Hola Venezuela!

Sarah had her first preschool performance today. Her class has been learning about Venezuela because a mother of one of the students is from there and volunteered to make Venezuelan food and teach the kids some simple dances. This cultural celebration was a HIT.



Sarah had a blast dancing in front of everyone. No inhibitions with this girl. She especially liked doing the choc-o-la-te dance. It was a hoot!





Preschool has been so great for Sarah. I'm so glad we decided to enroll her this semester. She's blossomed socially and loves learning. We love our sweet Sarah!

November Beach Day

In July we wear our coats and long pants to the beach. We bring blankets to keep warm. But ... in NOVEMBER we enjoy the sunshine! Sarah, Will and I had a great time soaking up the rays and chasing the waves at Baker Beach today. Super, super fun. I love days like these.

Happy Birthday William!

William turned two today. We had a blast opening presents and eating pumpkin chocolate chip muffins this morning.

Will with his unopened presents:


Presents - opened.


Mater


The Mack Truck




And of course, the big "Thank you Daddy"


William is getting so proficient in coloring. He loves it when Sarah leaves her colors out.



William loves playing with his cars and trucks. Now we just need to add some choo-choos to his collection and he will be set.

About William:

* Favorite Movies: Cars & Letter Factory
* Favorite Netflix Shows: Dora and Diego
* Favorite Toys: Cars, Trucks, Balls & Letter Magnets
* Favorite Book: Moo Baa LaLaLa by Sandra Boynton
* Favorite Food: Annie's Shells and Cheese
* Favorite Past time: Running outside or in our hallway.
* New Tricks: Can walk backwards quite proficiently. Is a chatterbox. Likes to say the sounds of letters he sees in words.

Will's Stats:
Height: 35 inches 70th percentile
Weight: 30 lbs 75th percentile
Head Circumference: 48 cm 60th percentile

We sure love you William! Happy Birthday!

Parading through the city

We went to the Giants ticker-tape parade in the financial district today. It was a last minute decision. The whole - when am I ever going to live in a city where the team wins the World Series - tipped me over the edge. So instead of free day at the zoo, Sarah, William and I traveled by bus to the financial district.


I couldn't bring myself to take the kids too early so we ended up going an hour before the parade started. We found a place that wasn't too crowded at the beginning of the parade.


Rog took this picture from the civic center at 8 am - 4 hours before anything was going to happen there. It was "family friendly" but not that family friendly :) I cringe thinking of taking my two munchkins to that crazy place!


Basically, I ended up holding Sarah and William for a while to see the floats. Then William got a little wiggly and decided it wasn't that cool so I put him in the stroller and let him just enjoy the airplanes flying overhead. Sarah loved watching the floats go by.


We ended up leaving a little early to get Sarah back for dance class, but we saw the rest of the players go by on cable cars on our way out.


We waited for the bus for a while and then decided it was useless. There were no busses in sight. So trek up the hill we did. Just imagine a 4 1/2-month pregnant lady pushing 75 lbs up a fairly steep hill in a hurry. We were late for dance class at this point so we had to book it. It's about 1.5 miles and we made it in just over 20 minutes. Whew. We never saw the bus come.

In other news, Sarah's first dance class was great fun. Miss Angela is her amazing teacher and Sarah LOVES dancing with her friends. It's a good thing I decided to go with the size 4 leotard last spring because I had to undo the basting stitches I had put in so it would fit. Sarah grew a lot this summer!


Hooray for dance!

Tuesdays are Academy Days

We love the Academy of Sciences. Our pass expires the end of the year and since I don't see myself wanting do drive an hour to go to the "sciences" next year we are making the most of our membership now. Every Tuesday we go for members' only hour because the tot area has a special reading & craft time for members. And my kids LOVE playing in the boat room with the tree house with just a handful of kids. It's the perfect playroom for city living.



We end up going for a couple of hours and leave before the sciences get too crowded. We head home, eat lunch and take Sarah to preschool. It's been a great little routine without too much stress!

We are the Champions!

The San Francisco Giants won the World Series 4 games to 1 over the Texas Rangers. WAHOO!! Tonight's game was definitely a pitcher's dual until the 7th inning when Edgar Renteria hit a 3-run homer. And the rest is history. Literally.

It's been a fun week seeing all of the orange and black. Today at Costco I couldn't resist bringing this home for our party at Nick & Kim's place.


The Costco employee checking our cart drew this for Sarah on the way out...


Roger saw this crowd at the Civic Center on his way home from BART.


And most of all, we had a blast watching the game and eating yummy food with our friends.



And being silly ...



Stan next door is an avid Giants fan and he welcomed our little Giants who popped into his apartment throughout the game. He's been a Giants fan for forever and has season tickets. He's a happy man tonight.



After the game I talked with my all-knowing baseball fan Dad who watched the game in Utah. He reminisced of the 1954 World Series and Willie Mays' big catch. My Dad has a memory of an elephant. Amazing.

Well, Happy Celebrating tonight. We're going to be hearing cars honking outside our window All.Night.Long. It's once in a lifetime, right? Go Giants!

Next Up: Thanksgiving

We have so much to be thankful for this year! Most notably is our house. In the past two weeks our home went from this ...



to this ...


And now it looks like this!


Roger and I spent the weekend cleaning our house after all of the renovations going on. We no longer have popcorn ceilings (HOORAY!) We have overhead lighting - well wiring for it anyway (HOORAY!) Our washing machine won't drain into a hose into a sink (HOORAY!)

Sure, there's still much to do before our actual move. We want to paint the playroom and kids' bedrooms, put up wainscoting, and recarpet the playroom, etc. But all of the really dusty and messy stuff is out of the way. Three cheers to Fang and his crew!!!

PS Sarah was a big helper as well cleaning the floors and the railing. She also helped with the Autumn decorations. It was so much fun to be able to get to the point where we could put up a few decorations in our home. We have so much to be thankful for.