Dinner Party

Friday night, Nicolas and I went to a dinner party.

Saturday morning, a little after 6am, Alec decided to wake up and have a dinner party. It started a bit early, but I attended the event anyway.

some tea for you?

Saturday night, we went to a dinner party for his preschool.

Sunday night, he ate some real food - udon noodle and vegetable soup.

The noodles were very satisfying.

Morning in North Beach

It's fun to be a tourist in your own city, so for a change this morning we went to North Beach.
It is supposed to start raining, but it was a sunny morning, warmer than it has been in awhile. Alec and N kicked a ball for a few minutes in Washington Square Park, but Alec was more interested in the playground. It's an old one - metal and wood and sand rather than plastic and rubber matting.

The slides were a hit, and I liked the monkey bars!

pizza picnic

Then a quick visit to the Cable Car Museum, where you can watch the cables that move the cars up and down the hills.

We finished off the morning with a gelato - banana and salted caramel. It was so good that Alec convinced us to get a second cone - gianduja (dark chocolate and pistachio) and cannoli (almond with chocolate chips).

Now he's sleeping off his sugar high...

Alec le bûcheron

Avant d'aller bûcher, il faut bien manger!

Happy New Year!

Ready for whatever comes ahead

We returned to CA after 10 days in the snow, and continue to relax and enjoy the break.

New Year's Eve was spent with friends at their house in El Granada, on the coast. We had an amazing dinner followed by champagne and a dip in the hot tub.

This morning, the kids were more alert than the adults. Alec and his friend Adair had fun together - here they are bouncing on the couch.

On our way home, we had a quick stop at Fitzgerald Marine Preserve. The tide wasn't low, so no tidepooling, but it was good to get some fresh cool sea air in our lungs and watch the waves. Alec had insisted on bringing his frog boots, which came to good use.

All the best for twenty ten! Bonne année!

J'aime le traineau - I love sleds!

We're up in Quebec, listening to the snow and eating poutine chez Ashton.

We flew to Montreal to stay with friends and arrived for a wonderful dinner party, then N's parents picked us up for the drive to Quebec City. We completely missed the storm that hit the East Coast of the US, as you can see, the weather has been great up here, if a little cold!

la neige!

Finally, the firefighter

Alec got home yesterday from a busy day at school, and decided that he was finally ready to be a firefighter. It was his Halloween costume, but he was vehemently opposed to dressing up on October 31st.

Even better, once his fire hat and boots were on, he wanted to go out the door, "to work".

Au travail!

Alec and the ladies

So we had our annual family photo shoot on Thanksgiving, which resulted in lots of silly pictures, like these:

but going over recent photos focusing on Alec, the theme that stood out is his girl friends. Friends who are girls, that is. We've been enjoying getting together with friends the past few weekends for burrito lunches,

excursions down to the 'burbs,

and another trip to Rossotti's. With a beer,

And Miss E.