Happy Hanukkah

Whew, December has been busy. Last Saturday we went to Grandma and Grandpa Greenberg's for an early Hannukah celebration with Ethan. Ethan's favorite part was Grandma's Hanukkah cookies! He also got to light the candles (with Dad's help) and he did enjoy opening up some presents too.

The coolest gift was a new bookshelf for his room from grandma and grandpa.
He cracked us up when he unwrapped hannukah gelt (gold chocolate coins) and announced that he had gotten "gold doubloons" and he was going to put them in a treasure chest. I seriously had to wikipedia "gold dobloons"--he apparently picked up this phrase from his favorite cartoon, "Jake and the Neverland Pirates". So at least he has learned something from TV!

Grandma's Birthday and a Visit to Santa

Last weekend was another busy holiday weekend. We had several holiday parties, and on Sunday night we went downtown to celebrate Grandma Greenberg's 65th birthday!!

Doesn't she look great for 65??

We enjoyed her favorite meal --Chinese food in Chinatown, and Brandon flew up for the dinner so that was a lot of fun.

Also last weekend, Ethan met Santa. He was pretty excited, especially when Santa gave him a candy cane.

Now when I ask him what he wants from Santa for Christmas, he responds "CANDY!!" Well, at least hes not asking for anything too expensive!!!

Christmas=Downsized

We are minimalists this Christmas....having just signed all the papers for our new house, we are feeling pretty financially overwhelmed.
Plus in our 700 sq. foot apartment we dont really have room for a tree. And all of our Christmas decorations are in storage.
So we got a mini-tree this year.
The cool thing about it is that it is plantable! So after the holidays, we plan to plan it in our new yard. And maybe in 10 years it will be a regular sized Christmas tree and we can use it again!

Hppy Birthday Daddy!

Dear Daddy,
Happy birthday. Thanks for taking such good care of me and especially for sharing your birthday cake with me, it was VERY GOOD.
I think that ice cream cakes are my favorite now too!

Love, Ethan

The latest hat

Happy Thanksgiving!

For the first time in 3 years we had a big family Thanksgiving! We went to Grandma and Grandpa Greenberg's house, where we celebrated with them, Brandon (who came in from Texas), Jeremy, Great-Grandma and Great Grandpa, and Uncle David and Aunt Marcy.

Grandma made quite a feast!

Ethan found a new favorite food: pumpkin bread. He nicknamed it "the brown stuff". We are very thankful for our family this holiday season!

Hats

Ethan has a thing for hats. Almost everyday, when I pick him up from school he is wearing a fire hat. At home, he parades around in his pirate hat from Halloween. And yesterday, he got a new hat....from In n' Out Burger.

Now for those of you not on the west coast, In n' Out burger is a great fast food burger chain out here. We occasionally go for a treat, and last night was one of those nights. Ethan loves to watch the "makers" (aka the burger flippers), and yesterday they gave him his very own hat. He is SO proud of it! Not sure that this suggests about his future career path, but at least he is happy!

It has been a while...

This is what we have been up to....

1. Halloween
Ethan had a great time this Halloween. At his school, they all made firefighter costumes and had a little Halloween parade.

In the evening, we went trick-or-treating. Ethan dressed up as a pirate. He went to many more houses than last year and seemed to really enjoy it. He particularly loved his costume, which was a gift from Aunt Marcy.

Also, Jason and he had a fun time carving a jack-o-lantern from the pumpkin we picked a few weeks back.

2.Chicago
Ethan and I headed to Chicago last weekend. It was a last-minute trip, as tickets went on sale and it has been awhile since we've seen gramma and grampa Ferschl.
We had a nice visit, and luckily the weather was not too cold yet. We enjoyed seeing the fall colors and checking out some huge pumpkins at the Chicago Botanic Gardens. We also celebrated my mom's 67th birthday.

3.House hunting
We have been looking for a home to buy for a little over a year now, and I think we might have found the house. We are in contract on a place near where we are living now, in Kentfield, CA. Our inspections are today and tomorrow, so we are hoping all is well. If so, we close just in time for Christmas. But we wont move until February, as the current owner wants to rent it back until then. Fingers crossed!

Weekend in Yosemite

We've just come back from Yosemite. We realized, somewhat last minute, that we both had a long weekend, and decided to head out of the city to spend some time with nature.

We actually kind-of camped--we stayed in "housekeeping camp" which basically has cabins with 3 walls and a curtain (beds, but no bathrooms). But, luckily the "cabins" do have electricity. Since the weather is getting a bit chilly (lows in mid-40s), we brought a space heater and were able to have relatively comfortable nights. It was really our only choice, as all accommodations with heat were sold out. So we packed the sleeping bags (and ordered one for Ethan, which did not arrive on time, and therefore had to be overnight shipped to Yosemite Valley, thank you LL Bean), and hit the road.

It has been 5 years since we were in Yosemite, and we almost forgot how beautiful it is. Despite the fact that we were with a two year old and couldn't really hike, we did take some nice walks around the valley floor.

We also enjoyed Yosemite falls (which was dry the last time we were in Yosemite--we've had a lot of rain this year), as well and the other 2 big waterfalls, Vernal falls and Bridalveil falls.

We were also lucky to see a lot of fall color.

Check out this pose of Ethan on a rock:

Mornings were chilly. On Saturday morning, we attended a special "Storytime at the Ahwahnee Lodge", which kept us warm until the sun warmed things up.

In the evenings, we had campfires, which Ethan didnt really "get", and he didnt really seem to like marshmellows either, surprising me a lot!

We are very lucky to have this beautiful park so close to us.

Fall Fun

This morning, we headed up north for some fall fun. First we went to Walker farm, in Sebastopol, where we sampled many different varieties of apple. The farm uses a dry farming method, where the apple trees are not watered all season long. This apparently results in more flavorful apples. I have to say, I agree, they are quite tasty. We bought a bunch to take home, and an apple pie is in our future, I think!

Next, Papa's pumpkin patch. This was really a family farm, or more like yard that they plant as a pumpkin patch each year. We were excited to get to pick our pumpkins right off the vine, and enjoyed the fact that we were the only people there!

Picking the perfect pumpkin!

Donut Alley

We have found the best part of ourt new neighborhood: Donut Alley!
It is a small shop tucked behind the main street of downtown Larkspur. And it makes the best, freshest donuts, from scratch earh morning. These are seious donuts for true donut lovers. It is have a Larksput institution for many years. My favorite are the cinnamon sugar donut holes. Jason likes the chocolate old-fashioned. and Ethan pretty much loves them all. You have to get there early, though because they sell out fast!

YUM!

Grandpa Greenberg's Birthday Weekend

Last weekend we got to celebrate Grandpa Greenbergs birthday. It was actually a two day affair -- the first spent at a family friends party where Ethan got to ride a pony and do some swimming. He was the youngest of many kids there but held his own well.

The following Sunday we joined Jason's brother, grandparents, parents, aunt and uncle to celebrate grandpas birthday at uncle jeremy's new appartment in Mill Valley. It was great to hang out with the family and smell some of the beautiful redwoods around uncle Jeremys new digs.

Unfortunately there were no pictures but I'll post a recent favorite. Its pretty bright out here in the California sun!

First Day of School

Last monday was Ethan's first day in a new classroom at his school. He graduated from the 'duck room', and is now in the 'horse room'. Instead of being one of the oldest in his class, he is now one of the youngest. The transition went pretty well, and he loves the new class because it is much bigger and there are lots of more exciting things to play with, and the classroom has a new playground. He is doing pretty well with the potty training, and seems to like his new teachers. He is also pretty proud of his new tiger lunch box, which we got in Chicago.

Summer Vacation

We just got back from our summer vacation to the midwest. We had a really fun week. It started last Saturday, when we flew into Des Moines, IA. There we rented a car and went to visit my friend Becca, who works for the USDA in Ames, IA. We had a great time together, learned all about corn, and had a great meal in her backyard.


Sunday, we toured the campus of Iowa State.



We then loaded up the car and headed to Kieler, WI, home of my cousin Angie. Angie and her husband Kurt have 2 kids, Kate, who is 3 and Julia who is 15 months. Ethan had a blast with Kate....they really hit it off. We enjoyed some pizza for dinner and had a lot of fun catching up.


On Monday morning, we checked out a family friend's farm. Ethan was a little scared at first, but Kate showed him the way, and he sure loved the tractors!


The backyard swingset was also a big hit!


We headed to Chicago on Monday afternoon, and spent the rest of the week there.


Highlights of the trip included swimming in the backyard pool, a trip to the zoo, and storytime at the library.


My mom is not doing too well though, she is getting much more unstable on her feet, and mostly needs a wheelchair to get around now. Nonetheless, I am glad that we got to spend time with her and that Ethan got to see her again.

On Friday night, we headed to Milwaukee to see the Ferschl side of the family.


Ethan enjoyed some great-grandma Ferschl time and also got to hang out with his second cousin, Spencer, who is my cousin Tonya's 11 year old son.

I enjoyed catching up with grandma and my great aunt Sister Ann.


Also, while in Chicago, Jason and I celebrated our 4th Anniversary.


Grandpa babysat, and we enjoyed a night out downtown. All too soon, vacation was over, and we are now getting ready to go back to work and school.