Winter Concert - final song

And here's the finale - the Silver and the Bronze bands playing "Chanukah is Here". Nate is behind the second flutist. Fun song! Horrible view of Nate!

Chanakuh is Here

Nate at the holiday concert

I ran out of room on my phone before I could delete some apps & try again. Nate is playing the f-trigger, base trombone.

Julie at the Holiday Concert

Here's Julie's cadet band playing with a former student who's now a doctor in Seattle. Julie wants it to be known that she is not the one squeaking (she is first chair). It's the boy next to her.

Stanley Middle School Holiday Concert

Christmas Tree

Taming of the Shrew

Oakland Hills sunset

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

Halloween

Trick-or-treating in Lafayette Estates: one vampiress, one vacationing Santa, one Einstein, one Pokemon, and one (exhausted) Sonic Hedgehog. Oh, and two adult Alcatraz escapees who tried to keep away from the candy gathering.

Guys Weekend

At the consideration -- or relief -- of the females in the family, I took Nate and Roman up to Arnold for a couple of nights. We hit the last few weeks of summery weather, so we drove to Lake Alpine for a quick head-dip in the water, and hiked up to the top of Inspiration Point with a nice, rocky 360 degree view. The remainder of the weekend was spent playing pool and watching Roman do circles in the lake across the street.

Roman

Lafayette Garden Dinner

Almost exactly one year ago, our group of friends jointly bid on an outdoor dinner at the Lafayette Garden as part of a fundraising campaign. The gloves and jackets came out as the sun went down, but it was still one of the most impressive dinners all year. Champagne, beer/appetizers while making wind chimes, the tour, and then the catered meal with vegetables from the garden and salmon caught by one of the volunteers.

Red Skies at Night

For some reason, there are beautiful skies every night right now. Around 7pm every night, we try to get outside in our backyard to watch the fleeting pinks and yellows before they fade into the gray background. We even saw the blood red moon recently, although we were late to the viewing.