New York

We went to New York early March for my cousin Allison's wedding. Atticus was one of the two flower girls, more on that later.

We decided to go 4 days early and hang out in the city.

We stayed 2 nights at my sister's place and 2 nights at the Trump Int'l.

The first day we were there Attie wanted to go straight to American Girl Place.
She picked up a few things there and we were off.
We did a lot of fun stuff in Nyc, but mostly we had fun pretending we lived there, walking around, shopping, and hanging out with my sister Becky and her husband Danny.
They are so luxury. They have a two-bedroom in Clinton.
Attie has read about Degas, Jackson Pollack, Georgia O'Keefe so we took her to the Met and she was very excited to see them in person.

We stopped at SAB and were very lucky to see Suzy. Attie watched a variations class and told people later that the girls danced for her.

Of course, we went on a Micawber hunt (must be a John Lithgow reader for this reference.)

The carousel was closed and we figured he must be in Florida for the winter.

Attie loved staying at the one bedroom suite in Trump Tower on the 17th floor (courtesy of a friend from Terry's firm.) We had a street view and she liked to watch Daddy walk by to get Starbucks.

On our last day in the city we drove down to look at "Liberty" as Attie was calling her. It was a bit overcast and she wasn't completely satisfied with the view from the "end of the world" but next time we will go out to the island.

We did lots of other fun stuff, check out the online gallery for more pics.

We drove out to Long Island for my cousin Allison's wedding.

Attie was one of two flower girls and was so beautiful.

Here is the blushing bride as seen by Attie. Attie was completely bride crazy and took lots of pictures the day of the wedding.

Oh yeah, she danced all night with the rest of 'em and didn't miss a beat!

My little party girl!

Attie's Special Person

For Valentine's Day at Attie's school, they were allowed to invite a "Special Person" to join them. Attie chose her BFF Ayumi. She made a poster about being friends with Ayumi and shared it with the class. Notice the matching t-shirts Tomoko got for them to wear on the special day.

One activity was to decorate heart shaped cookies with icing and sprinkles and then EAT them!! They played on the playground at recess and it was as if Ayumi had been in Kindergarten all year. She was very comfortable with the kids and not at all intimidated.

Attie just adores Ayumi and it was nice that she could share her best friend with her classmates.

Hello Neighbor!

In January we had a typical Northern California rainstorm with high winds and power outages, etc. I was home puttering around and passed my sliding glass door and saw this...
Oh!! Hello neigbor. We lived like this for almost 5 weeks before we got a new fence.
In a way, we were glad it happened. All three sides were different heights and types and so now we have a uniform, new fence. I don't have any good pics of it yet.

Outstanding in the Field

In December, Terry took me to a foraging dinner in Santa Cruz hosted by Outstanding in the Field. www.outstandinginthefield.com

I took this picture because the farm, called "Pie Ranch" was a quaint little family farm beneath the hills and directly across Route 1 was the ocean. I loved the shed which stored the tractor and the surfboard.

We were asked to bring our own plates, so that the tables would be ecclectic and each diner's place would be different. We loaded them up on this trailer when we arrived and they took them down to the barn before dinner.

The wine was flowing freely, courtesy of a local winery and the farm owners were encouraging us to graze on the strawberries, which were delicious and had a faint green apple taste in them.
The dinner was built around mushrooms, of which I am not a huge fan. However, there were so many varieties, so fresh, and prepared with such great dishes, I just loved everything we ate!

After being introduced to the ranch family and learning about their farm and their lifestyle, we hiked up into the hills for a spectacular view of the Pacific.

Here we are at the top of the property with the ranch behind us.

We then hiked down to dinner in the barn. It was seasonally decorated and well heated which was good because we had been out in the cold for about 3 hours.

The dinner was several courses. There were two fish dishes and the fishermen who caught the fish, stood up and talked about where the food we were about to eat came from and how it was prepared. We also heard from the gentleman who foraged for and provided the shrooms.
After a long meal, we picked up our washed plates and were led back to our car by lantern.

It was a wonderful experience. We will definitely do it again!

Thanksgiving 5 Day Weekend

We started the Thanksgiving Festivities on Tuesday at Attie's school.

Her class dressed like Pilgrims and we had a Feast outside.

That evening my Dad and Sandy arrived and the weekend began with dinner at our favorite local Mexican restaurant, Casa Lupe.
The picture above is of our lovely Thanksgiving dinner complete with 5 pies! Four of which Terry and Attie baked.

Atticus was so happy to have her Grandma and Grandpa at her house. She kept them very occupied. The first day, she and Sandy sat and read over 15 books!

One evening we played Cadoo. It was Attie and her grandparents against me and Terry.

They also taught her to play marbles, she had a lot of fun with that.

They did puzzles and also went for walks around the neighborhood. On Thanksgiving, she took them to her school and the principal just happened to be there.

So Atticus got to introduce Ms. Jambor to her Grandma and Grandpa!

And what would a visit with Grandma and Grandpa be without a little shopping.

The day after Thanksgiving we took them to downtown Los Gatos, their favorite little town and shopped til we dropped!

It was so nice having them here for the holiday.

We so enjoyed kicking off the season by hosting them!
We miss you!!!!

We rounded out the weekend after my Dad and Sandy left by sharing leftovers with Julie on Saturday night and on Sunday we took Attie to see "Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium."

Cute movie.

More fun stuff

Atticus is still in swim lessons. She started back in March in the Seahorse level.

Since then she has moved through Jellyfish, Octopus, Sea Turtle, and just last week got promoted to Otter!

This picture was taken at one of her lessons in the summer.

This fall, Atticus joined Girl Scouts. She is in a Daisy troop with several of her classmates from school. Here she is on their first outing, a Nature Walk in the Cupertino Foothills.



Last weekend, we adopted this sweet little girl. Meet "Sunday," a 5 1/2 year old, 9 pound cutie.
We have really enjoyed having her in the family. Everyone is adjusting well, even Levi.
She has a lot to learn and seems to be catching on pretty well by following Levi around.
Atticus is in doggy heaven.

Please don't forget to check in the online gallery for the whole picture.

Halloween 2007

This year we went to a new pumpkin patch that had a corn maze.

Here are Attie and Terry checking out the aerial view.

There were 10 checkpoints along the way. Attie was able to read and answer the questions which pointed you in the right direction.

Attie chose a very cute little pumpkin and designed it to be a pumpkin princess with a crown. Good job!

Attie had lots of opportunities to wear her Supergirl costume.

Here she is at the school Halloween dance with some of her classmates, Cheerleader, Cowgirl and Indiana Jones.

We had a very busy Halloween day. 1st a party at school, then a party at Terry's office, then trick-or-treating on our street.

September/October Highlights

KINDERGARTEN!!!!!

My baby girl is in Kindergarten. Here she is with her teacher, Mrs. Kuljis (cool-yes) and her 19 classmates. She is absolutely thriving, loves her school and teacher and has made many friends and no enemies:) I have become the Kindergarten cheerleader, acting as room parent, working in the classroom once a week, sitting in on Home & School Club meetings and I even co-chaired Fammatre's 1st Annual "Monster Bash Boogie," a Halloween Dance. It has been so exciting to join the Kindergarten culture and I have made many friends too.

BACK IN FLORIDA

The last of my siblings, Katie got married in September and we were back in Florida for another party! We all stayed in cottages on the beach and had a wonderful 4 day weekend. The wedding was so fun and Attie was not happy until this picture was taken. She kept asking me if she coulde have her picture taken with the bride. She referred to Katie as the bride all day. So cute!

FUN WITH AYUMI

We took Ayumi with us to a night tour of the San Francisco Zoo.

It started at 5pm with dinner included.

The line for dinner was so long so we decided to skip it and head into the exhibits instead.

One of the highlights was that one of the giraffes had just had a baby.

She was not on display yet, but because it was a special

tour we were able to see her.

The girls thought she was very cute and they did a great job of observing her quietly so she wouldn't run back into the giraffe house.

The tour allowed us to visit the animal kitchen as well as the hospital.

We saw animal xrays, the shell of a tortoise, and a demo on how they medicate the big animals with darts.

Pretty cool.

We enjoyed having Ayumi for the evening and got to see bears, gorillas, penguins, tigers, flamingos and an Asian rhino.

We wore the girls out and they slept all the way home.

FIRE PREVENTION WEEK

We went with the Bergans to a nearby firestation in San Jose where we got to see the firehouse, including where the firemen live.

Taro loved the firetruck.

The girls were really interested in the paramedic.

They also loved that they got stickers!

MOMMY'S BIRTHDAY

I had a lovely birthday this year which lasted a few days.

On Thursday Terry took the day off and after we picked Attie up at school, they took me out to lunch at my favorite pizza place.

Then on Friday night they baked this beautiful cake and we ate it for breakfast on Saturday morning.

Happy 5th Birthday

For Attie's birthday this year, instead of having a party, we took her to afternoon tea at "The Secret Garden Tea Room" in San Francisco. It was very fancy and they had a dress up room so you could deck yourself out for the occasion.
At our monthly dinner we celebrated Attie, Terry and Tomoko's birthdays with 70 something candles on the cake so everyone had their appropriate number to blow out.

We got Atticus a "big girl bike" and she was pretty thrilled.

The tricycle was definitely too small and she is enjoying bike riding.