Cousin Elena shows Nathan and Sidney what's good...

 

Cheers!

Blue Grass Festival

Sam, Nathan and Aunt Betsy met with Steve and Lila in Golden Gate Park for the Blue Grass Festival while the moms and Sidney were at the Fairmont Hotel having tea for Monica's baby shower.

Nathan made sure to introduce himself to all his neighbors at the concert and danced a storm with Aunt Betsy and Nounou.

Sidney et Mamie

Robert takes us to the Spinnaker

Robert took us to his favorite restaurant, the Spinnaker. It was a gorgeous day. Nathan discovered ketchup ("sauce tomate") and coconut pineapple ice cream.

What a day!

Sidney's Brit Milah

8 days after Sidney was born we held a Brit Milah ceremony at our house with family and friends attending. Rabbi Chanan Feld joined us to officiate. The weather was fantastic so we were able to host it in our backyard.










It was great to have an occasion to have everyone gather in order to celebrate.

Sidney made it through the ceremony well... and even came down to the backyard for a few minutes to "meet the guests" before retiring to his room for a loooong nap.

No more monkeys jumping on the couch

Tonight we were invited over to dinner at Max's house. His dada made a fantastic selection of food, and then upped-the-ante another notch when he went all iron-chef on us and whipped up another main course selection for us to nibble. Scrumptious!

After dinner, Nathan and Max entertained themselves with climbing on the couch, giving each other "hugs" (mostly just an excuse to try and knock the other one over... and mostly initiated by Nathan I'm sorry to report).

All in all a highly enjoyable evening. Good food, good friends, good fun.

Nathan and Papie

Martha visits

Last night, Maria... tonight: Martha... we're a very "M"-visitor-enabled-household chez nous, recently. Nathan loves it - what's not to like about women coming to the house and thinking "you're all that."

We met Martha 6 years ago when we were all on our honeymoons and have kept in touch with pictures, emails, and cards over the years... she was in town for a conference, and made the effort to stop by! She has 3 boys of her own, so she and Nathan hit it off right away.

It was great seeing her, and we hope to make a habit out of seeing each other!

(p.s. Martha is also a self-proclaimed "avid reader" of our blog! I was wondering who was making our page view stats go all kablooey!?)

Maria visits

Our friend Maria visited us again on a spur-of-the-moment-type-trip-from-Taiwan (you know how THAT goes). She spent 13 hours on an airplane, landed, checked into her hotel, and came directly over to our house for a nibble and some wine. She was then going to meet up with some friends to have a few drinks with them.

Alex and I were tired just thinking about it.

She and Nathan saw eye-to-eye, though, and Nathan couldn't stop saying "mee-a, mee-a" (which we found out was Maria's nickname ("Mia") when she was much younger)

Geee-ma gets a little sugar

My mom travelled for two weeks this summer visiting my sister and I for a week each. While she was here, she had a tremendous amount of fun with Nathan (and vice-versa!)



Here she is getting a little sugar from the little munchkin. He obviously wasn't enjoying himself...

Ayuda

Nathan loves to help. Here he is, helping Mami with the groceries!

Taeyaerts/Sorkins/Wanders/Fells

While my sister was here, we got together with the local Sorkin/Wander families to break bread together at Park Chow. Even though the restaurant was only running at half-capacity because a section was closed, we managed to get a table for 11 people in about 15 minutes. It was amazing.

The company was wonderful, the food was great, and everyone had a nice time (and desert from Arizmendi bakery was a lovely way to end our hike in GGP)

Taeyaerts - Paparazzo photo shoot

While my sister and her family were here, we took the opportunity to do a paparazzo photo session -- we got a lot of great shots (they are a photogenic group -- it must run in our family!)

Steppin' Out, SF Style

We went out to the park today. Nathan had fun playing with his cousin. His aunt had more fun than he did, I think.

Elena reads to Nathan

Elena is a natural with kids, and Nathan just loved hanging out with his big cousin!

Gingerbread houses at the Grove Park Inn

Mom took us to the Grove Park Inn to see the fantastic Ginger bread houses that contestants from all over the country send in to compete for the coveted "ginger bread house contest winner" title.

In all seriousness, the houses were remarkable (and the smell was delicious!) but I can't imagine anyone taking so much time to create one of these ephemeral creations!

Nathan's first petting zoo

No visit to Asheville should be considered complete without a visit to the Asheville Nature Center.

We were recently introduced to the center by my Mom, so we brought Nathan there to visit the petting zoo and see all the animals.

Nathan really enjoyed the goats, but spent most of his time screaming "moo" (total coincidence) to the very large and hairy cow (no one was allowed into his pen -- I guess his hair made it hard for him to see and he stepped on people?)

Nathan also screamed "caa caa" for most of the visit as well. Which was fitting, as there was plenty of that around.

We took a walk to the "bear" area (which was right next to the deer area and separated by only a chain link fence -- must have freaked the deer out for the first few months) where Nathan got very excited by the big furry beasts. I wish we had snapped a photo of his look of excitement (Alex saw it, I did not as Nathan was riding on my shoulders at the time!)

A Thanksgiving so nice -- we ate it twice!

6We visited my mom in Asheville, NC (we flew Delta -- our new favorite!) for Thanksgiving this year.

In order to make sure we had an opportunity to eat tooooo much (and to have time to thoroughly enjoy each other's company both at the table, and in the kitchen) we celebrated Thanksgiving "en famille" on its proper day, Thursday, and then again with my Aunt Debbie, and Aunt Betsy at Debbie's house.

What we lack in pictures we made up for in videos...which will be rolled out as time permits... Suffice to say that we had a fantastic time seeing everyone, and ate more than our share of turkey!

The Spinnaker... and Mamie Sylvia's sweater!

Robert took Linda, Alex, Nathan and I to his favorite restaurant, "The Spinnaker."

Nathan wore a very cute outfit, which was a gift from his "arriere-grand-mere" Sylvia.

Isn't he adorable?