An Arnold Thanksgiving

On Tuesday we scampered up to Arnold to beat the snow storm, and as luck would have it, the roads were bare the entire way in. The next day we had a light dusting on the ground, and snow fell the rest of the day on and off, sometimes in sheets of huge flakes. Magical! The kids broke away from pool to run over to the golf course for making snow men, and when that got old, we jumped in the car to go further up Hwy 4 to find a sledding hill. We only headed back when the sun went down, the temperature dropped, and I lost all feelings in my toes. John and Janine joined us the next day for a hike through Big Trees State Park (with a warming hut!) and then Moaning Caverns and wine tasting in downtown Murphy's where the kids made cookies under blankets and shivered around the world's most ineffective fire.

Julie's Birthday - Ice Skating & Ice Cream

Volunteering at Chabot

I'm now an official volunteer at the Chabot Space Center in the Oakland hills, and my specialty right now are the three telescopes in the observatories (or as they say there, "on the deck"). It's a fun job -- mainly telling kids about and helping them view through the smaller scope, built in 1883 -- and still working great -- but also showing them the two larger scopes, including the largest refractor telescope open to the public in the US. I'm debating getting my operators license which requires a lot more training, and as one volunteer said, "passing the scariest test I've ever taken."

SF Science Fair