Father and Son

Collections...

Of one type.

And another.

Gamboa Jungle Training Unit

Our friends Beth and Andrew, and their kids, Alistair and Paloma, have the most amazing birthday parties. Each year it seems like it can't get any better, and each year it somehow does. A favorite was Paloma's African safari (her first birthday) - though it was hard to top the pirate party on a real ship in the Pacific Ocean - celebration of Alistair's first.

Suddenly we've arrived at Alistair's fifth, and we received this in the mail:

The day was indeed action packed and extremely fun, complete with obstacle course, mud pit, climbing wall, and a slick slippy slide culminating in a wall of tropical vegetation. And to top it off, Andrew created this brilliant birthday video, starring Gamboa's finest. Needless to say, Simon and Gwendolyn were in heaven.

Milestone

A huge milestone today - Gwendolyn rode her bike for the first time without training wheels!!

I think she's been ready for a long time. As soon as David took off the training wheels, I ran behind her holding her a little, but gently letting go. It was like magic, on the first try she was balancing alone! The first few times were a little wobbly, but very quickly she started racing up and down the block like a pro. All this in one day! Here she is in her glory, with our sweet neighbor Eric happily racing back and forth in tow:

Hooray to our wonderful Gwendolyn!!