It's Sunday afternoon and my family is napping. The sweet smell of pine is creeping through the house as our Christmas tree lay still bound on the living room floor. We dug out the decorations this morning and the boxes are stacked, waiting to be opened.

We also dug out a bunch of crap so that I could get pictures to post on Craigs List. This led to Ada posing with Tim's scuba tanks and the bike trainer saying, "Cheese!" I think she learned that at her Christmas portraits with the nanny last week.




This Thanksgiving weekend Tim was on call and I've been sick. Let's put it this way: it's easier to get dressed and take the very curious toddler out of the house than it is to try to entertain her at home the whole time.

We went over to have Thanksgiving with Tom, Kathi, Sarah, Mia and Martina. Tim was amused that while he was on call I would celebrate this most American holiday with an Austrian, a German, and an Argentinian. Hey, we all have stuff to be thankful for even if we weren't born in America. Tom grilled the turkey and it was perfect! You'd think he'd spent his whole life watching the men in his family perfecting the grilled turkey. In fact, I think this might have been his first one. He's good with the grill so I'm not at all surprised that dinner was so good.



The girls ran around like maniacs and though I didn't think it was much different from the other times we've been over there, it must have been something really special because Ada slept until nearly 9:00 am the next morning. A new record. Maybe it was all the L-tryptophan in the turkey.

Brown corduroy jumper is the Thanksgiving outfit for toddler girls. Ada wore one last year too.

Friday night we went to the tree lighting ceremony at Ghiradelli square with Kathi and Sarah.

As we were walking past the marina I was thinking about how cool it is that we get to do stuff like this. We live in a really beautiful city and we're lucky that these things are so easily accessible to us. Even on a cloudy, cold day the view of the bay is so lovely. It doesn't hurt that the love of my life is in this picture.



There were other sweet times too most of which involved a lot of climbing or scrambling down a steep, muddy hillside. We all made it.










Once we were at Ghiradelli square you could feel the energy in the crowd.I love this time of year and I think that other people who love this time of year all love it for the same reason: the warmth and patience that most people will display. Like motioning for you to go ahead of them or waiting for your toddler to hop down all 46 stairs to the bottom of the square. It's sweet.Except for the shoppers on black Friday. That was just shameful.




The girls had a blast - they saw the albino alligator from the science museum. Ada thought he was really cool and gave him three hugs and six high-fives.

 

Sarah was not so sure about all that. 



They each got a small piece of Ghiradelli chocolate and a sticker though so it was all OK in the end. Later on they saw Santa, some carolers, snow, and the first tree of the season. It was exciting enough that Ada was snoring in the car before we got home. Not a huge surprise given the lack of naps on Friday after sleeping in so late.

We spent most of the rest of the weekend relaxing. Or at least I never left my yoga pants again and spent most of my time under a quilt with a cup of tea. There was still beauty there too. I'll write up  about that a little bit later. One sunset after a weekend with friends made me all wistful for the city we haven't even left yet.