The Ryans

Geez, so many ways of keeping people in touch … blogs, facebook, email, phone, letters, visits … and we don’t use any of them!

Here is K playing soccer this morning, only one game left this season.  She’s doing good, better at soccer than we anticipated, though it is (in effect) her first year.  We’ll see if she wants to go again next year, but so far she says she likes it…

Anyone wondering why I don’t have my usual garden post and pictures of lovely produce?  …me too!

It’s been a bad year for gardening at the Ryan household. The green beans are yummy, but not enough to be satisfying since one mature/producing vine was completely chewed through at the stem. The strawberries were great, but very few also as some plants succumbed to heat. The tomatoes are stunted. The tomatoes that aren’t stunted are being eaten WHOLE by something. Tons of cayenne pepper helped ward off critters, until Matt ate a cherry tomato w/out washing it first! The tangerines fruited into tiny balls, only to all fall off the tree. And squash produced for a few weeks and then died. The basil is so-so. Actually the plants that are alive are looking perkier, so maybe August will be a turning point?

Just in case anyone was curious about my usual summer produce pics.

Besides the construction, we have done some fun things!

Kaitlin turned 9 and had a fun ice skating party with her friends.

Kaitlin enjoyed Girl Scout camp and Ocean Institute Camp. Now that she is older, the Ocean Institute camp group that she is in has gotten much more science-based. They got to dissect a squid, operate a remote underwater camera, go out on a research boat (they saw a blue whale!) and visit a wetland area. She was lucky to do both camps with friends.  This week she is doing a tennis instruction/rec swimming camp with a friend from school.  Mostly though, she has been at home and playing with friends from other schools she doesn’t see usually and playing with our neighbors a lot.  There have been some sleepovers and some birthday parties too. There’s been a fair amount of pool & beach time (not as much as we may have predicted) and lots of reading time. And, a neighbor found this snake in his garage…brave girl!

Kaitlins’ biggest news is that she got BRACES! The two-phase process was ideal for her because her overbite was so severe that she couldn’t quite close her lips easily, meaning it would have gotten worse and been that much harder to correct later. Plus, they needed to make room now while she is in a growth cycle for what they’ll do later. She has had a pretty smooth time of it so far and has a great attitude.

Kaitlin and I took a little mini-vacation to San Diego a couple weeks ago. In part to get away from the house while it was being painted and in part to take advantage of some great mid-week deals and free zoo coupons. We visited the aircraft carrier USS Midway and we both really enjoyed it and learned a lot. It was fascinating and I highly recommend it. We also visited Point Loma, where Leo Cabrillo wa the first European to see the west coast of North America, and where there is a now-defunct and nicely maintained lighthouse. 360 degree view of the Pacific Ocean, San Diego proper, San Diego harbor, Coronado island (naval base), Coronado bridge, Hotel del Coronado, and land in the distance that is Mexico. Very cool. At night, we played in Uno in bed even! We enjoyed a great day at the San Diego Zoo and then came home.

We’re looking forward to some more beach time next week and then our family trip (Ryan family reunion) to Colorado soon. And then…4th grade!

Hope you are all having a wonderful summer! love Becky

So we are finally done enough to post before and after pictures, although truly after pics will include things like pictures on the walls and an area rug that is not made up of 5 small carpet remnants!

So this is what we did: 

1-Expanded the kitchen into what used to be the dining area. Now it is has enough room for two people! Plus a great pull out trash can, regular sized drawers, tons of storage behind the peninsula, and no awkwardness. We can actually open the fridge & DW at the same time now!

2-Moved Matt’s office upstairs to our old guest room. Removed and reinstalled the built-ins that we had.

3-Shored up foundation in living room for construction of new “bonus room” (Becky’s office, family room, overflow for Kaitlin’s crafts/games/tv?, occasional guest room) above living room (where cathedral ceiling previously existed). The new room will eventually have furniture of course. The upstairs now feels separate and private, and so far we don’t miss the cathedral ceiling (in winter I’m sure we’ll be thrilled not to lose the heat).

living room pics

hallway upstairs (photo taken from master bedroom doorway)

additional pictures from inside the new room. It is bigger than either of the other second bedrooms, the same size as our living room and with a nicely peaked celing.

4-Altered “jack-n-jill” bathroom to have single access from hallway instead of an access way from each of the two second bedrooms (shot one is from inside K’s room and shot two is from the hallway…it is hard to tell from these two pics, but the vanity & sinks rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise). Goodbye 3 doors in a 5×5 area and goodbye carpet in the bathroom.

Front of the house:

It has been an interesting process! First they built a temporary plywood wall between the front & back of the downstairs so we could “live” in the front while they worked on the kitchen. They we moved into the kitchen and set up a temporary living room back there while the worked on the front of the house. While they worked on the front/addition, we also had a huge temporary plywood wall splitting the upstairs hallway lengthwise so that our bedrooms were separated (by a working door) from the mess. It was less chaotic then we thought, a couple weeks over schedule, and ON BUDGET! We think the new flow of the house will be much more useable, we only added 170 sq feet…but the elbow room created by moving stuff around within the existing walls accomplished a lot more than that!  Plus, we had the opportunity while the walls were open to do things like lift all the pipe out of the concrete slab, wire the house for cable & ethernet, add some missing insulation, and generally update the aesthetics.  We love the school district and now have some room to grow a bit as we see those teenage years coming! Indy is not too fond of the laminate floors, one he is slipping & sliding until he gets his legs acclimated, and two, he has always loathed sitting on any hard surface including the patio and the old kitchen tile.

We have some great “during construction” pictures…perhaps for another post another day!

On to cleaning and re-cleaning what is now a very dusty house…and decorating some (at least getting rid of the carpet remnants!)

Becky

I have a lot to catch up on here, thanks for being patient!

These pictures are from spring break. We stuck around town and enjoyed being out of the house as construction started. Mini golf with Avantika, and horseback riding with Rhys! Then some water play with Avantika and Faith. 

The pictures in the Japanese costumes are from the Girl Scout International Food Fair. The younger girls who are Brownies dress up and perform a traditional dance from an assigned country. This year was poignant as the tsunami in Japan struck in the weeks leading up to the event, so our girls had a lot of added compassion as they thought about Japan. Next year, the girls graduate to Junior level and host a food sales booth! The ballet recital was very exciting because it will be Kaitlin’s last for awhile (she is taking a break from ballet) AND because her class danced to the theme song from the Harry Potter movie!

The end of the school year also included the typical flurry of dance recitals, school events (such as a poetry recitation and open house), state testing, and report cards. We were proud to learn that Kaitlin was invited into the gifted & talented program at her school and will start some related extracurricular activities for that in 4th grade.  Here are some pictures from a school field trip (art overlooking the ocean after visiting an art museum) and her historical figure presentation (Anne Frank).

This time of year, Kaitlin always amazes us with what she has learned and how much she enjoys and the great opportunities she has academically and socially. We are very lucky to watch her grow!

Not as bad as it kind of looks, but I’ll use it as an excuse to post

We haven’t taken many pictures in 2011, but we’ve been up to lots of fun stuff!

Kaitlin:  We enjoyed a wonderful piano recital (Kairtlin’s first!) in January. Kaitlin performed three songs which she practiced for many hours each week. We were proud of her maturity in practicing before the big day and happy to see her keep her cool during the recital.  Piano is extracurricular, but as part of the school’s own music program all 3rd graders learn the violin for 6 months…so we were happy to enjoy a violin recital featuring all five 3rd grade classes, plus some older kids who have continued on with stringed instruments. I was quite impressed by the sound of 100+ violins accompanied by the music teacher on the piano. We are looking forward to several St. Patrick’s day Irish dance shows in the next week;  mostly at retirement homes.

Family fun:  We seem to enjoy beach walks during the winter months and have been on a few up at Crystal Cove (especially fun when preceded by a shake at the Shake Shack on the bluff overlooking the ocean!).  We had a blast skiing last week when Kaitlin’s school was closed for ski week. We spend an afternoon going tubing, had a relaxing little dinner, and then woke up early to hit the slopes. Kaitlin skipped ski school this year because the pace is a bit slow, so she was with us from the beginning and truly she got over being rusty long before I did!  She remembered the skills pretty quickly and was speeding down the slopes in no time. By lunch time, we were taking her on the intermediate slopes. It was so chilly at first that we all had frost in our hair, but it quickly warmed up when the sun came out. 

House: We’ll post “before” and “after” pictures soon, but we’re getting ready to expand the kitchen (into existing structure space) and add on a room upstairs…with the other rooms getting rearranged a bit. It should be quite an adventure!  The garden is ho-hum this winter. It is the first winter that I haven’t had good luck with spinach and peas (they’ve ben eaten by birds & bugs), but the tangerines are tasting great and the lemons look promising and nearly ripe. The lettuce is doing pretty well too. The strawberries are ripening fast, but we have a nocturnal visitor (rat?) eating them! I’m looking forward to the summer crop when I can start over (and use more netting to keep the critters away!).  AND, we have a darling hummingbird nest that we noticed about 5 weeks ago with two jelly-bean sized eggs. Nearly 2 weeks ago they hatched and we expect the babies will fly away in another week or so.  We were pretty worried because the nest seems very low and vulnerable–though great for us to take peeks–but apparently the nest has been safe enough so far.

Sorry for the long, long delay on posting! The 2010 holiday season brought us together with friends and family. We were happy that Great-Grandma Josephine braved the Thanksgiving travel to have a Parziale Thanksgiving in Orange County. Before the big turkey dinner we enjoyed a friendly game of poker where Great-Grandma (feigned?) some beginner timidity…and then managed to beat us all! We’ll never know if it was beginner’s luck or the ultimate poker face!

We enjoyed a fabulous holiday spread from appetizers to roast to Christmas cookies at the Herndon’s house and were happy to catch up with the Kaas family.

Then we had smooth travels to North Carolina to join the Clancy family at the new Ryan Senior household. As luck would have it we had a white Christmas (well, the snow came very late at night in the last few hours of Christmas day!). Kaitlin was thrilled because although she has been in snow, she had never before experienced being in FALLING snow. She had a grand time throwing snowballs, making a snowmand and a snow angel, and even tasting some snow. We were blessed to spend  Christmas with family.

   Notice the snowball in mid-flight! 

Kaitlin was quite excited about Halloween after missing the school festivities last year due to the flu. She got to be the signholder for her class this year, walking like an Egyptian. Cleopatra was in good company with several other Cleopatra’s at the school. After the school parade we went to the neighboring school’s Boo Blast carnival with a couple friends. The girls’ favorite ride was a crazy-fast ferris wheel, which was a bit scary for us moms to watch. Then we had a day off and went trick-or-treating last night in Avantika’s neighborhood. That is Avantika’s dad dressed up with the girls. After returning home, Matt & Kaitlin went to a few houses in our neighborhood that had mini haunted houses…lots of fun! Our cul-de-sac was pretty quiet with some neighbors away visiting friends, plus the decorated homes on another street drawing the kids that direction…so we didn’t have many visitors this year. Notice the difference between the two pictures in our front yard.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Since our last post, we have done a few fun things:  live production of Peter Pan in the 360 degree theater from London, two Irish dance competitions, an overnight at a local nature center with the Brownie troop, getting together with family friends, and settling into school.  Kaitlin is pretty excited that they are learning violin at her school. Her assigned violin is at home all week except the day she has music and totes it to school. She hasn’t been practicing much yet, but it is an “interesting” sound when she does! On the flip side, her piano skills have excelled and she is flying through the lesson books. We are shopping for a real piano, used hopefully. We are looking forward to seeing family at Thanksgiving and Christmas. We are in the process of submitting plans to the city to build our loft into an enclosed room…hopefully construction will begin in Jan.