 OUR HOME
We live in a cute, older home in a small town outside of San Francisco. Two blocks away is a wonderful park where there is a lot of space for kids and dogs to play. Two blocks in the other direction is a small shopping area with businesses, including a grocery store, pizza parlor, and most importantly for Marty - a Starbucks! We have great neighbors - we help each other out with collecting mail and newspapers during vacations, dog-sitting, and baby-sitting.
FAMILY LIFE
Marty works for a small software company from our home office. This has been great because we get to see a lot more of him during the day, not just in the evenings. LeAnn is a stay-at-home mom who spends her time volunteering at Matthew's school, dreaming up art projects for Matthew, or finding cooking projects we can do together. We also like to garden and go down to the park to ride bikes.
 FAMILY VACATIONS
Our summer vacations are geared around spending time with our extended families.
LeAnn's side of the family has been going to a family summer camp since 1981! Family Campallows time for all the adults to relax and un-wind – or in the kid’s case, get wound up and run around! There are about 40 families at this camp each summer.The typical age span of campers is from newborn babies up to some quite elderly campers in their 80's.
Each day has a ton of activities, sports and swimming, or you can choose to just relax and read a book in the shade. Once its dark, we have our nighttime campfire to wrap up the day with songs and stories. The best part of the nighttime campfire is that each night is run by a one age group of kids with songs and skits. The high school kids' skit is usually the funniest, but the little kids are always very cute!
Our family looks forward to going to camp all year. After so many years, we now see Family Camp as a gift LeAnn's parents gave to her that we are now passing on to our children.
 4th OF JULY IN WISCONSIN
Marty's cousins spend a week each summer at a lake in Wisconsin, where he spent time each summer growing up. This is obviously far from California, so we only get to go every other summer. We all stay at a "resort" (ha!) in tiny fishing cabins right on the edge of a beautiful lake. The older children go boating while the younger children play with each other in the resort's playground and the grownups get caught up and keep family bonds tight. Dogs are allowed, so some years we bring Henry – a lake for him to swim in every day means he's in doggy nirvana! The small town has a big 4th of July celebration with a parade, a waterskiing show, and fireworks over the lake.
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