a book review... of sorts

first, let me say that i am very proud of myself for finishing reading a book. granted it was only 200 pages long and not too intense a read, but these days, you never know when you'll get time to sit down, get some quiet time and have enough mental horsepower left at the end of the day to read. i just finished reading jon krakauer's into the wild. woo-hoo (no wamu reference intended).

i went about this one backwards. first, i fell in love with the sound track to the movie. eddie vedder did the entire soundtrack and it, in my humble opinion, is brilliant. this is one i know that i will enjoy listening to in 5 years and beyond.

next, we watched the movie. it was a good movie (loved the music!). the story and characters and scenery were all well put together to tell this intriguing story. after those two, i decided to read the book.

the story follows the life of chris mccandless, aka alexander supertramp, through the years after graduating college. he donated his savings, took off in his car, eventually left it in the dessert and wandered out west, until he headed up to alaska and followed his dreams of walking into the wild. the outcome of his adventures is not the hook in the story as it is well known from the beginning of the book what happens. the hook is rather this interesting character and the two ways of looking at him and the way he lived his life in those years - some will say stupid & naive, some will say gutsy and full of integrity.

i myself did not see black or white in terms of his actions, but rather this story served to remind me of the strength of ideals and emotion in that stage of life. i was also reminded of many of the friends that i had in that time of my life, many of them quite brilliant in their own unique way, and the different ways in which they dealt with their intelligence, ideals, society, and how, in a world of choices, to go about being happy. while none of them went to live off the land in the wild, the concept is not all that unthinkable to me. it is always good for me to be reminded (as i am by my friends) of the richness of knowing people out of your day to day mainstream - they keep the concept of dreams current, provide a check to you to make sure your thinking about what the right things to do are, and constantly expand the perception by which you take in the world around you.

overall, i enjoyed reading the book. and it certainly keeps alaska on my "to be visited" list of places.

hurray for grandparents!

we just had a wonderful weekend with evan's parents. it was a beautiful weekend in northern california. there was a hint of fall in the air, with cool mornings, but the sun was out during the day, warming it up nicely.

we had an action packed weekend of playing and visiting. on friday we met up with evan's aunt & uncle burt and sue, who were visiting the bay area for the weekend, and cousin todd, who lives up in the city. we walked along the water in santa cruz and watched the surfers catching waves, big & small. we had a delicious meal (as always) at la bruschetta nestled in the redwoods in felton.

on saturday, we went down to los gatos for breakfast at the diner in town and hit oak meadow park and the billy jones wildcat railroad. we took a ride on the train through the park and then went on the carosel twice (once was not enough for greta). greta was a big fan of both and i thought for a moment that we would spend the entire day going between the train and carosel.

sunday, we went up to walnut creek to visit barbie & allan, heather, brian and greta's second cousin once removed, aidan (who had his first birthday party last weekend).

greta had a great time entertaining and playing with mimi & poppy. it was nice for evan and i to have a couple extra hands on deck watching her too. she is a bundle of energy.

birthday madness

first and foremost, a huge happy birthday to my mom (and nancy who shares the exact same birthday date and year - 1960 something, i think - with my mom)!!! my mom deserves extra r&r and pampering this year after helping evan & i out so much this spring/summer with our various injuries and then, when she thought she would get a break from people with broken bones, is now helping out my dad as he nurses his broken ankle (right ankle, which we know well means extra chauffering duties). although she may have to delay that birthday pampering for a bit after things get back into a normal routine, she deserves an extra dose this year. for her birthday, i decided to include a photo of my mom, her mom, me and greta from the holidays last year. yea mom!

i had to wonder a bit about september birthday's this weekend as we attended 3 birthday parties. it seems like all of a sudden they come up and surprise you with their number every year.

we first celebrated vivaan's first birthday (our "next door" neighbor's youngest son) on friday night. the neighborhood clan of babies, toddlers and their parents gathered for swimming, the hot tub and some good eats. saturday was evan's cousin heather & brian's son's first birthday. aidan is greta's first cousin once removed?? the kids also enjoyed the play pool and greta had a great time exploring and testing out aidan's presents (they had good fun being pulled around in aidan's sweet new ride - the radio flyer). some fun pics of greta and aidan at the party...

sunday was a party for vivaan's dad brian (whose other son nikhil had a birthday this weekend as well). it was good to round out the weekend with an adult birthday party although, there was still plenty of kid chasing involved in that one too. all in all, a great weekend celebrating milestones with family & friends.

ode to the dome home

as most people who know us are aware, we live in a geodesic dome. many of you have been here and know that it's not like those out of place houses you see in some suburbs that are going for futuristic but come off more as sore thumbs, our house nestles quite nicely into the surroundings. it helps that we have the good fortune to be surrounded by redwood and madrone trees and we can't see any of neighbor's houses (which are not domes).

we love our humble abode. it has it's quirks, yes, but it works well for us and you can make a lot of rhymes with dome. last weekend, we happened to pick up a local magazine that had an entire article about dome homes. ok, it was a two page article, but it did wax poetic about the virtues of geodesic domes. and there was another article cited as a feature story in the ny times. we are evidently on the leading edge of the new green housing trend. while we knew going in that the design of the dome was very efficient in terms of resources needed to build and heat/cool, we never thought our home purchase would make us so hip with the green trend. the article also noted that the design is a good solid choice for living in earthquake country (although we would rather not test that one out).

so here is my ode to the home sweet dome (or as my nephew, who was 18 months old at the time, called it the "bubble"). we hope the buzz keeps up - good for the property value!

let the games begin!

yes, it's hard to believe, but it is once again football season... and what a way to start - with a giants victory! we won't claim it's the best game ever, but we'll take the win. greta was also excited. she knows touchdown, eli, and giants.

evan is very excited that we get to watch highlights from the superbowl. never fear, we have them on demand via the dvd's with all the giants post season games last year. potentially the best ever father's day gift.

we've already struck a deal that if the giants go back to the superbowl, evan is allowed to go again (right now vegas has them at 25 to 1 odds for the superbowl repeat, so we'll see). the nice thing about the beginning of the season is there is always room to dream.

game on... let the season begin!

five years...

on sunday, evan and i celebrated our 5 year anniversary. we celebrated by getting a babysitter for greta and going out to dinner. it was nice to have a leisurely dinner without the need to rush, entertain, share food with a curious toddler and play "chase" as greta gets antsy.

we tried a new restaurant in santa cruz that was small. it had the philosophy of locally sourced farmers market food that's organic when possible - very green of us. the bonus of having an anniversary at the end of august is that when we go out, we get the best of the summer veggie season. this was no exception. i can still taste the corn soup (it was vegan, which typically raises skepticism in my mind). so good!


it's crazy to think both how it seems like yesterday that we were spending the long labor day weekend celebrating with family & friends in the sierra foothills, and look back at how much has changed - house, dog, kid, same companies, but new jobs. we both agreed that we can't wait to see what the next five years brings us.

as a throwback, i've pulled some of our wedding shots into a slide show (so i can indulge a bit in reliving the moment)...