6 posts tagged “friends”

For the second year in a row we hosted a toddler friendly fondue party for New Year's Eve. Once again it was a blast with 13 kids ranging in age from 8 months to 3.5 years and 15 adults, I think. The adults enjoyed many great appetizers that were brought to share and then dug into milk and dark chocolate fondues. There were an array of yummy fruits and AMAZING peanut butter balls to dip into the chocolate (thanks, calimama!). The kids had a great time with nary a dispute over toys (at least that I witnessed). Most people were home by 9 and we had the house semi-cleaned up and were in bed by 11:30!

Before:

We had a great day at the beach yesterday with some wonderful friends. Although it was a bit chilly at first the girls had a great time digging in the sand, collecting rocks, and channeling Devo.

When it was time for the adults to have some fun we traveled down the road to The Pelican Inn for food and beer on the lawn. Again the girls had a blast running up and down the grass and picking flowers. Anya made herself right at home eating off of the other family's plate while we waited for our own food to arrive. She also sported some mighty fine plumber's  crack. Classy!

We've had two great weekends in a row. The weekend before last was the Dipsea. Once again my uncle

came in to run the race in memory of my dad. This year he got into town just a scant few hours before the race started, and although the day was very warm he still managed to finish 247, which is a PR for him! We were all so proud of his performance.

As I mentioned last year the Dipsea finishes at Stinson Beach (in the linked post I mention the difficulty that Roy Rivers had last year in the race, I'm happy to report that he did much better this year and actually won the race!). This year we invited one of Anya's best friends and her family to join us at the finish line. The girls had a blast playing in the sand, the very cold ocean, and picnicing on the grass. Unfortunately I forgot to get any pictures of them playing :(. Next year we are thinking about renting a beach house for the weekend since everyone had such a great time.

This past weekend we had our annual photo shoot with the fabulous Terri Loewenthal. (See last year's photos here). Once again she was a complete pleasure to work with and took some really great photos of Anya and the whole family Here are some of my favorites

And the whole collection can be found here

After our photo shoot we decided to take advantage of our location and drop into Chez Panisse to see if they could fit us in for lunch. We got there right at 11:30 and lucked out getting a table. I believe that we were seated by Alice Waters herself! The food was delicious and Anya behaved really well even though lunch took almost two hours.
Father's Day was nice, too. We had breakfast at Peet's, ran some errands, went to the park, and had another yummy lunch. After a nap we met some friends at the park and then ordered pizza at their house while the kids played (mostly nicely) and we talked. All weekends should be so pleasant!

Here's a video that one of my friends made of our daughters making Christmas cookies for the first time. We ended up with some very red, but delicious cookies!

I'm finally getting around to posting about our super busy Memorial Day weekend.

We started off early by attending a water party for a friend of Bubble Toe's who just turned one. The kids had a blast playing in the backyard, eating and splashing in the water. The water was cold, however, so Bubble Toes was a little anxious about getting too wet.

After the party we hopped in the car and drove down to Fresno to visit a college friend and his girlfriend (soon to be more?) Bubble Toes had a great time exploring a different environment, but got a little freaked out when she had to sleep in an unfamiliar room. We had some issues with lighting, too, so at first the room was too light and then in the middle of the night it was too dark. Finally we just brought her into bed with us and after a hour or so of poking at our faces she finally went to sleep.

In the morning we continued our trek south and stopped in Bakersfield to see another college roommate and her wonderful family. Bubble Toes loved playing with her daughter H whom I've mentioned before. H is a great kid, very polite and smart. Bubble Toes and H played and danced and it was wonderful to watch. I also got to hold an almost brand new baby, H's sister E, who is precious. It is amazing how quickly you forget the tininess of a newborn. Bubble Toes did get a little bit jealous, however, and I couldn't hold E for as long as I wanted. After a nice lunch we had to get back on the road and headed even further south to Pasadena where we stayed for the night. The hotel was great and they made sure to put us in a corner room just in case Bubble Toes had more trouble adjusting. After a walk to Gelson's for dinner to bring back, with Bubble Toes in her new backpack, we settled in for the night. After a little bit of fussing Bubble Toes fell asleep and slept well the whole night.

In the morning we played and napped and then headed off to Chris' parents house for a BBQ. It was the first time that Bubble Toes had ever met that side of the family and she was a little wary at first, but soon warmed right up. She had a great time playing with her cousins, eating birthday cupcake and ice cream and walking up and down their front walk endlessly. Before too long we had to get back on the road and headed out to Harris Ranch where we stayed for the night. Unfortunately we didn't have a very good experience there and Bubble Toes barely slept so we were on the road to home bright and early. We made it back home in the morning and enjoyed hanging out in our own house after such a busy weekend.

This past weekend we had our friends from college, S, D, and their beautiful and very well behaved daughter H visit. H is exactly 2 years older than Bubble Toes and it was great to see her for the first time since she was 6 months old. I feel like we got a little glimpse into what life will be like 2 years from now. If Bubble Toes is as smart and well mannered as H then we will be very happy.

We had a very nice time visiting although Bubble Toes would not cooperate with my desire to have a dinner outside of the home for what would have been the first time in 3 months or so. With all of the excitement of having guests she missed and refused naps all weekend. That meant that by 4:30-4:45 she was starting to put on her grouchy pants. Since even H didn't want to eat at the early bird special hour, we were housebound by 6 each night after Bubble Toes went to bed.

We did have a nice time walking on the waterfront and taking a tour of the Jelly Belly Factory  (where they made even our almost bald baby wear the silly hat). The rest of the time we spent catching up on all of the developments in our lives from the past 2 years.