Happy New Year!

Dan and Owen are en route back home via Phoenix. I checked a flight tracker website and it appears their first flight left quite late, so I hope they will make the connection. We shall see...

The Year in Hair

From Jesus' General: The Year in Hair. Featuring Sarah Palin, Mitt Romney, Rod Blagojevich, Fran Powers Jr., and others.

Fort Baker

Douglas and I went to Fort Baker yesterday on the Marin headlands, attempting to go to the Bay Area Discovery Museum, which was unfortunately closed.

We hung out for a little while though. Here he is by an enormous eucalyptus tree.


The museum is right by the Golden Gate bridge, so there's quite a beautiful view from there, although it was a bit foggy yesterday morning.

Happy holidays!

Ice skating adventure

The boys and I went ice skating in Sacramento this afternoon with some friends. Our friend, who has a minivan, drove all of us over there (including her and her two kids). Douglas, who had never been skating before, did quite well and spent a lot of time flying around the rink - with my assistance of course. My arm and shoulder were pretty worn out.

Unfortunately it ended with a bit more excitement than we had planned. My friend had left her wallet, iPhone, keys and shoes for all three of her family in a tote bag which was stolen while we were all circling around on the ice.

Luckily I had my cell phone so we were able to call Dan and her husband in Davis. They only have one car so Dan drove her husband plus the keys in to Sacramento to pick us all up. Our family ended up eating dinner in Sac before coming home to curl up on the couch in front of Mythbusters.

Brrr again.

It was 28 degrees when I got up this morning. There is frost everywhere and it even snowed in far western Davis and in Woodland yesterday (briefly, did not stick). This morning the Bee ran a picture of someone in Palo Alto making a snowman. Owen is quite mad that it didn't snow at our house.

Yesterday the kids and I baked gingerbread for a gingerbread house. Now we just have to figure out how to stick the pieces together. Maybe we'll go to the store this afternoon to buy some icing and decorations.

School is out on Friday. Dan was at work late because it looked like there might be a budget deal, but they didn't end up voting on it. Maybe it will get passed today. The idea is they are raising "fees" rather than raising "taxes" which would allow them to pass it without a two-thirds vote.

Brrr.

We had a frost yesterday morning. Luckily it doesn't seem to have killed any of our plants yet. Today it was in the mid-30s but I don't think it got below freezing. The kids, of course, seeing the white stuff on the mulch and grass, immediately asked if it was going to snow ... not likely. It is supposed to maybe rain this weekend.

We got Douglas's birthday party scheduled for Jan 11 at the local gymnastics place. Should be fun, and I think a structured party would be a good thing for him at this age. He is pretty rowdy so I think this way may work out better than a party at home.

Dan is in the greater San Diego metropolitan area, flew down yesterday early morning and will be back tonight. We called him around 7:40 this a.m. and he was about to walk into some community college for a meeting.

Owen is playing "Rudolph," "Deck the Halls" and "Jingle Bells" on the guitar this week. As well as "My Girl," for some reason, and "TNT" by AC/DC. He and his friends have an elaborate plan to form a band called Flaming Skull and become rock stars. Last week I heard him telling his friend that if their band doesn't work out in the long run, he'll try out for Major League Baseball. Always good to have a fallback position.

Xmas tree trip

We went to Silveyville today to pick out a Christmas tree. Here are a few pictures of the boys.

This morning Owen and I went ice skating at the rink in downtown Sacramento, followed by a trip to the doctor because he has two plantar warts, one on the bottom of each foot.





They tried to freeze them off with liquid nitrogen, but that wasn't much fun, so we gave up on that and have now moved on to the nail polish-like Compound W, which is over the counter salycilic acid, similar to what is in Neutrogena sensitive scalp shampoo. It doesn't hurt to paint on, fortunately.