Rain to end the drought!

 Well, we have had a massive rainstorm here in Kentfield this weekend.  Our 24 hour rain total is over 12 inches!   Crazy!  And a wonderful way to start to bring an end to our horrible drought.

Of course, it would have been nicer if it came down a little slower--we are having some pretty significant flooding, but at least we have water again.

The rain was so severe, we had to move Pippy into the garage--look at how high our creek was getting:

 

(It was completely dry one week ago!)

She seemed to like her new digs:

The storm is too warm to bring much snow to the Sierra, but hopefully it is a harbinger of a wet winter!

Fall Weekend in Tahoe

 We spent this weekend in Tahoe, for a short fall getaway.   Its crazy to think that it has been a year since we bought!   

This weekend, we started to get the cabin ready for winter--pulling the boats off the docks, clearing off the deck, and putting up our window protectors.  Luckily, the previous owners had good system down, which makes it easy for us!  We have already gotten our first snow up here, though it didn't stick.  

On Saturday, we had beautiful fall weather and we took a lovely hike though the Donner canyon.   Though there aren't many deciduous trees at this elevation, the few we saw were really beautiful.   The air felt so fresh and brisk, quite invigorating!

  

 

On Sunday, it was much colder, so we took a shorter hike in the neighborhood--still beautiful!

Also, we have added some more decor to the cabin--my Grandpa Harris's woodcarvings.   In his retirement, he got really into woodcarving--and was quite talented!  My dad moved many of his carvings out to California, and we were able to take a few to the cabin.  I think they look great and fit in perfectly!   So happy to be able to display this amazing art!

Homemade Soap

 Last year for Christmas, Alaina asked for (and received) a make your own soap kit.   Now, with the pandemic and all, you would have think we would have made this as a first priority, but it got tabled.   Today, we finally had time to mix it up and it was a lot lot of fun.   Alaina made 4 bars of bubble-gum pink soap.   They smells like strawberries--reminds me of my old strawberry shortcake dolls.

The best part of the project was that clean-up was easy--all the spilled soap actually helped clean my kitchen, ha ha!

And the result--a very nice lather.  And yummy smelling hands.

A fun project for a windy fall day.

Bar Mitzvah

 Last night, our family attended a Bar Mitzvah.   This is the first Bar Mitzvah that the kids and I have gone to, and the first in many years for Jason.

It was for Ethan's friend Ethan, whose dad was in my residency class.   We first went to a service at 10 am, where Ethan gave almost half of the service in Hebrew--quite impressive. 

Jason was quite nostalgic following the ceremony, and pulled out his old Bar Mitzvah video--check it out:

Actually, many people on the video have since passed away, so it is really nice for Jason to have.

Anyway, back to yesterday's bar mitzvah.....there was a big party for dinner, with a baseball theme.   The kids had a blast dancing and playing DJ games, and we enjoyed socializing with a few friends.  We also got some fun photo booth pics.

  

Of course, seeing a Bar Mitzvah like this certainly makes us wonder: have we done the "right" thing by raising our kids without religion?  There is definitely a community feeling associated with religion that we are missing out on.  And perhaps a slight lack of a sense of moral responsibility, though we try to teach that in other ways.  If someday, the kids want to explore religion more, that is fine with me.  I suppose we will never know, but we have done the best we could.