Kamikaze Jr.

Kamikaze. One of the definitions as describe by Oxford dictionary --> wreckless or potentially self destructive. That was one of the nicknames I was given back in my younger days when I was determined to surf bigger and better. Now I see some of my personality traits being inherited by my kiddos.

This is the top of the stairs from my point of view.

Maybe it looks different from a kids perspective... top of the stairs from E's point of view.

Nope. They don't look that much different. That landing below still looks like pretty darn far. Note the sweet normal looking child in this photo. She's Kamikaze Jr.

And here's the perspective from a side observer view..

This one afternoon, Emilia asked Ryan to please move out of her way as they were headed down the stairs. And then she proceeded with her spontaneous decision to jump down an ENTIRE flight of stairs. The crazy part, is that she MADE it. Albeit, she landed very hard on her heels and it hurt, and she cried a little, but she MADE IT. No emergency room. No broken bones. She didn't go head first into the wall from forward momentum. She didn't miss the landing which would have made her land on the stairs and then tumble down. Nope. She MADE IT with just a slightly swollen ankle.

Of course I had to lecture her on safety and "What were you thinking??! Does THAT look safe?!.. and we could have ended up in the ER.. AGAIN!".

As Ryan and I stood at the top of the stairs looking down in silence, he then said "I bet you secretly wish you could do that." We dared each other to do the exact same jump... and um.. nope. Not sure if it's old age or that we know better, but that "jump" looks and feels ridiculously far.

Emilia is definitely our little dare devil. You should see her crazily attack the downhill driveway with her tricycle. Her legs flailing out as the bike swerves left and right with a nearly uncontrollable steering. And oh yeh, you'd hear her shrieks of laughter bellowing all the way down the hill.

Roadtrippin' - Part 3 : BravoLand

We discovered an awesome newish place called BravoLand on the long drive back home. I've driven this route up and down Cali for over a decade now, and I don't ever recall seeing this place. But I caught the attention of a sign that said "playground" and knew we had to stop and check it out, esp with restless kids in the car.

This place is AWESOME! A BBQ joint, ice cream parlour, unique odds/ends and knick knacks shopping store, and a giant play area all conjoined together and decorated like a rustic scene out of an old Western town.

Great little find for an extended pit stop.

We stayed there for almost 2 hours, and yes, it extended our drive home by that and then some. Even so, I am sure we will be back there for a visit again sometime.

Roadtrippin' - Part 2 : Visiting the Cousins

As usually, life became overwhelmingly hectic which stopped the ability to keep this updated... so, I'll try to do some catching up.

Continuing from our summer road trip to NorCa, we made a very brief pitstop to see a few family. It was, as always, short, sweet, and never enough time.

The kiddos and their cousins were like two sets of two peas in a pod. Emilia with cousin K, Liam with cousin E. I loved watching the kids play and interact with each other, esp Liam and cousin E. Last time around, they were still too young to really play together. Now, they had a great time playing with the toys they both like - cars, trains, and anything with wheels.

The big kids got in on the action and had some fun too.

Double twinsies.

All the kiddos with the big kid.

Emilia loved playing with cousin K's toys... luckily cousin K is pretty good at sharing.

Even cousin E got into cousin K's things.