her face in the water! Video coming soon! Go Iyer kids!

Rochester Trip

We are in the middle of a 2 week vacation on the East Coast to spend time with family. Week one finds us in Pittsford, NY (suburb of Rochester) at Badamma's house. We are having an amazing week enjoying lots of time in the pool, celebrating Badamma's birthday (it's later this summer), celebrating the 4th of July, visiting Mesh's favorite places, and relaxing! Auntie Raji and Uncle Josh joined us for the first part of the week. The kids are having so much fun they asked if this can always be their summer house-Badamma of course agreed!

We made the hour and a half drive to Niagara Falls to ride Maid of the Mist, which was awesome! We also drove by the hotel where my grandparents (mom's parents) stayed on their honeymoon - I think I may have seen them dancing in the clouds. :)

We went to a Rochester Red Wings game and Uncle Josh arranged for the big screen to wish Badamma a happy birthday from Nate, Riley and Ben - the kids and Badamma were very excited to see their names in lights! Nate got a foul ball, which made the game even more memorable!

4th of July activities: Mesh and I started the day with a 5k, followed by the pool all day, carnival at night, and finally Nate and Riley were thrilled they got to stay up late to watch the fireworks at a local park.

A professional photographer came to take family pictures in our Indian outfits. I'll post a link once I get one.

Below are many pictures of our pool time - we go in the pool 3-4 times a day for about 1-2 hours each time...that is a lot of great pool time! Nate is now able to swim on his own but still prefers to wear the swim vest - he just needs to build a bit more confidence so we'll keep at it! Riley loves to wear the swim vest and "run" in the water and jump in by herself. Ben enjoys the pool for little bits at a time - he doesn't much like to be contained for too long as was also evident by his loud protests all across the country on the plane or anytime we try to strap him in a carseat or high chair. :)

Videos

This is the most adorable pledge of allegiance I've ever heard!

Nate making circuits.

Ben playing basketball!

June is all about...

Mom is done with work for the summer and it's time to enjoy the wonderful Pacific NW in the sun (and rain-it is the PNW after all) before our big trip back East. For the Iyers, June is all about...

going to a park nearly every day and sometimes one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

building forts (they typically like to dump a bunch of stuff on this big chair and call it their fort). Today they built this fort and then sat and looked through their Where's Waldo books for an hour.

eating ice cream with friends.

...sun umbrellas (she loves the shade like her mama).

...fun outings like the Seattle Aquarium.

reuniting with friends. Kara, Alison & I are friends from way back when and played soccer together from 2nd grade-12th grade. Alison lives in Sweden but is back in Gig Harbor for a visit so we met up with our kiddos at the soccer center. So great to see you Al!

ice cream fun at Ben & Jerry's! (That's 2 pics of ice cream because we love it!)

Happy Father's Day!

We had a wonderful Father's Day weekend celebrating Mesh and my dad, and remembering our dear Badappa/Mesh's dad. Mesh had to work a 24 hour shift Saturday 8am-Sunday 8am but was able to hand the pager off for a few hours to meet us at the Seattle waterfront after we went to the aquarium to join us for dinner at Red Robin (of course) and for a ride on the carousel. Sunday he powered through on only 4 hours of sleep at the hospital for a fun day at the zoo!

The days can sometimes be a bit hectic with children ages 5, 3, and 1...but there are many moments like this that bring pure joy.

The Iyer girls doing the yardwork.

June Events

June is the time of year for graduations, end of the school year celebrations and parades! We have been enjoying all the activities that this month of transition and celebration brings. And I am learning great life lessons from my children-as always...see below starting from the bottom and working up (I can't figure out how to rearrange the pictures). And if you are wondering why I wrote a longer post for a change - I think it is a combination of these facts: I'm feeling a bit emotional, Ben is napping, Gramps has taken the older two to a park, I still have 2 days of work next week before summer break but the school year ended today so all of my reports are done and my mind is free to wander, I ran 6 miles pushing the jogger this morning and since I haven't run that far in a while I have quite the runner's high, and I just fixed one set of blinds and am procrastinating before I try to fix the other two. :)

Olivia, Miss Ayu, and Riley

Olivia, Ms. Nichole and Riley

6/16: Riley's last day of preschool!

I have heard that your birth story gives insight into your personality. And while I believe that much like your horoscope, you can twist words and events how you like to make them fit-there was something that Riley said after her last day of preschool that reminded me of her birth. (Yes-I'm crazy.) Everyone likes to say Riley's birth was short because I was only at the hospital for an hour but as her mother I do recall it being rather long because I actually was contracting pretty regularly for days. Anyways, when I did finally decide to go to the hospital and told the nurse I was having an unmedicated birth she gave me what turned out to be the best advice, which was, "As soon as the pain is over-let it go. Like a kid that has fallen on the playground and scraped her knee and then gets right back up and keeps on running. Just let the pain go." Well today after preschool as we were loading in the van Riley said, "I'm a little sad preschool is over but it's over. Let's go!" She must have heard that great nurse of mine - way to let it go and move on Ri!

Mesh won an award at the banquet for all of the research he does, starting a mentoring program, being the chief fellow, and probably a few other things I am forgetting! Woot woot!! Way to go Dr. Iyer!

6/12: Parents night out!!

We enjoyed a lovely evening at Ramesh's annual radiology banquet on the top of the Columbia Tower in Seattle. Seriously, it is a lot more fun than it sounds, thanks to the help of a few mojitos! ;) Kidding aside, it was a great night to celebrate that Ramesh is finishing up his fellowship in Pediatric Radiology this month and will become an attending at Seattle Children's Hospital. This culminates 10 years of post college training including 4 years of medical school, 5 years of residency and 1 year of fellowship. Way to go Meshie-we are all so proud of you!!

Ice cream party to celebrate the soccer season!

6/12 Nate and Riley's last soccer games of the season. FYI-Ben would like to inform everyone that he has skipped his toddler years and jumped straight into being a big kid, in his mind. He wanted to play-bad, he doesn't like to sit in a high chair (help me!), and in general he would like to be doing whatever big brother and big sister are doing at all times. Being the baby of the family myself-I remember this attitude well!

6/10 Nate and his teacher Ms. Karen. Yes, I ate his cotton candy. He doesn't much like sweet things, but I sure do!

6/10 Nate and his friends, twins Evie and Ella, at their preschool carnival.

6/9 Nate walking out on his last day of preschool!

Those of you that know me, know that I am a very emotional person. Changes and transitions were always very hard for me while I was growing up. Now that I'm a mom - they bring a rush of emotions that are a mix of "I am so proud of my kids-how in the world are they growing up so quickly-and thank you God for letting me be their mama and get to witness their milestones, big and small." Well Nate got in the van (for those of you that don't live nearby and are laughing that I drive a van-just know that it is a dirty mess of kid stuff and it is my dream come true!) and the abridged version of his thoughts on preschool ending was, "These past two years at this school have been great, I can't wait for Kindergarten, and what park are we going to this afternoon?" Lesson learned by me - cherish the past, embrace the future, and most importantly, live in the present. Thank you Nate!

6/4 The annual Maritime Parade in Gig Harbor, my hometown. Many of the girls I grew up playing soccer with gather with their families at the Jerkovich's house (soccer family), where we eat the best scones on this earth and the kids get to fill their bags to the brim with candy and toys from the parade. We look forward to this every year!

Nate the Great turns 5!

Nate making slime while giving mom a kiss.

June 1st: I can't believe our firstborn is 5! We love you so much our sweet, funny, smart, handsome Nater!

The traditional rainbow chip cake with m&m's.

As I was tucking in Nate the other night he said, "Mom I love you to infinity plus one, and that's not even a real number!" And I thought-this smart little boy of mine sure knows a lot of things, but he will never be able to quantify the enormity of my love for him. But for now he needed an answer so I replied,"I love you to infinity times infinity to the 100th power and then all that again." His response, "Haha-mom that's not a real number either!" That's my boy!