October Activities

Well, the fires are contained and life is somewhat more back to normal.   Here are a a few of the things that we have been up to recently:

1. Apple Picking.  We missed the peak season, but found an orchard up in Sonoma, called Apple-A-Day, that still had apples on the trees to pick.   There was smoke in the air but we decided to go anyway, and ended up with a bagful of delicious apples. On the way home we stopped at the pumpkin patch next-door as well.  It was a bit strange being out while the fires were still burning--as we drove north, it completely looked like a major volcano was erupting, spewing ash into the air.  Ash it was, but not from a volcano :(

2. Field Trip.   Alaina's preschool was supposed to take a field trip to the pumpkin patch.  As a working mom, I am rarely able to go on field trips, but I made some special arrangements at work to get the day off,  and I was able to sign up as a chaperone.   Then came the fires, and with all the smoke, the school was not comfortable heading to an outdoor pumpkin patch.  For awhile, they planned on cancelling.   Go figure...But then they decided to take the kids to the San Jose Children's Museum.   Now admittedly, this was a longer bus ride than I was bargaining for, but Alaina was thrilled, and the museum was quite nice--perfect for her age.  I was truly glad to get to join.


 

3. Soccer.  We are in the thick of the fall soccer season.   Ethan has become one of the teams goalies, something I am not so thrilled about.   But he loves it.   Actually, I think he really loves being with his friends and hanging out...... I am not so sure about the soccer part.  So we probably won't do this crazy travel team next year, but this fall it has again kept us busy.   This weekend was the "boo fest" tournament in Sacramento.   All the teams dress up, and I do have to admit it is pretty cute.

4. Pasta Making.  I finally got my own pasta maker.   I have made some delicious fresh pasta--hand rolled pici:

and spaghetti:

I realized when I made it I need to make bigger batches--the kids were both crying for more but we ate it all....yes it really was quite delicious.  Worth the effort for everyday?  No way--but certainly a fun project for a cold or rainy day.

Fires.....

So this has been a really rough week for us.....last Monday, around 1 am, we like up to the smell of thick smoke.   Actually, it smelled kind of like burning trash....I remember that smell from my childhood as my grandpa Harris used to burn trash....Anyhow, at first, I was alarmed that our house was on fire, but it seemed like the smell was coming from outside.   I vaguely remembered hearing about a small fire in Napa before I went to bed, so I closed the windows, took a couple of puffs from my inhaler (I was wheezing) and went back to sleep.

Well, we found out in the morning that the night had been really bad.   Not only had the fire in Napa spread, but several other fires had broken out in Sonoma county, destroying many neighborhoods.   Many families had mere minutes to evacuate the homes, and some were not even that lucky.   The total extent of the devastation is still not known, but at least 40 so far have been killed in the fires.

 

Meanwhile, Jason's parents and Grandma, who all live in Sonoma, evacuated on Tuesday, as fires were forecast to spread.   Since then, they have been on pins and needles every minute watching the news for updates.   As of tonight, a big fire is still less than a mile from their home, but it is more contained than it had been.  

In Marin county, where we live, we have been enveloped in smoke.  Ash is flying through the air, and depending on the wind, the visibility has been terrible.  Kids have been kept inside at school all week, and on Friday, Ethan's school was closed due to the conditions (I had a bit of trouble understanding this since the air is NO DIFFERENT three blocks away at our home).   But anyhow, it has been bad.   Today I took the kids to a birthday party in the city and I took this picture--look at the thick blanket of grey smoke north of the golden gate bridge (it is not FOG!):

:


Hopefully, the firefighters will continue to make progress and get these fires under control soon.

Welcome Pri!

A little over a week ago, we welcomed our new au pair, Pricila, or "Pri".   Pri has come to replace Rebeka, who spent 2 years with our family, and is now getting married.  Pri is also from Brazil.  So far, she has been great.  We are happy to welcome her to our family!!

Anniversary Trip

Jason and I have recently returned from our 10 year anniversary trip to Italy!  It was such a great way to celebrate the occasion, and we really enjoyed ourselves.   We visited four areas.   First we flew into  Florence, where we spent 3 nights.   We climbed the duomo, saw Michelangelo's David, toured the Uffizi museum and enjoyed walking around and taking it all in.   We also made a pretrial commitment to try and go running as much as we could, so we did some nice runs in Forename along the Arno river, and one morning we ran to a viewpoint over looking the city.    We had some great food in florence, and the sights were great, but we were a bit overwhelmed by the massive throngs of tourists and tour groups around every corner.  


   

Next, we headed to Tuscany.   We spent 3 nights near Castellini in Chianti, and took day trips to hill towns in the regions.   Our favorite was Siena, which was a beautiful city.   We also enjoyed taking a pasta making class (yum!), and had a dinner at an "agritourismo"--a farm that hosts tourists for dinners featuring food from the farm.   Gary and Eileen had been to this particular one a few years back and recommend it to us--it was delicious!

     


From Tuscany, we drove to the Cinque Terre, with a stop in Lucca along the way.   The Cinque Terra is a group of 5 town which are nestled in between 5 hills along the mediterranean.   Historically, people could only get to the towns by walking or via boat.   Now, there is a train service that links all 5 towns.  Jason and I had plans to hike the trails between the towns, but on the day that we arrived we were told that the trails were closed due to weather conditions (indeed, it was raining).   We were quite dismayed and even considered leaving that night, but I am glad we stayed, as the next morning the weather had cleared and we were able to hike (although officially, the trails were still "closed", this was not really enforced.  The following day, we took another trail along the top of the peninsula to a small town called Porto Venere.  The trail was spectacular because you could see the ocean on both sides and even better it was totally off the beaten path, so we had it mostly to ourselves.   Returned by boat.  Although our first day in cinque terra was rough, it ended up being my favorite part of the trip.   And the food, I must say was spectacular.   The best focaccia ever and also really good pesto.

The final part of our trip was in Sardinia--we wanted to have some beach time to relax at the end of the trip, and sardinia looked to have the best beaches in Italy.   And the books did not lie, they really were beautiful.   Light sand and crystal clear water.   We were there at the end of the season, so it was a bit windier than we would have liked, but still warm enough to go in the ocean.   We were struck by how rural Sardinia was--apparently there are more sheep than people.  It really had a much different feel than all of the other places we went in Italy, so I am glad we got to check it out.

    

Meanwhile, the kids seemed to do ok in our absence.   We facetimed into a parent teacher conference from Cinque Terra in the dark, when it was raining (wifi only worked outside!), so at least we tried to stay present in our absence.   And we also facetimed with the kids each night.  They were still in one piece when we returned, so I guess that everything was fine!  With our busy, crazy schedule, I am really glad that Jason and I got to take this trip together.   It was a great get away!