Journal › Holidays category

This weekend, we took Emma to the San Francisco Zoo for their annual Easter party and egg hunt. If you can’t tell from the photos below, she had lots of fun, particularly hopping like a rabbit in any of the five (!) bouncy houses that were set up in the meadow.

First time Emma has been excited to see a life-size character. (Past run-ins with Santa haven’t gone too well yet.)

So excited that she wanted to give him a big hug before we said goodbye.

She didn’t like jumping in the bouncy house, did she?

Hoping along the grass with a giant red ball – something she didn’t want to stop.

Tossing rings onto a cactus for prizes.

Emma showing off the results of her Easter egg hunting skills.

And finally, a few rounds on the carousel, where Emma shows she knows how to have a good time!

January – Nana and Papa Bowman visited from Florida. Unfortunatly, Emma got Roseola so we spent a lot of time indoors. We still managed to take Nana and Papa to the Bay Area Discovery Museum, one of Emma’s favorite places. She got to show them all her latest tricks and had a great visit.

February – Emma is officially a year and a half old! We can’t believe how fast the time has gone by. We can barely keep up with Emma anymore. She is running around like crazy and starting to use a lot more words. Cam’s mom finally sold her house and is moving to San Francisco.

March – We were suppose to head to San Diego, but Doug got the flu. Emma and momma made new friends in the neighborhood and had fun play dates each week. Emma has two new friends her age, and it’s fun to see them walking around the neighborhood.

April – Cam’s mom is now living full time in San Francisco. Emma nicknamed her “MiMi” and loves having her around. Doug also had his first accident on his scooter, causing all of us to have heart failure! Life is never dull in the Bowman household.

May – We spent Mother’s Day in Las Vegas. Had a great time with our friends Nick and Yvonne who were also there. We had a great time at Mandalay Bay where they have an amazing shark exhibit. But wouldn’t you know it, this time, Emma got the flu. We spent the later part of the trip taking turns watching over Emma and helping her recover.

June – Let the birthday parties begin! Emma had a ton of fun visiting her friends T & N for their 2nd birthdays. They are the first in the baby group to hit the 2′s! Father’s day was also fun this year with both Doug’s b-day and Father’s Day occurring on the same day! We has a fun filled weekend of celebrating.

July – July was a really busy month. We went to Seattle for a conference where Doug spoke, and then over to Spokane to see Cam’s Aunt C and Cousin K and family. It was a great trip. Emma fell in love with her cousins and can’t wait to visit them again. Cam’s niece also came to visit and spent 3 weeks with us. Emma loves having her here. She would yell every morning for “Chy-Chy” to “GET UP” and come play with Emma!

August – Happy Birthday Emma! We now have a 2 yr old. Sometimes it’s so hard to believe. Emma had a jungle safari birthday party with all her friends. It was a great time. We had lion, tiger, and monkey cupcakes going around. I think Emma actually ate two full cupcakes that day. Grandma B came from Ohio, and Emma had a blast. We also bought a new home and Emma started her first soccer class.

September – Moving day is here! Emma has now lived in 4 different bedrooms in her short 2 years! We spent a lot of time getting the “NEW HOUSE!” ready and Emma declared “No more OLD house!” Emma is also loving soccer and having a great time when we’re not rained out. This has been one of the worst summers in SF history. We spent a lot of time seeking out the sun by driving about 30 minutes south to a park. We still managed to have a great time.

October – We continued on with soccer, but switched to a weekend time so Doug could take Emma. He loves taking her. Emma is really starting to show her real spirit. Who knew we had such a huge baseball fan? Emma cheered on the SF Giants all the way to the World Series. She would yell “Go Giants Go!” It was awesome. We also held the first annual “Bowman Halloween Bash” for the neighborhood. It was a huge hit. We have gotten to know so many people, and feel so fortunate to live in this friendly neighborhood.

November – Another busy month for us. We flew to NYC for another of Doug’s conferences, and met up with Emma’s BFF Charlotte. We had such a great time. The girls were so fun to watch. It was another tearful good-bye until we get to see them again in the Spring. Cam’s sister and family came for Thanksgiving in our new house. We also had Cheyenne here too. Emma had fun playing with her 3 yr old cousin Sienna, and giving Cheyenne a hard time again. We took a trip to Cal Academy with the whole crew of us, fun times!

December – Soccer was rained out all month. We still managed to get in some fun play groups though. Christmas came too quickly but it was fun to have Grandma B from Ohio here for a visit. Between Grandma B, Nana and Papa, and Grandma Mimi, Emma was very spoiled this year. We got Emma a new tricycle and we’ve been spending every sunny moment outside. We had a Disneyland trip planned for after Christmas that turned into a nightmare. We drove to Southern California on Wednesday, but had to return two days later after we all got sick. Needless to say, that was the beginning of the end for the Bowman’s. We all ended up sick for the next two weeks, ringing in a very sad New Year.

Good bye, 2010! Here’s hoping 2011 brings lot of joy, laughter, and fun times ahead.

Wow! Our baby girl is 2. I really can’t believe how fast the time goes by. She has become every bit of a two year old, full of sugar and spice! This year we had a low key birthday party for her. She had a great time with a few friends and family. Thank you to all of you who celebrated Emma’s 2nd birthday safari with us!

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This year, Doug’s birthday and Father’s Day were on the same day. Since they are so close together I’m sure it’s bound to happen again. We had a great weekend. We actually celebrated his birthday on Saturday so he didn’t miss out on Father’s Day.

Happy Father’s Day and Birthday Doug! We love you more and more every day!

Our little girl is 18 months old today. Can you believe that? It’s been a while since we’ve updated this site. Seems like it’s getting more and more difficult to keep up with everything. Just when we felt like we were catching up, the holidays blew through, and we fell behind.

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We’re really far behind on updates. Enjoy some photos of Emma from the last couple of months that we assembled into a video at Animoto. We hope you’re enjoying this wonderful time of year. Happy holidays!

Ok, so technically, we’re one day late in wishing everyone a Happy 4th of July. But it took some time to get the photos off the camera.

Emma walked in her first parade yesterday. She and her friend, Charlotte, had fully decorated Radio Flyer walker wagons that they pushed in the Menlo Park 4th of July parade. Actually, Emma rode in hers most of the time. These two little girls and their two wagons were the hit of the parade. Everyone who saw them gushed with adoring smiles. We heard lots of “oohs” and “aahs” and “isn’t that the cutest thing in the whole wide world?!” the entire parade route. Lots of fun had by all. continued ›

It seems like yesterday that we were writing our first holiday letter as a family. Time flew by this year and brought many changes. Last Christmas we split our time between Ohio and California. We had a wonderful dinner with Ohio family on Christmas Eve. Then we took a late flight home to California that night in time to spend Christmas with Cam’s family. continued ›

We realize it’s been a while since we posted any news here. So much going on, so much to do, so much fun to have. So we’re posting the letter here that we sent out with our Christmas card. This update covers six months of time, so there’s not much detail. But you’ll get the general idea of what we’ve been up to. continued ›