Playing with Christmas gifts

 

 

Julie baked her first Easybake cake, which she served to the family with ice cream, and Nate's taken to his new mitt & ball. Having some great sunny weather helps.

Christmas Eve & Day

 

 

 

 

Christmas Eve in San Francisco

 

 

 

 

It's been our tradition to visit San Francisco right before Christmas, and we hit our normal spot: the Hyatt near the waterfront. Sadly, the Christmas town is no longer set up each year in the lobby, and now the hotel requires a room key to ride the "bubble" elevators. We hitched a ride with another family anyways. Afterwards, we jumped on an old Muni railway car and went to Pier 39 to play skee-ball, ride the carousel, and visit the sea lions.

LafayetteOpoly

Gina's LafayetteOpoly game, a fundraiser for our local education foundation, was delivered this week. It's gorgeous! One year in the making and it will bring tens of thousands of $$ to our schools. My wife is a rockstar!

San Francisco Tourist

We played San Francisco tourist with Gina's brother Len, first starting at Chinatown and our first official tea tasting. We couldn't resist driving down twisty Lombard Street, walking around Coit Tower, and getting our feet sandy near Ghirardelli Square. Tourist Tip: step inside the chocolate shops to be handed a full-sized chocolate sample. Yum! Len and I jogged back to our parking space to successfuly avoid nearly getting another San Francisco trademark: an expired-meter parking ticket.

Thanksgiving 2010

Julie's Birthday

Julie opted to not have a party, so we did a quiet celebration at home. Nate seemed a little amazed/jealous by Julie's CD player, and I'm not sure what he thinks about hearing "The Sound of Music" soundtrack around the clock. Gina did her usual cake magic by making a large vanilla & chocolate layer flower cake, complete with gummy butterflies.

Build-a-Bear

On Friday, the day before Julie's birthday, we took the kids out to Build-a-Bear so they could create their own bears. Julie selected a colorful orange and pink one with pink dress and pink shoes. Nate built a black bear in Giant's uniform, aptly named Panda.

Mt. Diablo

The inaugural ride with the new bike: a super-windy day on Mt. Diablo out to Balance Rock, around to Prospector's Gap, and then in Rock City to Sentinal Rock (on foot).

Grandpa & Grandma's Visit

Always a favorite time of year for Nate and Julie (and us too). Thanks for visiting Mom & Dad!

Birthday Ride

Julie *loves* VW Bug cars and small dogs....so what could be better than taking a ride through town in a convertible with a dog named "Leo"? My friend Steve generously offered to take us to lunch and through town for a special birthday treat for Julie this afternoon. Perfect weather!

Rock City

Our November summer continues. On Monday (teacher development day) we went to the Rock City campground on Mt. Diablo to look at and climb on the amazing rock formations just inside the park boundaries. I can't imagine how busy it is on the weekends -- the relatively soft rock had definitive slides where many small butts have been before, and many people carved their names. Our goal next time is to hike further in to Sentinal Rock to explore more of the park.

Halloween 2010