The Cate Family Blog

Boys get a summer cut

Cliff Cate — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 20:28:27 +0000

In celebration of the first weekend of summer and the hot weather we have been having, the boys got a summer hair cut (a #2 on the clippers). The girls (Zoe and Christie) don’t seem to like it but the boys do. What do you think?

Orange Co and San Diego Fire links

Cliff Cate — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 19:39:25 +0000

#sandiegofire twitter
Personal weather stations in the area
Google map of San Diego fires – has anyone created one for Orange Co?
OC Register Fire Page
San Diego Flickr set

Father’s Day

Cliff Cate — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 04:15:51 +0000

We had a great father’s day. Beck, Torin and I spent the morning at the park. In the afternoon, we went to father’s day brunch at Stone Brewery.

The following is a picture from the gardens at Stone Brewery

Here a a great picture from the table at brunch today

The kids also really enjoyed the ice cream man when he came by the house

April and May Activities

Cliff Cate — Sun, 03 Jun 2007 19:32:13 +0000

It has been a month and a half since the last post. A lot has happened. Zoe celebrated her 5th birthday, Beck celebrated his 1st birthday and Torin became potty trained (yah! – no more $35 boxes of diapers). Here is a summary of the activities:

We went to a Padres baseball game on April 29th. The Padres lost to the Dodgers in 17 innings. We left in the 7th inning and were still able to get home and watch a final few innings on TV.

Beck gave up formula, got his first few teeth and starting eating solid food like crazy.

We had of fun annual Cinco de Mayo party. The piñata was busted open after about the third swing. Next year we have to make sure that we let all the little kids take the first swings at the piñata.

For Zoe’s birthday she brought in cup cakes to share with her preschool class

Zoe got a play house for her birthday

..and a pair of hip shades

Zoe had a bowling birthday party

We all went to Connecticut for vacation

We celebrated Beck’s birthday while we were in Connecticut. Christie’s mom made a great ice cream birthday cake which Beck loved.

The kids and dad

Cliff Cate — Sun, 15 Apr 2007 22:58:53 +0000

The kids and I were on our own for five days so that Christie could take a well deserved vacation. My mom (grandma to the kids) stayed with us and was a big help on Wednesday – Friday. We had a great time and kids seemed to be on their best behavior – I am not sure how I got so lucky.

On Friday night, Torin and Zoe said that they wanted sushi so we went our favorite local sushi place. Beck must have ate half of the bowl of Edamame, Torin drank all of his miso soup, and Zoe ate several different rolls because she said that she wanted to try some new things.

On Saturday morning, I got everyone in the car and we got donuts and went Bluebird park in Laguna Beach with their friend Delaney (we are not going to tell mom about the donuts). Zoe didn’t actually finish her donut because she said that it was too sweet if you can believe that. Zoe and Torin spent most of their time on this thing spinning round and round.

He finished off Saturday with another trip to the park in the afternoon just to make sure that they were completely exhausted.

On Sunday we went to Ben’s birthday party. I got everyone dressed and we were able to leave the house almost on time. I was even able to comb everyone’s hair as you can see in this picture:

At Ben’s party there was a snake guy that brought a bunch of snake, spiders, lizards and a tortise. Torin was scared and spent most of the time outside. Zoe was a little shy but she was able to touch everything but she made sure that no snakes were put around her neck. Here is a picture of holding part of a python:

I was able to get all three kids to sleep every night by 7:30 which gave me a nice break every night. We had a great time. Maybe we will do it again in another year.

Easter 2007

Cliff Cate — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 03:57:37 +0000

We had a great easter and we were busy. It started on Saturday night with coloring eggs. Torin and Zoe each had four eggs. Torin wanted to try to color each egg with as much color as possible. Zoe wanted to color her eggs pink and cover them with stickers.

It then took some convincing to get Zoe to go to sleep. I think that it was a combination of excitement and fear of the easter bunny that kept her from sleeping. She first asked a lot of questions about how the easter bunny was going to get to our house and if he was going to come into our house. At one point, she asked me to put a note on the door telling the easter bunny not to come into our house.

On Sunday we had the easter egg hunt in the morning, we then met grandma and grandpa for brunch at Ponte Winery in Temecula, and then we finished the day with dinner with some friends at the house.

We will have the pictures up soon.

Torin – Future Rock Star

Cliff Cate — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 20:09:54 +0000

Torin was able to practice his drum skills last week on stage at The Bellyup. Torin’s uncle David was in town with his band, Son Volt. We went to watch the sound check and have dinner with David. At first, Torin was afraid to go on stage and sit at the drums (he thought that the guitar players were scary) but once he finally got on stage it was hard to get him off. Every time that they finished a song during sound check Torin would ask me if it was his turn. David gave Torin a pair of drumsticks so now everything is a drum.

More pictures are on Flickr.

Strawberry picking at Tanaka Farms

Cliff Cate — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 18:21:01 +0000

Zoe’s class went on a field trip to Tanaka Farms last week. She picked (and ate) strawberries and several other fruits and vegetables.

Bike Riding

Cliff Cate — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 03:59:52 +0000

Zoe and Torin rode their bikes for several hours today. They haven’t ridden them much since the day that they got them from Santa but they seem to be catching on fast. Both are competitive and like to see who can go the fastest. We survived several crashes and minor skinned knees.

We also spent the morning planting a small vegetable garden. Torin and Zoe helped select the plants and plant them. We planted tomatoes, tomatillios, cilantro, sage, thyme, cucumbers, lettuce and strawberries. As long as Torin doesn’t destroy it, we should be able to enjoy it in a few months.

All the pictures are on Flickr.

Day at Seaworld

Cliff Cate — Sat, 24 Mar 2007 18:33:32 +0000

We spent the day at Sea World today. Everyone had a great time. We saw Shamu, the Dolphin Show and the Sea Lion show. The above pictures were taken at Shamu’s tank. You can see Shamu behind Zoe in both pictures. She looks happy there but she threw up all over the back of the car right as we were leaving the park for home. Christie spent about an hour cleaning up the car when we got home. Zoe seems to be feeling fine now. Must have been the hot dog she had for lunch.

All of the pictures from today are on Flickr.