February Path Photo

You can see the Dec & Jan Photos from this spot on the Jan 7th Post - The difference for this month is much warmer days occasionally allowing us to go out in just a sweater - no hat, no gloves - WOW
(ps - today its pouring rain)

The Plague of 08

All of our little playmates are getting the FLU. Our little monkey was the first one sick - throwing up a couple of weekends ago when we were up visiting his Grandparents in the Shire. Em and I came back from the movies to find him sitting with Grandpa Phil eating copious amounts of chocolate ice cream - apparently he is very, very charming when he says "more icescream peez!!!" We were fine with this until about 2 hours later when all that chocolate ice cream ended up on me, and em and the sheets... then 2 more hours later there was more - and another set of sheets, and 2 hours later.... You get the idea. So by 7am on Sunday the lil guy was basically back to himself but I was WASTED and needed a weeks vacation to recover.

So later the next week our little friend Jack got something similar - but worse - He was sick for DAYS - and he lost like 10% of his body weight. Next down was Lila upstairs who was sick Friday night and then her daddy was sick last night. And we got a text message from Emily yesterday that Xan was puking.

The lil Monkey & I have now moved away from the Pukey flu type illness into a nice standard cold - we are both totally snotty and snoring like crazy at night - I think we almost kept Em awake with our din. Of course its also Vacation week so all our playgroups are closed - which will force us out into even larger public disease venues like the Science Museum... So we will see what comes next.

Shabbat Farah

This shabbat the lil' monkey & I did something that we hadn't tried before....

Yup we baked ourselves a Challah. He helped out with the kneading and did a great job with the egg wash. Sadly our yeast was from about 2004 so the bread was on the dense side - but all in all it was a good first effort.

The best part of all was him running up to emily when she got home & bringing her into the kitchen & pointing into the oven saying "challah" to show her what he'd done

新年快乐

HAPPY NEW YEAR
WELCOME TO THE YEAR OF THE RAT

R's Favorite Video

Watching Zoo Zoo

This is a short film of the lil monkey as he's watching the video show that Grandpa Phil made of our big trip to the Bronx Zoo -

Cleaning up Jack's House

The lil Monkey found the "vacumn cleaner" over at Jacks' house and spent half an hour of play time "cleaning" up the kitchen. Like I've said before - I don't really know where he is learning any of this cleaning behavior to mimic - its certainly not from either me or emily. Maybe memories of Mama Kathy B. maybe when he sees people cleaning house on tv... but I do sure hope it continues. Perhaps my little Taurus will clean us all up.

On another note - he is beginning to learn bits of the alphabet. He is recognizing and naming the letters "j" "s" and sometimes "u". He is also starting to count - he counts 2-3 but seems to have no use for the number one. He also asks for the ABC's to be sung by yelling bee-cee bee-cee also apparently having no use for the letter A.

At the Museum

The grandparents took me & the monkey to the American Museum of Natural History in NYC over the weekend. He was the perfect age for his first visit. Grandpa showed him all the great Dinosaur Bones - and then we checked out all the mammals - it was like having his book "Hug" come to life - here's the lions, and here's the lizards, and the giraffe and the ELEPHANTS & there's Bobo & Mommy.

As you can see is much smaller than an elephant!

After the musuem we had a nice lunch at a nearby Bistro.

Photos from our Trip

Here are a couple of photo albums ...

SF First Day 1-14-08

SF Trip - Ano Nuevo 1-15-08

Fab

This picture is proof that you can take the boy out of san francisco, but you can't take san francisco out of the boy.

We had a very good trip. We saw lots of friends, and family and got to visit many of SF's best playgrounds in between business and social engagements. One highlight of the trip (for the moms) was a walking tour of Ano Nuevo Elephant Seal preserve where we were joined by R's Grandpa Eldon, as well as the Wyman-Bennett clan (pictures to follow). A highlight for the boy was an afternoon spent at the discovery museum in Marin with Mel, Rachel-Laura & Jasper.

Getting Ready for Mel & Veejay ....

Enjoying SF with Mommy

....nuff said... Look at those happy faces.

Enjoying a day at the Embarcadero

R. loves the view of the bay bridge. Mommies loved the Cowgirl Creamery Cheeses but were less impressed with Slanted Door's to-go food.

Four Generations

Here we are for a minute visiting the little guys "great-great grandfather" after our outing to Ano Nuevo with Grandpa R. At the end of the trip the little monkey was looking at pictures of Grandpa R. and saying "Poppa" - I was so happy that he got to spend enough time that he was recognizing him and that we will get to see him again this spring when he comes out to Boston. On a sadder note I am pretty sure that my Grandfather didn't recognize me at all - although he did seem to get that the baby was his great-grandson.

What a difference a month makes

Note the little monkey on the path to the park in November - wearing sweatpants and a jean jacket, but by mid-December things have changed on the same little path. Now (early Jan) the path just has a few remnants of ice on it which should be melted by tomorrow - esp. if its really going to be close to 60 degrees.

Sunday...

is free day at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.
Monito wants to show Gabe & Lila his favorite dino bones. When he walked into this room his jaw dropped & he said WOW

Cleaning the Bathroom

Look at me Kathy B.!!!!! At least one member of this family can scrub the tub.

Unka Richie

Richie came down from NYC to visit us (FINALLY) and we got him & his camera out to Jamaica Pond where he & the lil monster went chasing ducks. Much, much fun was had by all & I think Rich took about 3 rolls of film. The funniest part of the weekend was hearing peals of laughter from the back room as monito and R. were back there bonding.

It is cold here....

After bitter cold, Bay State to get a taste of spring
January 4, 2008 08:37 AM
By Globe Staff

Sick and tired of the bitter cold? Warmth is on the way. The National Weather Service predicts that temperatures will rise steadily through next Tuesday, when it will reach the 50s.
The cold will linger this morning, with temperatures of minus 5 in the interior of the state to 15 degrees. But the temperatures will then move upward, beginning with a high of about 33 today, the weather service predicts.
.....................................................

I live in a state where 33 Degrees is considered good weather in the winter. San Fran on the other hand is getting hit with a huge rain storm but the temps are positivly balmy up there in the 50's.

So I don't usually blog about the weather, but yesterday was the type of morning where you actually think your nose may turn black and fall off and your lungs burn as you breath. Little mountain man went out for a walk with me & fell asleep in his stroller!!!

Playing dress up

The kids had fun in the hat & scarf door at Gabes house