Katy and Margaret had their recital while I was in Japan. It was Margaret’s first, I was sad to miss it. Elizabeth took some movies (and pictures for me). They both did very well.
Category: Family
Today was the big day of Gingerbread House building. We had 13 or so kids over to build houses. The big girls went first, then the little girls. I ate too much candy and have felt sick for a while. I think everyone had fun. The kids pretty much have been going non-stop for most of the day.
Today was a big day. We went this morning to get our tree at the usual place up in the Santa Cruz Mountains. On the way back, we stopped by here and saw some glass blowing. Then we went to see the Los Gatos Christmas parade. Then tonight, we trimmed our tree. This year it was Sam’s turn to put the star on the top of the tree.
Elizabeth got Sam (and Margaret) to sing a few songs they are excited about. If you listen closely, at the end, you can hear the other one’s comment about how it all sounds if you were sent to you bed early. Here are a few pictures.
Check out the mug shots. We got passports for the kids today. It took absolutely forever because we had to do it at the post office, not a bastion of efficiency.
On Halloween, Margaret rode the ferris wheel that someone had built up the street. She got her hair tangled in it and it took a while to stop it and extricate her. In the mean time, an extremely large amount of hair was ripped from her head. After that, she continued on and trick-or-treated a bit more. When she got home, she was hurting and pretty much went to bed. We didn’t really know how bad it was until the next day. Elizabeth gingerly combed it out and ended up with a huge pile of hair. Luckily, because she has so much hair, the missing patch – even though it is rather large – is not really noticeable. Margaret is one tough little kid.
Warning, the click-through is somewhat gruesome. I feel so sorry for Margaret, but she is doing just fine. I think that she is more embarrassed by the whole thing than anything.
Of course today was Halloween. Katy was a 50’s girl with poodle skirt made by Elizabeth. Margaret was a butterfly. Sam was Steve from blues clues. Every day that his “Steve shirt” is not dirty, he is Steve, so there wasn’t much departure from normal here. The kids had their parade at school, we had the block party on the street, we had some friends over to go trick-or-treating on the blocked off street, and we gave out about 900 glow bracelets.
We finally took the kids to Alcatraz today. Katy has been wanted to go for a while. We rode a Blue & Gold ferry from Pier 41. The island was interesting. We all (except Andy) took the audio tour (even Sam). It was pretty good and it seemed like Katy and Margaret actually got someting out of it. After the visit to the island, we went to a park and played then went to Ghirardelli Square to get some free chocolate. On the way home, we went by Mark’s new place near SBC Park and then to the grandparent’s house in Palo Alto.
Two things happened to me today that don’t happen every day. I saw my big brother Rick and I wore long pants (I think I probably see my brother more than I wear long pants). This is a picture of him standing next to his plane and me waiting for my meeting. The major problem with the picture of me is that you can’t see my red shoes.
We went up to Tahoe this weekend to check on the construction. We got snow!!! It was only a couple of inches and it was gone by the afternoon, but it was fun none-the-less. The construction continues to move along. We got the windows for the downstairs and they are all in and mostly all trimmed. The roof has been “dryed in”. Which means it has felt down and is waterproof, but doesn’t have the shingles or the heating stuff in yet. We are still waiting for the windows for the great room and the top floor. Elizabeth and I spent a good deal of time running wire through the garage. Hopefully, it will be dry walled soon as they start really buttoning the house up.