Philippe Lazaro
OCTOBER 2016

June 2022

#152 Santos Baby Shower

01 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#153 Juniper Squash

02 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#154 Rhys Reader

03 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#155 Tiger Trail Statue

04 June 2022 // Escondido, California

#156 Pool Repair

05 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#157 Do Love The Trees

06 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#158 The Vote & Churro

07 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#159 Ten Years a Date

08 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#160 A Banyon Evening

09 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#161 Enclave Counter

10 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#162 Banyon Lawns

11 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#163 Roly Poly Quest

12 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#164 Nights With The Piecer

13 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#165 Bem Lounging

14 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#166 Twin Rockers

15 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#167 Sweeping the Doors

16 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#168 Nick’s Pancakes

17 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#169 American Bullfrog

18 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#170 San Bernardino

19 June 2022 // Idyllwild, California

#171 Baby Hammock Life

20 June 2022 // Idyllwild, California

#172 Morning at Camp

21 June 2022 // Idyllwild, California

#173 Ground Piecer

22 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#174 Doubling in Size

23 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#175 CreativeMornings Return

24 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#176 Water Play

25 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#177 Juniper & Ivy

26 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#178 7th Anniversary

27 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#179 Kai Kai’s Playhouse

28 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#180 Sun in the Sky

29 June 2022 // San Diego, California

#181 Plant With Purpose Gray

30 June 2022 // San Diego, California

Snakes & Lattes

Here’s an example of taking a simple concept and nailing the execution.

One of the things that really appealed to me about Toronto was that I would very often find out about little places to go for a simple fun time- and I would see them so frequently that my impression was that Toronto was actually chock full of places to play.

I think I was right about that. Wish these were a fixture in every city.

Lottocracy

Made this a little bit ago but it meshes with something I think about a lot lately: how there’s a huge difference between making a point and making a difference.

One sees the world in this-or-that options, the other engages creativity. One benefits from people being divided, playing to one side. The other seeks to meet people where they are.

There are others who think applying more randomness to governance might help get us unstuck. It’s not a new idea. It’s how leaders were chosen in Ancient Athens, and there are a growing number of people who think it could help some of our modern processes.

In theory, modern politics are so gridlocked by partisanship, a culture of us versus them, and the way leaders are incentivized to rally their crowds rather than solve problems. Randomly chosen people are less swayed by party talking points and political games, and more motivated to solve the problem at hand.

Random people are already tasked with pretty big decisions on juries. And recently, randomly gathered citizen assemblies have proposed climate policy in France and election reforms in British Columbia.

At the very least, it’s something to be curious about!

Exploring With Daniel

Thankful to have a friend who will put aside his preference for the familiar and hop on a plane to some mystery destination with no clue how things are going to go.

Thankful for unearthing his wedding toast where he talks about how much he loves complaining about the stupid situations I get us into, because seven years later that hasn’t changed much.

Thankful for a board game cafe that doesn’t give us too much crap for staying 20 minutes past closing, a city that makes it possible to visit almost 20 restaurants in one weekend, and a border security agent’s interview for giving us a weekend’s worth of joke fodder.

Toronto: Day Three


Another day in Toronto, another set of adventures around the city.

Spent the morning getting breakfast with EVERYBODY I knew in the city. All three of them. They just might convince me into moving here.

Spent some time trying to thrift for a toddler-sized Raptors’ throwback, to appreciate a closed museum from the outside, and to learn more about the local tree species. It was funny hearing Canadians complain about the monotony of maple trees. Would love living in a sugar maple grove.

After dinner, it was off to the BURBS. Partly to get a fix of some Real Canadian Superstore but mostly to head out to something I can only describe as a SQUID GAME ARCADE. Good times.

Fathers' Day 2022


One day I’m gonna look back at this year, amazed at how we did this three under three thing, but so thankful that we did.

Being a dad is my favorite. But also, half the time I’m like… how am I somebody’s dad?! Let alone three people’s?? I feel pretty young at heart. I always wanted to be a dad, but got used to thinking about it like this futuristic thing. But I’ve got three Animaniacs with half my DNA and minds of their own.

But I love it. I get to do so many things in life that make me feel like the luckiest person ever, but none take more energy or add more meaning quite like dad life.

People’s senses of worth and identity are so often influenced by the signals they get from their dads along the way. It’s my heads up to be intentional about it, but I also have it good with these three.

My bambini call my attention to what actually matters, the wonders scattered around everyday life, and the impact I actually have on the world around me.

I love Rhys’ confidence and leadership- tough kid forged like his mom. I love Kai’s inherent sweetness and chill vibes, packed into a ridiculously fast growing body. I love how deep Juniper’s curiosity runs and her responsiveness to the world around her.

Every day I get to wake up to the best gifts I could have ever asked for. Sometimes even after 6AM

Travel is Different Now

The past few years have made me really rethink my relationship with travel. I still know that I love going places and that’ll probably stick with me for life. But here are some of the bigger shifts:

🏜 Going at as slow of a pace as possible. This is especially important now that I have kids and want to travel with them as much as I can manage. Slow travel tends to be more sustainable, intimate, and it just teaches you way more.

🏔 Trying to go as sustainably as possible. There’s no great way around the emissions of flying right now, and while I don’t think offsets solve every problem, they at can at least help here. Even more so, I want to make sure I’m going places mindfully, making the most of each visit, keeping the number of over-ocean flights small.

🗺 Emphasizing respect for locals. I think I’ve always tried to be mindful of the fact that travel is on other people’s home land, but the sense of entitlement around being able to go places I sometimes see makes me recoil- and I’m not necessarily immune to it. I want to make sure I always remember that going places is a privilege.

Kaffee Fernando

Antigua has no shortage of beloved coffee shops and each one has such distinct personality it’s hard to even compare them.

But there was one that definitely felt like a little home base while we were over there and it was none other than the beloved Kaffee Fernando. I’m completely unsurprised this pops up on so many people’s shortlist of favorites.

Everything from the pretty complete menu, the tranquil courtyard, the extremely friendly staff, and the resident cat made this a coffee shop I was really thankful to have just a block away from our place.

Toronto

The plain truth: I really love Toronto. 🇨🇦

Of course I thought I would like it, otherwise I wouldn’t have planned a weekend escape there. But I wasn’t expecting to leave thinking it’s perhaps in my top 3-5 favorite cities, alongside the likes of Cape Town and Amsterdam.

But sure enough, I’m a little jealous of the people who get to visit often or call it home.

🏙 Loved the huge blend of cultures that merge in Toronto. Between the food, the neighborhoods, the small businesses, film festivals, and just the faces you see when you’re out, it kind of feels like you’ve got a special portal to the world.

🏙 Toronto’s a pretty big city, but nature is well integrated. From the quick escapes to the islands, the lakes and waterfalls further out in Ontario, or the impressive set of city parks, I was impressed by all the green space.

🏙 I found the city easier to get around than any comparable spot in the US. All we did in one weekend was made possible by reliable public transport and walkable spaces.

🏙 From board game cafes to coffee shops with a ton of personality, there are a lot of spaces there built for fun (a lot of fun) that I wish we had closer to home. While we’re still enamored with axe throwing over here, they’re turning the Squid Games into a VR arcade.

Toronto: Day Two

Another day in Toronto, and this one was splendid. It wouldn’t surprise me if we arrived in time for the city’s most comfortable week out of the whole year.

This one introduced me to where to go for a beach day in Toronto, the sugary glory of Beavertails, and one thing Toronto does better than any other city I’ve been in: board game cafés.

Also, Toronto has the most impressive park space of any city I’ve seen in a long time.

This is such an easy city to have a lot of fun in.

Toronto: Day One

Day one of that time I took Daniel on a trip without telling him where we were going and we wound up in Toronto.

The iconic St. Lawrence Market, the Museum of Illusions, Graffiti Alley, and Chinatown all showed up, but mostly, lots and lots of eating.

PS- ever have the peameal bacon sandwich? This thing turned out much tastier than anticipated, and well worth the $7 CAN.

March For Our Lives


Joined moms, dads, kids, teachers, pediatricians, gun-owners, gun-survivors, clergy, and a whole spectrum of beliefs at March For Our Lives who recognize that what we have in place has created way too much devastation and way too many tiny caskets.

Optimism typically comes easier to me than most people, but this is one area where I haven’t felt that much of it. Mass shootings have been such a recurring thing, from the time I was in grade school up to now when I have kids of my own. And though the stories seem to keep getting more gutting each time, it seems like we keep getting stalemated.

But I know when it comes to climate, doomerism isn’t helpful. It doesn’t tell the whole story and it only gets in the way of action. I imagine it’s similar when it comes to preventing gun violence.

Here are a few reminders I find very helpful.

You aren’t alone. Very far from it. Most of the country wants better gun laws than we have right now and the numbers aren’t even close. 93 percent of voters support background checks, 89 percent of Republicans, 87 percent of gun owners. There is strength in those numbers that gets unleashed when people speak up from the heart and organize.

The work isn’t in vain. I get that horrific gun deaths happen daily and we aren’t doing enough. Incrementalism is frustrating. But It’s way harder to measure what has been prevented. A slew of different laws have been passed at state and municipal levels over the past decade. Especially around 2018 and Parkland. And data does show us a meaningful difference based on locations where laws have been enacted. With the gun lobby in poor financial health and the momentum of local-level action, things have never been closer to a tipping point.

The heartbreak isn’t in vain. Martin Luther King said that “the salvation of the world lies in the hands of the maladjusted” meaning the hearts that are soft enough to feel it all at the story of ten year old crushes being buried next to each other are the ones still capable of changing society.

Hope is where we plant our feet.

Surprise Trip Reveal

I booked a surprise trip for my friend Daniel without telling him where we were going- just to join me at the airport.

I told him to bring a passport, which is one clue that it’s international… unless like Daniel, you suspect I said that just as a red herring.

Time for the trip reveal.

It was my first time in the city, and definitely his.

It’s one of the most multicultural cities in the world.

It’s got a pretty significant footprint on pop culture.

And it’s got an iconic skyline.

A Surprise Trip

Would you be down for a surprise trip? One where somebody maybe tells you how to pack but you don’t know where you’re going until you’re pretty much there?

Half the people I talk to seem to love the idea, the other half would hate it.

I’m definitely in the half that would love it.

To celebrate Daniel getting engaged, we took off on a trip to… well, tell you when we’re there. But I’ll bet some of my observant followers will be able to figure it out via the visual clues.

Ten Years My Date

Ten years ago to the day, I went on this date.

I asked out this girl I had been really good friends with for three years, breaking some sort of unwritten rule. Most people figured that if this was going to happen, it would already have happened long ago. We kinda thought that too. But it was three weeks before our college graduation, so that was the time to be breaking some rules!

Ten years, three kids, and a gazillion adventures later… I think that date went pretty well.

Love you Deanna!

Antigua Adventure


I didn’t *need* this trip.

But only because I try to be careful with applying that word to travel. It’s a privilege and we shouldn’t feel too entitled to enjoy the best a country has to offer without the deepest appreciation.

But I do think we need things like stepping away from our routines, a sense of adventure, and sparks of wonder, all of which I got out of this trip.

Over the past six months we’ve rarely left our neighborhood. Having three kids under three makes it that much harder to get out of the house.

Of course the past six months have been extremely sweet. But they’ve also felt a bit like an endless loop of the same day over and over. Its been a lot harder to stay creative and to stay inspired with those conditions.

But I can already feel the creative energy coming back. I have so many things I’m excited to be working on, and it feels like being in Guatemala has really helped me get unstuck.

So maybe I didn’t *need* that trip. But I can’t deny that it was a really good one for me, on a number of different levels.

Mornings in Guatemala

A quiet morning in Guatemala looks like Rhys and the twins entertaining themselves in the central courtyard, brewing a really good pot of coffee from the farmer we met earlier in the week, and taking in the street scenes of taxi bikes and cars turning the corner just outside our house.

A big part of this trip is noticing all the ways travel is different now, with young kids and a world trying to get through a pandemic. One of the most welcome changes is now getting to go at a much slower pace.

Longer stretches of time away allows for more breathing room and less running from one thing to the next.

More chances to camp out at a cafe for a full afternoon. More times the kids can enjoy a normal playtime. More of a chance to experience the charm of an everyday life elsewhere, and not just an endless string of stimuli.

Reject Fatalism

Fatalism ain’t it.

You know that sense of being unable to change things so why even bother?

Our climate projections look so bleak. Why even bother? Unfortunately this way of thinking gets us to the exact same spot climate denial gets us.

Or another in circulation this week. We can’t make laws that get rid of evil and darkness. Why even bother?

Enough of us know that the goal isn’t the philosophical fantasy of eliminating evil. It’s the practical, urgent, and necessary goal of saving lives.

Of course these examples of fatalism are easy for me to identify and reject because I don’t subscribe to them whatsoever. But I think we all have our own struggle of fatalism in some form.

As terrible as this week’s tragedy in Texas has been, most of me has little confidence that we’ll do anything. When we made no changes after Sandy Hook, we really sold our souls away to accepting all kinds of evil. And having to be honest with that makes me livid.

But if I’m going to be in the business of rejecting fatalism, I need to do this in the ways I’m prone to it.

After all… the best things that have happened in my life also come with this powerful reminder: you actually never do know what’s possible until you try.

Hope isn’t a sugary good feeling. It’s not the same thing as optimism. It’s where you plant your feet.

While it’s often hard to believe change can happen, in some ways that doesn’t matter. We must keep insisting that it must.

Caoba Farms

I’ve got to show you another spot around Antigua I loved a lot.

This one is a pretty popular spot so it’s not much of a secret but the popularity is well deserved.

It’s Caoba Farms!

It’s a privately owned but open to the public farm that boasts plenty of green space, green houses, and organic, sustainable farming techniques on display.

Oh cool, they collab with World Central Kitchen.

Walking between the rows of crops is enough of a treat but there’s so much more.

Like beekeeping.

Or playgrounds. This place is super family friendly.

There are plenty of places to sit and eat and the on-site restaurants are really, really good.

On weekends you’ll find farmers markets or artisan markets. Maybe even a friendly caterpillar.

Keep this farm on your radar.