Happy Hoo-loween

O had a great Halloween today! Tom and I went to his preschool for their Halloween parade this afternoon.  He was very excited to wear his owl costume - and I can assure you that he had the nicest costume of all the kids at his school, by far.  Thanks Grandma!

Here are Daddy and O practicing their "hoo hoos":

The parade!

We walked through the shopping center that is near the school for the parade.  It was really nice, all of the stores and restaurants in the center had candy for the kids.  Here is our little owl getting candy.

The owl in his natural habitat:

After the parade there was a party at the school.  O had a great time, it was hard to convince him to come home so we could get ready for trick-or-treaters.

Once we did get home, he enjoyed handing out candy to the kids who came to the door.  We bought quite a bit of candy, but it was gone within about an hour and a half.

Overall, it was a great Halloween!



A Halloween restrospective:

2010

2011

Camping Fun

We took O on his inaugural camping trip this weekend.  We only stayed one night, but it was a BIG success.  Not surprisingly, he loved camping.  He was enthralled with the tent and the picnic table and especially the campfire.  I am very excited that O liked camping so much. It has been far too long since camped, and I realized how much I miss it.  

Since the only tents we owned were a very small one-person backpacking tent, and a slightly larger two-person backpacking tent, we decided to buy a bigger "car camping" tent.  This is our new camping palace:

The tent itself is not as big as the picture makes it look, there is an extended vestibule that we bought for it to provide a covered area outside the tent in an attempt to toddler-proof the inside.  O did pretty well with taking shoes off before going into the actual tent.  The biggest battle was getting him to not lean on the tent from the outside.  For some reason, that was very tempting.

We chose a walk-up site, so it was nice to not have any cars going by, although it did mean hauling all of our gear about 300 yards to the site.  Normally, 300 yards is not very far, but with O tagging along, it seemed to take forever on some of the trips.  

The campground is in a eucalyptus grover overlooking Lake Chabot in the Castro Valley.  Our site was nice and secluded from other sites, we did not have a view of the lake, but just over the hill from us, this was the view: 

Tom and O enjoyed some reading by the campfire:

O always loves eating at picnic tables.  Here we are at breakfast this morning:

Overall it was a great experience!  The park we stayed at is only about 40 minutes from or house to the campsites.  O went to bed really well and slept well in the tent.  He was excited, well behaved and "helpful" putting the tent.

Hurray camping!!!

Cool Guy

O decided yesterday that he wanted a pair of sunglasses.  Up till now, he has refused to wear any glasses on his face at all.  Now he is Mr. Cool Guy.   He looks pretty grown up in this picture!

Big Bed!

We moved O into his new bed today!

He is a big fan of the big bed.

His "new" bed is an antique iron bed from Grandma Beautz's house, and I have lots of memories of sleeping in that bed in the upstairs front bedroom of her house when I was a little girl.  I remember thinking that there was a lot of traffic noise in that bedroom on Hudson Street.  Funny how times and perceptions change.  It is nice to have it back in service again - thanks to O's Grandma and Grandpa getting all fixed up for us.  It looks great!

Adventures with Jennifer

We had a great time with Aunt Jennifer during her visit.  We got to see the Blue Angels fly on Saturday from a great vantage point on Treasure Island.  I was an airshow skeptic, but I have to admit the Blue Angels were amazing.

On Sunday we drove up to Point Reyes and visited the beach and the lighthouse:

 O had tons of fun running on the beach and playing with Dad.

And playing with seaweed..

And eating seaweed..

Aunt Jen tried some too...

We drove out to the lighthouse at Point Reyes, and hiked down to see it up close.  There are 300 steps to the bottom, poor Tom had to carry the little guy down and up!

After the lighthouse we had a picnic at the old Coast Guard Station, complete with a little Birthday cake for Daddy.

After a night in Bodega Bay, we drove home via the Golden Gate Bridge and stopped in San Francisco for a late lunch.

It was a great trip and a great visit!  We miss you Aunt Jen!

Aunt Jen!

Jennifer is here visiting from Pennsylvania, and we have been having lots of fun.  Yesterday, she and I had a girl's day up in Sonoma.  We started the day off tasting sparkling wine at Gloria Ferer.  Here is Jennifer at the winery:

 After enjoying the bubbly (and joining their wine club), we enjoyed a nice stroll around the square and lunch in Sonoma.  Then we drove up to The Benziger Family Winery, where Tom and I have been members for a couple of years.  We were lucky to arrive just as a semi private tour was leaving.  We got to see more of the vineyard, tasted wine in the vineyard and had an extended tasting in a small banquet room inside the wine cave, as well as a barrel tasting.  I should have taken pictures of the cool room we sat in to taste in the cave, but I suppose it is a good sign that I was enjoying myself too much to take out the camera.

Jennifer also hopped up on the tractor - this shot is for you, Jimmy.

Today we went to a local street festival in Alameda, then went over and watched the Blue Angels airshow from Treasure Island.  I have to admit, I was a sceptic about the airshow, but it was amazing to see them do their maneuvers at very low altitude over the Bay.  We are also pretty sure we saw two fly under the Golden Gate Bridge.  Tomorrow we are all headed up to Point Reyes for some hiking and sight seeing, then an overnight in Bodega Bay.  More pictures to come!