Here’s a few videos of rides at Dutch Wonderland.

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We started out with a small dinner party on his actual birthday.  Jenny was visiting from CA and she brought a tradition from her family — we put a bunch of items on a tray and the first one Nico picked up was supposed to tell us something about his future.  Items included a book, castanets (to represent music), money (coin and bill), a pen (red — could symbolize teacher or writer), a spoon (for cooking), a carrot (farming?  vegetarian?  it doesn’t matter – he didn’t pick it), a pig toy (again, not sure what it represented, but it didn’t matter because he didn’t pick it).  We thought this was a Chinese custom, but our friend Sam had also told us about his nephew doing this, and they’re Korean.  And we have a neighbor who’s Chinese and her family has never heard of it.  So we’re thinking maybe this is an LA pan-Asian thing and not so much just a Chinese thing.  (Sam and Jenny are both from LA.)  Nico didn’t even hesitate on his choice and he wasn’t interested in all that much other than the thing he picked.  Can you guess what he picked?  Look at the photos to see if you’re right.

Since his birthday was on a Thursday, we had his parties on the following weekends.  The Saturday right afer his birthday we had a morning party and an evening party.  We had initially planned on the morning one being for kids and the evening one for adults, but we had a mix at both parties and having two different ones made it so we were actually able to visit with everyone at both. 

We wrapped up Nico’s celebrations with a trip to NY the following weekend where Aunt Denise and Uncle Robert hosted his family party.  Almost all the family came from near and far to celebrate with him and he had a great time with his cousins.  Grandma and Grandpa got him a cassata cake which he enjoyed throwing on the floor.  Frank’s slices ensured that the cake designed to feed 40 people disappeared in half that many tummies.  Mmmm!

Please excuse all the close-up shots and the multiple cake shots…4 parties means 4 different opportunities to show him getting cake all over his face (or not…).  Enjoy!

Christmas has been fun so far this year, and it’s not quite over for us yet.  We’ll be celebrating a belated Christmas with my parents and Danny, Morgan, and Brady this weekend.  We began with an early Christmas (combined with first birthday party for Nico) on Long Island.  We spent Christmas itself here in DC, enjoying Christmas Eve dinner with Aunt Lee, Uncle Tommy, Matthew and Carrie.  Then we had Christmas morning to ourselves and enjoyed watching Nico open his presents and play with his new toys.  And we went to Sara, Aron, Salome and Cyrus’s house for Christmas dinner on Christmas Day. 

Photos from all of our Christmas festivities are here.  The next post will be all of Nico’s various birthday parties, so stay tuned.

Anyway, we traveled up to NY last weekend to celebrate (a bit early) the birthdays of both James and Daniel.  Nico had fun, as always, playing with his cousins.  And he left with some new favorite toys that Daniel and James have outgrown.  Some of his very favorite toys were first loved by Daniel and James (remember Doggie?) — thank you boys for sharing with him!  Some photos from our visit are here.

Unfortunately there are some other birthday celebrations coming up that we’re not going to be able to travel for.  Dana turned 16 last week and she’s having a party this weekend.  And Brady is turning 2 in a few weeks, but for the second year in a row we’re going to miss his party.    We’ll be sure to have a piece of cake from afar so we can feel like a part of the celebration. 

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As an aside, we are looking into some new software so we can do better slideshows and video shows and hopefully return to putting photos on the blog.  Thanks for sticking with us while this blog has been text-only!  I hope it will be jazzier soon.

Nico had a great time with both of his great aunts.  And he particularly had fun with Lauren, who had as much fun playing with him as I had playing with her when she was a tiny little girl.  She swung him around, helped him practice walking, read to him, and kept him entertained for hours past bedtime.  He also loved playing with 5-year old Cadel, who has developed tons and tons of patience as a big brother.  He would build towers for Nico, not complain when Nico knocked them down before they were finished, and start over with a new tower (over and over and over).  Quinn is lucky to have such a great big brother!

We thought Nico might start walking before the trip, and when he didn’t, we were sure that he would take his first steps for his Chicago audience.  That didn’t happen, though.  He’s standing alone for longer and longer periods now (sometimes for the whole length of a book as we read to him).  But tonight we think he took his first half-step.  Frank was reading to him and he took one step toward the book, planting his foot before his hand reached the book.  It’s only a matter of days now, we’re pretty sure.   Batten down the hatches, he’s about to move! 

Here’s another link to the Chicago photos, in case you didn’t click that earlier one.

In terms of Nico’s developments in August…he turned 8 months old, ate some cantaloupe, and started grinding his teeth, which is a sound worse than fingernails on a chalkboard!  He also ate some peaches and rice cereal, but got pretty sick when we gave him egg yolk.  At the very end of the month he actually asked for some food by making up a sign; then he successfully swallowed some banana pieces!  That was a huge step.  (He’s regressed some again, but we’re optimistic that he’ll eat someday.) 

Enjoy the photos!

He turned 8 months old while we were traveling, and we realized that at that point he had been in 12 states already (plus DC, of course).  He did a southeastern loop in early spring, visiting VA, NC, SC, GA, and FL.  Then on this trip we did a northeastern loop, covering MD, DE, NJ, NY, MA, NH, and CT.   At the end of the month, he added PA to the list — those pictures will come soon.

Enjoy this batch of pictures.  Frank has a great video from a couple of weeks ago when we discovered Nico knew how to dance.  He’ll post it soon!

Photos from our trip are here.

Once in FL, we went to the beach, the baseball stadium to see a Cardinals pre-season game, and the Busch Wildlife Sanctuary.  Nico had 2 sets of grandparents spoiling him and he showed off for Grandma Schipani by rolling over for her for the very first time.

Enjoy the photos.

Frank and I were both able to take off from work, so we traveled to Chicago to be with Aunt Nita for the viewing and the funeral.  We took advantage of our time in Chicago to also visit with all of our other family out there — family we hadn’t seen since our last Chicago trip two years ago.  It was a sad occasion to be in Chicago but I have to think that Earl would have been very happy to know that his passing had brought so many family members together.  We also took the train out there, which was an experience in itself.  I would definitely be up for taking the train again, even though it’s an 18 hour ride.  Having a sleeper car made all the difference in the world.

We have some photos with my mom’s side of the family here.  Below is a photo of us as we said goodbye to Aunt Nita.  She’s an amazingly strong woman but we’re sad that she has to use that strength yet again.

This year we went apple picking at an organic apple farm called Liberty View Farm.  They only had one kind of apples and they were kind of ugly, but they were quite delicious.  And they have a farmer’s market and a petting zoo there too.  It was nice to know that they were a farm that didn’t spray — we’ve been looking for a good one for several years now.

May / June

We traveled to Pittsburgh in mid-May to visit the Shar-Bars.  We didn’t take many photos, but we loved seeing their new house and doing all the fun things we always do when we visit PGH.

My parents came to DC for my birthday and helped us paint the trim in the guest room and bathroom.  It’s so nice to have knocked something else off our list of projects to complete!

We traveled to NJ to celebrate a belated Father’s Day with my parents and Danny, Morgan, and Brady.  We played some bocce, had a great dinner, and spent most of our time oohing and aahing over Brady.

Frank and Seda enjoyed making sushi in June and cherry pie in July.  These photos are guaranteed to make your mouth water.

July

We had a 4th of July BBQ on our deck, even though it was little more than a platform at the time.  As usual when we unveil something new, Gina, Chip and Eloisa were here to celebrate with us, along with Sara, Aron and Salome, Eva, Jaime, and Jen.

Eva turned 40 and had a fabulous dinner party for several friends.  (I’m still not sure what we did to deserve a delicious, gourmet meal prepared by the birthday girl herself!)

Tara graduated (and so did her Uncle Frankie) and we traveled to NY to celebrate with her.

We traveled to Sperryville for the weekend with teams Somobright and Hjeltak.  We don’t have pictures of the blackberry picking, but we spent part of one day picking blackberries with the kids and it was great!  The rest of the time we hung out at the cottage and just relaxed and chatted and watched the girls play.

Debbie, Tim, and Gwen came to visit us in DC.  We were very proud of Gwen’s mommy for overcoming her fear of travel without a car seat and letting Gwen ride both the metro *and* the city bus.  Gwen loved both!  We also went to the sad little aquarium in DC.  They have some pretty fish and Gwen seemed to enjoy it.  But it’s dark and small and plus it’s not free.  I’m glad I’ve been once, but I don’t think we’ll go back.

August

Oshapalooza (see below).

We hope to add our completed deck to the August photos.  Mike finished up yesterday but there is still a LOT left for Frank to take care of.  The whole deck needs to be stained/sealed.  Two of three fans need to be installed.  Some sort of screen needs to be devised.  And all of the lattice pieces for the 1st floor railings need to be nailed into place.  It’s looking good, but we’ve still got a way to go before we can take any “after” photos.

It all started on Valentine’s Day.  Frank’s sisters, Marie and Denise, came down to DC with their families.  Yep, that’s right — 7 people visiting our tiny little house.  Everyone was worried about there being enough room except for Frank and me.  We know how many people we can pack in to our house.  And there was still room for more, so hopefully next time Tara and Frank A. will join everyone too.    Photos from their visit are here.  We started on Saturday with a BBQ dinner in honor of Robert’s birthday.  It seems we only get to see their friends James and Raylene when Denise and Robert are in town, so we were glad for the excuse to have them over.  On Sunday we all went to the Udvar-Hazy Air & Space Museum out by Dulles Airport.  We had brought Nick there on a previous visit, but he was a good sport about seeing it all again.  And Daniel and James loved the big planes.

After that we headed to Ashburn for a delicious dinner made by cousin Matthew.  As a bonus, his brother Philip was visiting from FL so it was a big cousin reunion.

Monday started off with a game of Trouble and a game of Scrabble and then it was off to a Chinese restaurant for lunch and the American History Museum.  We had fun looking at the newly restored flag that inspired the Star Spangled Banner, the Lincoln exhibit (it was President’s Day weekend), the transportation exhibit, and the kids’ hands-on room.  That night we ate dinner at home and played a couple rousing games of Pictionary.  I feel like I should scan in some of the winning (and losing) drawings, but they’d probably lose something in the translation…  I had forgotten how much fun Pictionary is.  On Tuesday Marie and her kids headed back to Long Island and I went to work.  I believe everyone else went to the zoo, but there are no pictures so I’m not sure.    We had a nice dinner at home on Tuesday night and played some Candyland.  On Wednesday Denise and her family left and Frank got us ready for our cruise while I was at work.

Then, on Thursday morning at 6 AM we left the cold, rainy, yucky weather to go on a cruise!  We almost didn’t make it, though.  Our flight was at 8:30, and we got to the airport by 7 AM so we had a nice relaxing wait for our plane.  We boarded the plane on time and the doors were shut by 8:25.  We taxied to the runway and then sat.  And sat.  And sat.  And sat.  And then the pilot came on to say that the wind had shifted and instead of taking off to the south, we’d be taking off to the north.  But we were too heavy to take off to the north — in DC the flight path rules are very strict and if a plane takes off to the north it has to take off at a steep angle and make an immediate sharp left so it doesn’t go over the White House or the Mall.  So, we were fine for taking off to the south, where it’s a straight shot, but too heavy to go north.  So, it was back to the terminal at around 10:00 AM to offload some weight.  We taxied to the terminal and refueled, but they didn’t unload anything.  And then all of a sudden we were heading back to the runway.  It seems that the wind had shifted again and we could now go south.  But, on our way there, the wind shifted again.  Oh, and it was also raining, so our stopping distance was increased and now we couldn’t take off to the south anymore either.  Agh.  But they “massaged the numbers” (those are the pilot’s words, not mine!) and all of a sudden we were going to be taking off to the north.  Let’s get this straight.  It’s now 11:30 AM.  We’ve been on the plane for 2.5 hours.  No weight has been lost.  We have added fuel.  And we’re taking off to the north, which we weren’t allowed to do 2 hours ago.  Um yeah.  I was not feeling so good about this flight.  But there was nothing I could do but sit and stare at the ceiling and hope we kept going upward.  So that’s what I did, and despite a ton of wind and bumps and lots of sideways motion (which I hate!), we did make it up into the air.  And we landed with plenty of time to get on the ship.

So, after that scary start, we were finally on the cruise ship.  But wait!  More drama!  It seems that in Italy a woman’s official documents all use her maiden name, even if she changed her name when she got married.  So, Frank’s mom’s cousin’s wife has a different official last name than the one we used when we bought her ticket for the cruise.  They weren’t going to let her on the boat!  Frank and I lost track of his family at customs, so we went ahead and boarded assuming all was well.  Then we saw his parents on the boat, but not the cousins!  And the boat was to leave in an hour (at 5 PM).  We did our mandatory lifeboat drill at 4:30 but they still weren’t on the boat.  In fact, Frank and I didn’t know if they had made it at all until we got to dinner at 6 PM.  We were extremely relieved to see them at the dinner table.  It turns out that they were able to call their son in Italy to have him fax over a copy of their marriage license.  Thank goodness he was near their house, had a key, and was able to find it exactly where they told him it would be.  Once the stress had worn off a bit, we were able to laugh at the idea that if our flight had been later and if they hadn’t gotten the marriage certificate, Frank’s parents would have been the only ones on the cruise and we would all have been hanging out in their condo for 4 days without them.

The cruise itself was great (photos are here).  I had never been on a cruise and wasn’t sure if I would love it or hate it.  I think 4 nights is the perfect length of time for a cruise — just enough time to really relax but not so long that you start to go stir crazy.  There were 14 decks on this cruise ship — that’s 14 stories that the passengers use and doesn’t include all of the working levels.  It was enormous!  It had miniature golf, several pools, an ice skating rink, a theatre that was bigger than my high school’s auditorium, a casino, multiple restaurants, and probably lots of things we didn’t ever even see.  The food was delicious (although we ate way too much) and the weather was perfect the whole time.  We had 1 day on land in Cozumel, Mexico.  There we rented jeeps and took a tour of the island.  We saw an old Mayan temple and went snorkeling.  We saw a sea turtle, were close enough to touch a very large barracuda, and saw lots of other fish and some very pretty coral.  All in all, the cruise was a lot of fun and it may become part of our regular mid-winter Florida excursion.

Unfortunately Frank got the flu at some point on the trip, and on Tuesday night he started to get sick.  He spent the remainder of February on the couch under a heap of blankets trying to get rid of his fever.  It finally went away on the first day of March.  But now we know how to spice up February and make it a month we can look forward to rather than a month we dread.  We’ll just make sure Frank loads up on vitamin C.

The next weekend (actually, Monday and Tuesday of the following week), we were on Long Island, celebrating a belated Mother’s Day with Frank’s parents and his sisters and their families.  On Tuesday we went out to the eastern tip of Long Island (the north fork) and had afternoon tea at a cute tea shop and tasted wine at one of the Long Island wineries.

Photos from the trip are here.

On Saturday night we had a delicious dinner at a place called Seasons 52 that serves low-calorie dishes made with in-season ingredients.  The menu changes with each season, although there is something new added each week (thus the 52 in the name).  The atmosphere was great too — the restaurant was right on the water and the inside was decorated in an arts and crafts style with rich woods everywhere.  It was a fabulous dinner and I look forward to going back there on our next visit. 

We were scheduled to fly out on Sunday night, but our flight was overbooked and we volunteered to give up our seats so we could get free tickets another time.  I negotiated round-trip cab fare as part of the deal so Frank’s parents wouldn’t have to come pick us up and drop us off again at 5 AM.  Turns out we rode in a stretch limo — both home that night and back to the airport in the morning.  It was fun in the evening, but I think the effect was lost on me Monday morning.

It was great to be in sandals and shorts — even for just a few days.  And it was really hard to hear the pilot say that it was 19 degrees as we flew back to DC at the crack of dawn on Monday.

A few pictures from our trip are here.

We headed out on Saturday morning to go to my parents’ house in NJ.  We got a bit of a late start because, for the first time ever, we had a very rough time getting the cats into their carrier.  So we had to stop at a pet store along the way and get a bigger carrier so they could ride together without being smushed into their old carrier.  (They have always had separate carriers, but are much more relaxed if we stuff them into the same one.)  After a small pet store detour we set off for NJ.  We spent the weekend at my parents’ house with Danny and Morgan and the kitty cats — who were much less freaked out than they were last year.

On Monday morning (Christmas Eve), we drove up to Denise and Robert’s house in Long Island.  We celebrated Christmas Eve with the Schipanis, Pizzis, and Steigerwalds. We stayed there on Saturday night because we wanted to be with Daniel and James on Christmas morning after Santa came.  That was lots of fun (but we went back to bed afterward…).  Then we all drove to Julia and Michael’s for a delicious Christmas dinner and — everyone’s favorite — Secret Santa!

We left Julia’s and drove back to my parents’ house so they wouldn’t have to be alone for *all* of Christmas.  Then we stayed with my parents for an extra 5 days because we were sewing curtains for the house. We had planned to just have my mom help us with one test panel, but it went so quickly that we decided to stay and finish the whole project.  The only thing left is sewing the trim and hemming the bottoms — both of which had to wait until we had hung the curtains so they’ll be at the right level.

On Sunday, December 30th, we came back home and got ready for Bonnie and Tom to come over to ring in the new year with us.

September 29th — We decided to sell the condo.

September 30th — Kristen left for Little Rock, where she helped her colleagues put on their annual conference.

October 1-4 — While Kristen is in Little Rock, Frank gets started packing the condo so we’ll be ready to move.

October 5-6 — Kristen and Frank finish packing.

October 7 — Mike, Sam, Chip, Hussein and Nashua helped us move the majority of our stuff to the house, leaving only the big furniture in the condo to help it sell.  Unfortunately we have no pictures from the move, but we couldn’t have done it without everyone’s help.  It took us 5 hours from start to finish.  Afterward, we had our first dinner in the new house, with Chip, Gina and Eloisa here to enjoy it with us.

October 8-11 — We prepare the condo for sale, finishing all of the nagging little projects we had never had a chance to complete.

October 11 — The condo is officially on the market (link to the listing is below).

October 12 — We sleep in the house for the first time (but leave the cats in the condo)

October 13 — The cats join us at the house and Charlie holds our first open house.  Cousin Matthew is our first official post-move-in dinner guest.  (We bought food at Whole Foods and promised that the next meal would be homemade.)

October 14-17 — We unpack the kitchen and start living in utter chaos…digging through boxes constantly and showering in the basement.  On October 16, Amy, Sam, Jenny and Lauren come over for a housewarming / thank you dinner.

October 18 — We try to leave for Chicago, but are thwarted by bad weather and drive back from BWI to sleep at home.  The kitty cats are very happy to see us.

October 19 — We successfully fly to Chicago and have a great time at Diana and Bill’s wedding.

October 20-21 — We spend the weekend with family in Chicago and have nice visits with Auntie Ro, Aunt Nita and Earl, and Kathy and Kenny.  Frank leaves for DC on the 21st.

October 22 — Kristen flies to Minneapolis.

October 23-24 — Frank unpacks and settles in a bit more and Kristen goes to an anti-tobacco conference.

October 25 — Frank’s parents drive down to DC for a visit en route to FL.  Kristen returns home at 11 PM.

October 26-28 — Frank’s parents work hard from early in the morning until late at night.  With their endless help we manage to get the kitchen completely unpacked, the garden ripped out and ready for winter, the dining room, living room, and office painted, bulbs planted for next year, and a lot of the house cleaned up.  Thanks again!!!  We also got an official offer on the condo on October 27th, which we accepted, so we became “under contract” about 2 weeks after listing the condo.

October 29-31 — Mary and Ben finally come to DC at the same time and visit us.  We also ran out of candy on Halloween because we had so many trick-or-treaters, so we turned off the lights and went out to dinner.

And if the past week is any indication, November will probably be more of the same!  The good news is that every day we make a bit more progress toward making the house liveable.  There have been some set-backs (more to come on those), but each day we can see marked changes that help keep us motivated to do more.  We haven’t been taking house pictures lately, but we’ll try to do that soon.  At this point, once things change they’re going to be that way for a long time, so we’re not in such a rush. 

In Seattle, first we stayed with my high school friend, Laura, and her fiance, Todd.  Unfortunately we didn’t get photos of the great dinners we had with them, but it was really nice to see them and to catch up.  They were both working while we were there, so Laura loaned us her car and we explored Seattle on our own a bit.  On Tuesday morning, we walked a mile in her shoes…leaving the house to catch the bus at 6:45 AM and trying to function for the rest of the day on almost no sleep.  I’m so glad I’m not a nurse!

On Tuesday we got our first taste of the very best part of Seattle — Pike Place Market.  We returned several times and bought most of the food we ate while there at the market.  What a fabulous place!  Tuesday night we went to a Mariners game at Safeco Field (they lost — evidently the beginning of a big losing streak for them).  Wednesday we relaxed, walking around residential neighborhoods of Seattle and eating delicious food (including cupcakes that rival those at Magnolia in NYC). 

On Thursday we headed up to Vancouver.  We had tried to buy train tickets to Vancouver, but they were sold out!  So Monica and Kevin loaned us their car and we drove up instead.  We had a bit of confusion at the border, where the guard wanted to know why our car had Missouri plates.  We tried to explain that the car was a gift to our friends who lived in Seattle, and that they loaned it to us to drive to Canada (but didn’t come with us).  He asked how I knew them and I said that they were my friends.  He repeated, “I asked HOW you know them” and I blurted out “from Peace Corps.”  He was suspicious, so he inspected the trunk (for dead bodies perhaps?) before letting us pass.  Crisis averted, we headed to the tourism info center and tried to make a plan for what to do in Vancouver…beginning with finding a place to stay!

We were just in Vancouver for one night, but we explored the small downtown in great depth.  We liked it a lot — particularly Stanley Park, a 1,000 acre park with hiking and biking trails, boats, restaurants, and lots more, just a 20 minute walk from downtown.  There’s a free trolley that drives around the perimeter, so when we got tired of walking, we hopped on that and got to see the rest of the park.  It was great.

Then it was back to Seattle, where we had dinner at a former brothel with Monica and Kevin and enjoyed blackberry pie made from roadside (free!) blackberries.  And then it was time to come back to DC.

Next up…photos from the house progress!  If you know of anyone who might need a 2 BR / 2 BA apartment in an ideal DC location, let us know.  We’re probably moving out on October 6th!  Wahoo!

We had a fantastic time in Oregon.  Tani and Rich moved out there in May and have done so much exploring since then that they were fabulous tour guides.  While Tani worked on Friday, Rich took us to three wineries:  King Estate, Iris Hill, and Benton-Lane.  It was a great way to spend the day and we had some fabulous pinot noir at Iris Hill and some delicious ros’e wines made from pinot noir grapes at both Iris Hill and Benton-Lake.  (Frank and I had also tasted some really great wines at a new winery — Reustle Prayer Rock vineyards — on our way to Tani and Rich’s place on Thursday.)

After winetasting we went home and picked Tani up so we could go for a short hike, just a few minutes from their house.  We walked around, eating our fill of the blackberries we found everywhere.  (Turns out they’re an invasive species out there and they actually are trying to thin out the # of plants!)  We also went to their co-op to get delicious ingredients for dinner.  Frank made a corn and bean salad and the corn was so sweet it actually tasted like ice cream!  Yum!!!

On Saturday we spent the day at the Oregon coast where we walked on several beaches, had a picnic, watched Frank take a brisk dip in the Pacific, and touched starfish and sea anemones.  We also did some whale watching — Tani spotted one within a minute of our being there.  We went to a delicious veggie restaurant for dinner and then had a Fred Meyer experience (and a run-in with the law) before heading home.

On our final day in Oregon we went to Portland where we walked among roses, shopped for books, and drank delicious chocolate.  Then we hopped a train and headed off for our last major stop…Seattle.

We bought some wine at Benziger and drove across the road to Imagery — a winery and art gallery owned by one of the Benziger brothers. Every year each type of wine gets a new label, designed by an artist, and the original works of art are displayed in the gallery, which doubles as a tasting room. It was an interesting idea and we really enjoyed a sweet wine made by Imagery. It’s called Muscato di Canelli and it was delicious. It was like a dessert wine without being syrupy and it was surprisingly refreshing. So we bought a bottle and headed on our way.

We decided to take route 128 from Sonoma to the coast, figuring that it would save us a lot of time and would be a nice drive. Well, at least it was a nice drive. It was a narrow, winding road that brought us up and down hills (small mountains) in the middle of forests. It was gorgeous, but definitely not a time-saver. When we emerged, though, it was like we were in a different country. Gone were the dry fields and hills, gone were the dense forests, we were on the coast!

We drove through Mendocino and stayed farther north in Fort Bragg. The next morning we got up early and headed straight for the Avenue of the Giants, where we walked among the redwoods. We were amazed at their size and their beauty and could have stayed there for months just marveling at the forests. I hope the pictures will give you a bit of an idea of what we saw there.

Enjoy the photos and stay tuned for pictures from Oregon!

We had a fantastic time visiting Bahar and Satish in San Francisco.  We arrived late on Saturday night, but they had a steaming hot dinner of dal and two other delicious Indian dishes waiting for us when we arrived.  What a great welcome to the city!

On Sunday morning we had a delicious breakfast of steel cut oats, apples, walnuts and raisins — the perfect breakfast for a brisk fall-like morning.  After breakfast Frank and I walked around a park near their apartment in Oakland and then we all headed into the city to see the sights.  We ate in Chinatown, were surprised that it wasn’t freezing on the Golden Gate Bridge (I guess I didn’t need that long underwear after all…), dipped our toes in the Pacific, saw gorgeous fog-free views of the city, and had a garlic dinner.  It was a great day and Satish and Bahar were fantastic tour guides.

On Monday, Frank and I played tourist while Bahar and Satish worked.  We walked the hills, took the cable car, hung out near the water and in Alamo Square park, found a wonderful tea shop for afternoon tea (the Leland Tea Company), and got sunburned from so much walking outside.

We were fortunate that the weather was “hot” the whole time we were there.  (Evidently when you live in San Francisco, you start to think that 75 degrees is hot…)  We loved the architecture of the houses and buildings in the city and had a great time exploring.  And although the cable car is really touristy, riding on it gives you a real sense of how vital it was to the expansion of cities that had hills or large distances to cover.  As I noted in the slide show, our new neighborhood wouldn’t have been built in the early 1900s were it not for the cable car.  Speaking of cable cars…did you know that the name Rice-a-Roni (for rice and macaroni) was named for the staple foods of two important immigrant groups in San Francisco?  (the Chinese and the Italians)

Enjoy our photos and stay tuned for pictures from our visit to Sonoma and the Redwoods!

See more detail on the “Where We’ve Been” page.

We stayed at the Hopkins Ordinary again, this time in the Thyme room — on the back of the house.  It’s much quieter than the rooms on the front of the house and we liked the extra sunlight.  But in warm weather, it might be worth putting up with the traffic noise to enjoy the huge porches in the front. 

Our friends Hussein and Nashua joined us on Saturday for the Matthew’s Arm hike in Shenandoah.  It was a strenuous hike for us out-of-shape city folk, but it was gorgeous.  There was a lot of water on the waterfalls because it had poured on Friday.  And the trees protected us from the whipping wind.

On Sunday morning, Frank and I walked about a half mile from the Hopkins Ordinary to find a whiskey distillery.  Frank and Chip had met the owner of the distillery at a whiskey tasting in Adams Morgan in September, and Frank promised him that we’d stop by for a visit the next time we were in Sperryville.  The place was closed, but we rang the doorbell and Rick Wasmund opened the door for us and welcomed us inside.  He proceeded to lead us on an in-depth behind-the-scenes tour of the distillery, showing us every step in his preparation of Wasmund’s whiskey.  It was fascinating to see all the steps and learn about the precise timing that go into making a bottle.  He gave us a taste (probably Kristen’s first taste of straight-up whiskey), and it was delicious!  If your local liquor store doesn’t carry it, make sure to ask for it.  For more information, visit his website.

We finished the trip with a visit to Linden vineyards.  We tasted chardonnays (which we were surprised to find that we loved), some reds, and a delicious dessert wine.  We brought home a few bottles of white to serve at this year’s pre-Thanksgiving feast.

Pictures of our trip are up in the family section of the website.

View the pictures

We’ll have lots of pictures to post once we get home tomorrow. I’m writing this from the blackberry as we are all sitting around reminiscing about family events of days past. Well, everyone else is reminiscing. I’m just listening.

We stayed at the Hopkins Ordinary and hope to return there again soon.  It’s a beautiful B&B with charming hosts and two stories of huge, covered porches.  Each room is impeccably clean and very tastefully decorated, without the kitsch that often comes with rooms at B&Bs.  And each room has designated space on the porches, with rocking chairs and a table for the wine and cheese they’ll bring you.  We spent a lot of time on the porches and have to say that was one of the best parts of the trip.