Alex and Sam "out on the town"

Copines

Holiday skating

My young bride and I took the day off (of work, and kids) to spend some time together. We went to Union square to go ice skating to get in the holiday mood!!

A fantastic lunch at "out the door" and some window shopping rounded out our day.

Then, back home to find the kids (who we missed!) and a yummy home-made turkey and stuffing dinner.

Cavallo Point

We all gathered at Cavallo Point in Sausalito for B.'s surprise birthday party. It was wonderful!

Sam and Alex

A friend of ours offered to take a picture of my bride and I while we were at the picnic.

We don't get many chances to be on the receiving end of a camera!

Je Veux Grue

Alex has a habit of tickling Nathan and saying, "Je veux te manger tout cru" (I'd like to eat you all up (*raw)).

Nathan misunderstood and when he wants to be tickled, states "Je veux Grue!" (Or "I want crane!")

H'amloh

Sierra's Baby Shower

Natasha organized a lovely Baby Shower for Sierra at Le Garage in Sausalito. This was Sierra's "first" shower as she had missed her first one (Jack was born 5 weeks ahead of schedule!).

Unexpectedly, I had brought Sidney with me, and needless to say that he was the hit of the party!

After the shower, he and I continued our day in Corte Madera running errands to get the remodeling of his and Nathan's room under way: door pulls, paint, closet stuff...

Fun, fun!

Dirty Marvin

In french, it's not a messy marvin... it's a "dirty marvin."

Nathan asleep in the stroller

"Family hug"

This morning marked the start of Alex's first day back at work.

Nathan and I helped her carry her bags and other "stuff" down to the car, so we could say "bye bye" and send her off with a big hug.

While we were all three snuggled up close together, Nathan exclaimed, "Family hug."

Semaine a La Baule

C'etait notre premiere fois a La Baule. Nous sommes arrives le 16 novembre, Mamie, Nathan, Sidney en TGV, Sam et Papie, en voiture. Ses kilometres de plages de sables nous ont conquis tout de suite. Notre location etait tres bien situee, sur la plage et en face du port du Pouliguen.

Notre cure de Thalasso (a Mamie et moi) a demarre le lundi. Mardi, je me tordais la cheville en allant voir Sidney au Baby Club. Apres radio, etc. il fut conclu qu'il vallait mieux utiliser des bequilles le reste de la semaine... Bien que estropiee et franchement epuisee par tout ce "trempage" dans l'eau de mer (au point de vouloir aller se coucher sans diner!), j'ai adore les soins et espere y retourner une autre annee... toute seule avec Maman!

Pendant que nous etions a la cure, Papie, Sam et Nathan allaient se ballader. Une des sorties favorites de Nathan etait d'aller aux tobogans sur la plage. Le mercredi et samedi, nous etions de visite obligatoire aux maneges du Pouliguen mais pour regarder seuleument. Nathan ne voulait absolument pas y monter!


Quant a Sam, il n'avait jamais eu autant de travail et il se souviendra sans doute toujours de son onterminable quete d'une connection Wifi. Apres plusieurs jours bredouille, il decouvrit enfin le Jam'z, un bar offrant une connection a ses clients. C'est alors au Jam'z ou assis devant le Jam'z que Sam a passe sa semaine a La Baule.

Puis, ce fut le retour en TGV. Tata et Ruben etaient venus nous chercher a la gare Montparnasse.

Alex's birthday

Tonight, after an improptu party with Max, Lila and Tea at Janice's house, we had little celebration at home for Alex's birthday.

(Oh yeah... if you're wondering -- the woman behind that towering inferno of innumerable candles is my young bride, Alex)

Natasha's Shower

Natasha's turn for a fantastic baby shower at the Garden Court of the Palace Hotel for high-tea. The setting was very elegant and the company delightful.

Sierra did a great job at organizing and we were all very happy to share the moment.

The bets are all in on what Natasha's is expecting: we all agreed that it would be a girl! We'll have to wait until end of September to find out...


From left to right: Sierra, Natasha, Angela, Kim, Janice, Belinda, Alex.

Le bidou de maman

Et voila! Le bidou de maman...

Mommy Shower

On Saturday, Monica and Ana had organized a "Mommy Shower" at the Secret Garden Tea House to celebrate the arrival of bebe Fell #2. The theme was around pampering... of Mommy, of course!

It was a real pampering event indeed: wonderful afternoon with friends around tea and sandwiches, lots of gifts... Just heavenly!

From left to right: Sierra, Ana, Deborah, Monica, Alex, Belinda, Janice, Nicole, Michelle, Natasha, Lauren

The iPhone - and why I love Apple customer services and CraigsList

As many of you know, Alex has recently been converted to the cult of the Blackberry. Hers is red, so it's really more of a Raspberry. While she loves her iPhone, we both appreciate the fact that BMC pays for her entire Blackberry bill. So, about a week ago we decided to sell the iPhone.

However, the faceplate was damaged -- a hairline crack from the top-right to the bottom-left of the device. It happened when she took it out of her purse -- just around the time she got her new Blackberry. Those that know her know she's a bit of a maniac about keeping things "new looking" so it isn't something she did, and that it was probably more a design flaw than negligence.


All that being said, we still figured we were out of luck... no way the folks at Apple would replace it for free, and I didn't want to spend money fixing something just to sell. So, we decided we'd try to sell a scratched iPhone. That'll take the wind out of your sales (pun intended)...


Yesterday, while trying to deactivate the iPhone with AT&T in preparation for our sale, I mentioned the scratch to the AT&T tech support person. He said I shouldn't get my hopes up, but that he thought they might replace the unit for me. He transferred me over to the Apple support hotline and we made an appointment at the Genius Bar at the Apple store on Chestnut street for them to take a closer look.


Today, Alex, Nathan and I took her "previously loved" iPhone to the Apple store and waited patiently (10 minutes -- we showed up early?) for our turn with a Genius. Nathan liked the waiting part quite a bit, as he was able to touch the fancy Mac keyboards without anyone telling him "no no no!"


When it was finally our turn, our Genius took one look at our iPhone and said, "yeah, we can swap that unit out for you. Have you backed up all your stuff?"


My jaw dropped. I was stunned. And thrilled.

"Er, yeah... we wiped it out yesterday."


"Great," he said as he picked up our iPhone and put it into the now-empty box where the replacement unit had been. "Give me a second while I activate your new phone. What's your phone number?"


I gave him our number. And then, in less time than it took us to wait for a Genius to become available, we had a brand new iPhone in hand, and were on our way to lunch.


We ate lunch, triumphant.


And this effort actually translated into a VERY quick sale -- A little later, Alex posted the iPhone to CraigsList and within 1 hour someone from Daly City was standing outside our front door with cash in hand!


Three cheers for Apple Customer Care, three cheers for CraigsList, and three cheers for bargain-hunting Apple iPhone lovers (thank goodness they hadn't read that the new iPhones, likely being released tomorrow, will be twice as fast and have subsidized prices!!)

At the Venetian

Alex and Nathan accompanied me on my trip to Las Vegas for the Microsoft Management Summit. After a long plane trip and short nap during check-in, Nathan was hungry and ready to experience Vegas, Baby!! This picture was taken in the indoor replica of the canals and shops in Venice. Kitschy, but fun!