Charlotte, Val, and Gordon headed up to San Francisco with Doug and Gabe today. The kids have off for Veteran’s Day, the sun is shining, and it’s time to make the most of the day. The skulls exhibit at the Academy of Sciences is very cool. Wish I was there. George works up in the city and fortunately had time to hook up with everyone for lunch down at Fisherman’s Wharf. Doug and Gabe sure do enjoy themselves. They make quite a pair. ...
We celebrated Gordon’s birthday at Michael’s restaurant. Besides great food, friends, and family, we had the pleasure of dining alongside walls full of Val’s artwork. It was such fun having Bea, George, Ellen, and Carol here to join us for this occasion. The food and conversation was loads of fun as usual. There’s always plenty of great stories with this crowd, especially with George in the mix.
Gordon’s in town for the month and Monica’s birthday is just around the corner. Since her birthday falls in the middle of the week, we decided to have grandpa and the Peyser’s over for barbeque and cake on the weekend before the official day.
We didn’t have much luck growing pumpkins this year, though we did manage to get a nice one out of the garden. The rest we picked up at the market for the kids to carve. The carvings turned out great, and the kids always enjoy the pumpkin seeds. Gabe went for the anaconda look, Monica the vampire queen, and Nick the gigantic and terrifying bone man. Plenty of nice close ups, including one of the always frightening Doug. ...
Valri just finished up with Open Studios again this year. I think it was another great success. She’s also getting display time at the Soquel restaurant Michael’s.
Gabe’s hiding something he doesn’t want the tooth fairy to find out about. He breaks down and shows off the missing tooth. I guess it missed its twin that left town just a month ago. In a totally unrelated story, Charlotte and Monica show off the latest works of art they created at Petroglyph.
We unfortunately don’t have a lot of pictures from Mom’s latest visit, but Charlotte managed to snap a few on their trip up to the Filoli Center. We used to drive by this place all the time when we were commuting from Half Moon Bay, but never managed to stop by. It’s supposed to be even more impressive in the spring when the flowers are blooming, but it looks pretty awesome to me even this time of year. ...
Nick’s latest meet was at Cowell Beach. Running in the sand is really hard, but how many kids get to have a cross country meet at the beach!
Gabe’s been wiggling his front tooth for what’s got to be a week. We were about ready to take him over to his Aunt Val’s house for her patented removal technique, but fate intervened. A handy bump while on a trip in the car did the trick. Good thing he’ll be asleep when the tooth fairy shows up. If she saw some of these faces, she might fly off and never return again. ...
Nick is doing cross country this year. He’s never had any luck finding a sport he can really get into and enjoy, but I think he’s finally found it. He’s been improving very quickly and they seem to go running in some really great locations. This meet was held in an area they call Pony Park.