mmm, salt lick and other fun stuff

first and foremost... a very happy birthday wish to fran (my fabulous mother-in-law). we have all been sending good birthday thoughts to her today, and greta's done more than one rendition of "happy birthday" to mimi.

when we come to austin, we cannot go with out a visit to salt lick. this is a popular event for those that live here as well, so most times it involves a good number of people. this year is no exception. saturday afternoon we went to salt lick with 18 people around one of their large picnic tables.

for those who haven't had the opportunity to visit the austin area and go to salt lick (the original - not the one in westlake or the airport), it is a bbq place in the middle of nowhere - driftwood, texas to be exact - that has some of the best around. they smoke the meat there and get it ready to serve on a big round stone fire pit just as you enter the restaurant. it is not fancy by any stretch of the imagination - old building with long picnic tables and good bbq with the usual accompaniments. it is also located in a dry county (no booze sold), so everyone brings in their own alcoholic beverages in coolers to enjoy with the food. a truly wonderful atmosphere.

the timing worked so that our good friends from DC, duane & devere, were up in austin for the day and joined us for lunch. it was great to see them and they both look great and are doing well (and are planning to go to inauguration as they got tickets). oh, and lunch was fantastic.

we've been having great fun here. greta gets along well with her cousins austin and chase and they all had great fun playing outside on the big wheel and "yard work" with the toy shovel, rake and wheel barrow. it reinforces the fact that our girl has no fear. even when she takes a tumble, she gets over it pretty quickly and gets right back up and tries it again (tonight's example was falling off the swing on the swing set).

merry christmas!

we traveled to austin on christmas eve to spend the holiday with my family, and extended family. we decided that we would do a park and fly at a hotel near san jose the night before since we had a 6:35am flight. we all slept well, except for the fact that we had to wake up at 4:30am in the morning.

greta was great on both planes and made the trip very smooth. grandma met us at the airport and we went back to the house. this christmas was extra special because there was more family in austin than in typical years. we are lucky in that when we visit my family in austin it includes my parents, my brother ross, sister-in-law april, their kids ausin and chase, my aunt gina & uncle paul and my cousins abbey and julie. this year, we not only got to see all of the above, there were many other visitors in austin this year for the holidays, including my aunt janice and uncle steve with cousins rachel and aaron and cousin-in-law (i suppose that's how you put it) jenny and aunt chris and uncle dan, and for christmas dinner, a plethora of uncle steve's family as well.

with all those people to catch up with, it was a busy first couple days here, but everything was really well organized and went smooth thanks to some great advanced planning and prep.

this year, christmas was more about tearing paper and playing with bows for greta. she realized what was in the box, that it was hers and she wanted to check everything out immediately. it was quite fun.

it was great to see and catch up with so much family in one visit.

happy hanukkah!

for the first night of hanukkah, we were very lucky that our friends barry and cristy hosted a latke party to celebrate with friends and family. we were a few hours late to the party, as we came straight from tahoe and ran into a delay with (unnecessary) chain controls for about a mile along the road that delayed us about an hour.

they had made 3 or 4 types of latkes and we sampled and enjoyed. greta quickly made friends with all the kids there and evan and i were free to catch up with everyone there. it was a great way to start hanukkah.

monday night we lit candles with greta and she got to open the "big" present from mimi and poppy aronowitz... a radio flyer tricycle! her legs have to grow a bit before she can peddle, but she knew exactly what to do. it has a bell and everything. greta was really excited to get her first bike. this summer should be loads of fun with greta doing laps around the house on the deck.

first tracks

last weekend, we had our first skiing visit to tahoe. although mother nature waited an extra couple weeks to make her entrance to winter, she did it with bang.

we drove up thursday after work, with chain control in effect for a good share of i-80 up in the mountains, but thankfully without too much traffic. we worked from feige (our house for the season) friday and each took a turn during the day going up to the mountain to get our "ski legs" back for the season. it was snowing all day, the mountain was in a cloud and the wind was whipping. i took the morning shift and i quickly added to the list of equipment updates i needed. new goggles and a helmet lining to block the wind from getting to my forehead were tops on the list after the daggers of wind-driven snow beat on it for a few hours.

that said... the snow was as good as i've ever skied in tahoe. it was utah/colorado like light powder and absolutely a joy to ski in. it may have been ideal for it to be the second day of the season, as it took a run or two to get my ski legs back in the mid-calf deep powder. oh, how i am looking forward to the ski season. (and mother nature keeps on working!)

evan took the afternoon shift on friday and enjoyed the snow as well. the last time i skied, it was with a broken arm in whistler, making my way down the hill, a bit uncomfortable, and this is the first skiing for evan since his heel incident. given that, we did well for ourselves. getting his boot on and off was not the highlight of the day for evan, but everything else went pretty well considering.

we had a great weekend up in tahoe. the jolly's were up in tahoe as well, so the kids had a great time playing together. greta had great fun trying on all of our ski equipment.

lights?!?!

we are certainly getting into the holiday spirit this year. greta is really excited about all the holiday lights that are up, both in our house and around the neighborhood and city. every morning when she gets up and every evening when we come home, greta asks the same question... "lights?!?" we turn our lights on and she is a happy camper.

in los gatos, every year there is a trail of lights in vasona park that you can drive through. we see it from highway 17 every night on the way home. we did a little research and last thursday night, we picked up greta, had dinner in town and then went to oak meadow park (right next door to vasona) and got tickets for the 6:30 train ride that goes through part of the trail of lights. it was quite festive as they had holiday music playing, trees along the way were wrapped in lights and you got to see some of the displays in the "fantasy of lights" trail in vasona park.

the carousel was open and working too and you got unlimited rides accompanied by holiday music. they also had a little workshop with santa in it, although we didn't stop there since we were making a beeline for the carousel. we had to take two rides before we could head to the car and head home for the evening.

yesterday, we continued our exploration of lights by heading up to san francisco. we first stopped off to see greta's friend harriet (and catch up with ann). harriet is about 5 months younger than greta and it was great fun to see the two feel each other out and play. another 6 months and i think they will be very excited to play with each other. it was also good to see ann, who is due with their second in 5 weeks. she looked great.

from harriet's, we headed toward union square. we picked up heather along the way and headed down to the chaos. as we entered union square, we were struck by the number of santas running around. we later found out that in true san francisco style of having occasions to dress up and drink, they started a tradition a few years back that the second saturday of december everyone dresses up a santa, goes out on the town and eventually converges on union square (we weren't there that late, so didn't see the final stage).

we walked around the big tree in the square, checked out the ice rink, which was being smoothed out by the zamboni, but was ready to be inundated by a ton of people waiting in the wings. we saw a good version of santa who said hello to greta to her delight, and then left the chaos to grab dinner. after a wonderful dinner at chow with heather, we packed up and came home. i'm sure there will be more holiday fun waiting for us next week.

thanksgiving and tahoe... oh my!

soooo, we're playing catch up. again.

what a wonderful thanksgiving we had this year.

we were very disappointed that we were unable to make our annual trip out east due to ridiculously priced airline tickets. we missed the trip into ny city, our hanukah celebration with greta's cousins and the rest of the crew, and generally catching up with family. that said, we did not miss the chaos that is traveling cross country, changing planes, etc with a busy and curious toddler on the busiest travel days of the year.

this year, we went to thanksgiving dinner in walnut creek at barbie and alan's (evan's aunt & uncle) in walnut creek. it was a wonderful, delicious dinner and we had a great time catching up with all the family and friends there. greta and her cousin aidan had a great time playing with the toys and following each other around. it was great fun.

after dinner, we threw greta in her pjs and headed up to tahoe. this year we went in with our friends the jollys on a ski lease in alpine meadows. we got up there just after midnight thursday night and were joined by the jolly clan the next morning.

the place is a classic ski house straight out of the 70's. red shag carpet upstairs, cut off a-frame design, red formica countertops in the kitchen, and the crown jewel... the circular fireplace right smack in the middle of the living room - very kid friendly when you have 2 2 year olds running around. with that setting, it is actually the perfect rental house for us. there's enough room for everyone and when the snow comes, it is right on the alpine shuttle route (and less than 5 minute drive from the mountain).


we had a great rest of the weekend with the jolly's. we stopped at the resort at squaw creek, which had activities each evening, including roasting marshmellows for smores, ice skating, caroling, a gingerbread village and stories by mrs. claus (which we missed because greta was on the edge of a meltdown). the kids all got along and greta decided very quickly that it would be cool to do everything that 4 year old ally does.





all in all, a great long weekend to welcome in the holiday season.