Halloween with Valerie, age 2.8

We threw a Halloween party at our house this year on Friday night the 30th, and between Valerie's Halloween parade at her school Friday morning, our party Friday night, trick or treat in downtown Mountain View on Saturday afternoon and trick or treat on our street Saturday night, I'd say we definitely maxed out Halloween this year. We never did make it to a farm to pick out pumpkins, which I wish we had found time for. Valerie kept asking to... but oh well.... next year.

I went all out decorating the house for Halloween; we had cotton spiderwebs inside and outside, red "bloody" handprints on the front door, pumpkin/spider/skeleton lanterns, a black streamer spiderweb on the kitchen ceiling, candy corn lights and a costume gallery from years past on the fireplace, purple string lights along the kitchen counter, and some caution tape-style signs outside.

I loved Halloween decorations as a kid and then stopped caring about them as an adult, but now that Valerie is old enough to start enjoying them, I'm summoning the return of my enthusiasm. I even bought balloons after I realized they are pretty much the best toy ever at her Halloween parade/party at school Friday morning. She had a ball throwing a balloon in the air and catching it for like 20 minutes.

Since Valerie wore two princess costumes this year, Rapunzel on Friday and Sleeping Beauty on Saturday, Rich and I decided to coordinate with her and be the king and queen. We ordered costumes from Amazon at the last minute (standard operations in this family) and they turned out pretty well. The party was a good time; a lot of our friends from biodesign came, and Valerie's BFF Kalinda (dressed as the fairy godmother from Cinderella) and newborn baby Cole (in scrubs to match his dad the doctor) held down the baby-and-child front.  I mixed pitchers of sangria and lighthouse lemonade but most everyone just drank beer.

I got the lighthouse lemonade recipe from my friend Sarah - it is:

Ice
Deep Eddy lemon infused vodka  (1 oz)
St Germaine (1/2 oz)
Sour mix (splash)
Fill the rest with soda water (60%)

 It was as tasty as I expected and I ended up drinking probably most of the pitcher by the end of the night and was not feeling amazing Saturday morning. Whoops.

I chopped up shallots and garlic and cilantro in the guacamole; we had chips, salsa, and caramel apple nachos which looked fancy and were easy to assemble; monster munch popcorn with peanuts, Reeses pieces and candy corn coated with candy coating; Porcini and pumpkin ale mac and cheese for the entree, and banana "ghosts" (peeled bananas with three chocolate chips stuck on them as eyes and mouth) as well as s'moreo bars for dessert. I was also going to have clementine "pumpkins" but could not find clementines at the store so I got three navel oranges instead, which did not peel easily enough for me to make them look like pumpkins. Everything came out great, although I tried to melt white chocolate chips in the microwave for the white "drizzle" on the apple nachos and that was a total fail. It melted kind of clear and you couldn't see it on the apples. I'll have to get white candy coating for that next time. And also not make monster munch again because I ate far too much of that after there was a ton left over.

Halloween Saturday night was a HUGE success. We weren't sure what to expect because I couldn't find any official trick or treat times online, but our street was packed with trick or treaters between 6:30 and 7:30, and a lot of the houses on our street decorated and got really into it. I unfortunately wasn't prepared with enough candy - I had bought popcorn packs and ring pops to hand out, and we had a bunch of lollipops so I thought we'd be okay, but it was crazy.

 Our next door neighbor is an older woman, and her daughter Pam, who is probably in her 40s, came down for Halloween and decked out their yard with all sorts of crazy stuff (flying bat, talking skeletons, moving ghosts, etc) and dressed up as a witch in full green face paint. We went over there first, and Valerie talked to her for a while (and was terrified of all the moving/talking decorations) and the witch gave her a huge handful of candy. Then Valerie was officially obsessed with her. She wanted to stay at her house all night. We made her walk down the rest of the street trick or treating, and after each house she asked, "can I go back to the witch's house now? " So funny. I think she enjoyed trick or treating, but she mostly wanted to hang out at the witch's house all night.

getting candy from the witch

She still asks if the witch is there every time we walk by the house next door. This lady made quite an impression on her.

She was soooo cute trick or treating. She was a little shy, and couldn't remember in what order to say "trick or treat" and "thank you." At one house I said, "what do you say?" and she said "trick-or-treat-thank-you." Several times she said "thank you" when they opened the door, and then "trick or treat" at the end. Then around 7-7:15 she wanted to go home because her candy bag was getting too heavy for her to carry. She wasn't as intent to get as much candy as possible like I expected. So sweet.

We ended up giving out almost all of Valerie's candy to the later trick or treaters after she tapped out early. Luckily she didn't notice, so that actually worked out pretty well. She has a reasonable amount of candy left rather than a whole bag full. We let her have skittles, nerds and M&M's, and she was definitely on a sugar high. I've been trying to limit her to about 1-2 pieces of candy per day since then. She wakes up every morning and asks for a lollipop so I have to hold her off until after dinner. Lollipops are still her favorite candy, although she is yet to meet a candy she doesn't like.

I was surprised when I asked her what her favorite part of Halloween is, and she did not say candy - she said pumpkins. Then I asked what her second favorite part is? and she said spiderwebs. Then third favorite was spiders. So here I thought she would say candy or costumes, but she apparently likes pumpkins and spiderwebs. Haha.

Out of all the great memories, my favorite part about Halloween this year was the amazing warm California weather! We didn't even need jackets to trick or treat! 80 degrees on Halloween! I'll always remember it fondly.

Fogarty Winery Dinner, Pescadero, Time Change Fakeout

It was a busy October for the Timm family! We kicked off the weekend of the 24th and 25th with a crazy mishap-filled Friday night adventure.

 The biodesign program hosted its annual dinner at the Thomas J. Fogarty Winery for all the fellows, faculty, sponsors, and their spouses on Friday night October 23rd, so we had secured our babysitter for the evening and were looking forward to a fancy date night out. I picked up Valerie from school, made sure the house was clean and started getting myself ready, and then the misadventures began.

I had asked the sitter to come at 6, and at 6:10 there was no sign of her, so I sent her a text to make sure she was still coming.  She responded, "Hi! I'm so sorry! I'm at the hospital! I fractured my ankle. I wasn't even thinking" ... so we began to panic. First I called our other sitter, who was just leaving to go to her school dance. No dice there. Then we thought of Rich's colleague with a one-year-old son, who also had a babysitter for the evening; maybe we could share their sitter? We were brainstorming options when our sitter said, "I just talked to the doctor and will be leaving soon. I can be at your house in 20 minutes." WHEW! She would be a half hour late, but at least we could still make it. Crisis averted!

Rich had called Andrew, his colleague with a little boy, and he and his wife were looking for a ride to the winery, so since we were running late anyway, we agreed to give them a ride. Rich told them we would probably leave around 7.

Our sitter showed up just as she said, about 6:35, and seemed to be walking just fine, thankfully. Then we waited for Andrew and his wife Katie, who were taking an Uber to our house. We got in the car so we were ready to go, and they came a few minutes after 7, so we headed out. The event started at 7, and it would take about 40 minutes to get to the winery, so we were running about 45 minutes late but hoped to still make it before the sit-down dinner started.

We had just started the winding ascent into the mountains when the gas light came on and we realized we needed to stop for gas, and there would be no more gas stations on our route. We would have to turn around, drive 10 minutes back to the main road, get gas, and start again. At this point we had to laugh at the comical progression of the evening thus far. Would we ever make it to this doomed dinner?!?  And why didn't we bring some hard liquor!?

We found gas (unfortunately, no liquor), and started back into the mountains, with a new goal arrival time a few minutes past 8:00.

This time, we made it all the way there. It was pitch black out, but we could see this was an absolutely breathtaking spot with an incredible view of the bay from the mountains. We walked around for a bit trying to find where we were supposed to go, and made it just after everyone had taken their seats for dinner.

We were sorry to have missed the delicious wines at the cocktail hour, but so relieved we made it! The rest of the night was wonderful. They featured an excellent chardonnay (which I usually don't like) and pinot noir, and a server brought me a fantastic green pea soup when I asked if the regular soup contained meat (it was made with beef broth). She asked what I would like for the entree, since the regular entree was a steak and halibut duo. She could either bring a vegetarian meal, or a double halibut - I went for the double halibut, and I am so glad I did!  The fish was melt-in-your-mouth perfection. I was so impressed; they are clearly accustomed to dietary restrictions around here!

The food, wine, atmosphere and company were outstanding. It turned out to be a great evening after we finally made it there. We definitely want to go back for a tasting one day so we can see the place in daylight! What a beautiful setting.

We had nothing planned on Saturday, so we did our usual workout shuffle in the morning; Rich went to the gym and I went to hot yoga, and we had a lazy afternoon of napping, relaxing and straightening up. After Valerie woke up we decided to drive to the beach at Pescadero for a quick hour before the sun set and then grab some dinner before driving back.

By the time we got to Pescadero it was after 5 and the temperature was dropping fast. The wind was blowing and I wished I had a hat, coat, scarf and pants. Sweet Valerie was happy in her bathing suit, running back and forth across the sand, until she wanted to cuddle in my lap under the towel at the end. Rich was in shorts and thought it was fine. Minnesotans.

After an hour I'd had my fill of shivering and we headed into town to find dinner. There were approximately 3 options, as Pescadero is an extremely tiny one-stoplight town. We chose the Pescadero Country Store, which looked cute from the front and had a sign that said "pizza." We had some tasty brick oven pizza, split a large beer and then the apple pie a la mode for dessert, which turned out to be HUGE and mostly crust. Then we went home, full and happy.

Sunday we had a full day planned, and I intended to go to hot yoga at 9 am before our lunch date in San Jose around 11, but it was not meant to be. The alarm clock next to our bed is one Rich had long before I met him, and it's programmed to automatically adjust to daylight savings time - but on the old schedule, before it got moved out a week. And Sunday, a week before the time change, was the day the clock thought it should fall back. This has been happening for years now and I still haven't learned to anticipate it. I laid around all morning, thinking I had time before I had to leave at 8:45, and then it hit me while looking at my phone that it was an hour later than I thought. ARGGG!!! I missed the 9 am yoga class so I went out for a short jog instead.

We drove down to San Jose at lunchtime to see our friends Anjuli and James, their daughter Kalinda (Valerie's same-age bff / sister from another mister) and their new house. It was a perfect afternoon. The girls ran shrieking around the house and the backyard, drawing with chalk, pouring water into cups, dressing up in tutus and having a ball together.

Our hosts made a most awesome lunch of wood plank salmon on the grill, salad with grilled carrots, bread and butter and fresh raspberries. It was all soo yummy, and even Valerie, the pickiest eater this side of the Mississippi, devoured every bite on her plate!  She does love salmon, carrots, bread and butter and raspberries, so the menu was perfect. It was so great to see them in the last few weeks before their new baby arrives, and so generous of them to offer to host us in the midst of getting settled in their house and preparing for the baby. We can't wait to meet the new addition when she's born!

We brought an extremely worn-out Valerie home for a late afternoon nap before our dinner guests arrived; one of Rich's colleagues and her boyfriend who was in town visiting from Belgium came over and we had a lovely evening talking and breaking bread with them (in spite of constant interruptions by Valerie until she went to bed).

I made a sweet potato/apple/pumpkin soup topped with spiced candied nuts and a dollop of goat cheese, grilled cheese sandwiches with apple, and caprese salad with balsamic glaze. I had a minor disaster and burned some of the spiced candied nuts but was able to salvage enough for dinner. Hate that! Burned wasted food just gets me right where it hurts, every time, and of course I feel the need to go through every last nut, saving what's salvageable. All that time spent sorting through the mess is the worst.

Anyway though, dinner came out pretty well, and Véronique and Moïse brought the most spectacular pear and Belgian chocolate tart with vanilla ice cream for dessert. My weird child did not like the tart and just wanted ice cream. I can only assume she will eventually grow out of her frustrating toddler-y food preferences. Lord knows I only wanted chicken fingers with honey mustard for the first twelve years or so of my life so there is hope for her.

It was another superb weekend with a few snafus thrown in to keep things interesting!

Jackie and Zach and Adam and Justina visit

After our dinner party last Friday night, we had a full weekend of visitors ahead! Our friends Jackie and Zach from Cincinnati were driving down the California coast for their vacation and they came to stay with us for a night to kick off their trip. They didn't arrive til around 5:30, so Saturday afternoon we drove down to Happy Hollow Park & Zoo in San Jose and Valerie got to have a super blast riding rides, seeing animals and jumping in the bounce house since Happy Hollow was having a fall festival. She rode the merry-go-round, the kiddie swings, the mini putts (which are cars... not sure why it's called that), and of course, Danny the Dragon, which we waited maybe half an hour to ride. We watched a live drumming show, climbed on the playground, and she had a hot dog and chocolate milk for lunch. I mean, best day ever, pretty much.

waiting to ride Danny the Dragon

We came back home in time to make sangria for Jackie and Zach while Valerie took her nap, and they brought delicious farm-stand strawberries with them so we ate strawberries and drank sangria while they told us about their crazy drive up from LA and stay at Yosemite the night before.

After Valerie woke up we headed to Fiesta Vallarta in Los Altos for a Mexican dinner on their outdoor heated patio. What a great place, I'm so glad we discovered it!  We'll have to go back there. We had a pitcher of margaritas, fresh guacamole, yummy mexican food, live music and views of their fish tank. It was perfect for kids, Valerie devoured her quesadilla and checked out the fish tank. Then we came back home and sang happy birthday to Zach and had cupcakes and ice cream and crashed pretty early.

Sunday morning, Jackie and I had mimosas (apple for me, Pom for her) and we took a few pictures before they left to meet some family for brunch. We thought it was fun to take some pictures in our dual convertibles since they had rented one for their drive and how often do you have two convertibles together for a photo op?! Right?!

 Soon after they left, Rich's brother Adam and his wife Justina arrived. They had been in San Francisco for a wedding and came to stay with us Sunday night before flying back home on Monday. Perfect timing for us to get to see them, and for them to come see our house! We had leftover chili and cornbread for lunch and then took Valerie for a walk around the 3-mile loop at the Stanford Dish. It was a perfectly clear day for a walk. Valerie was a champ for the first half, running ahead of us most of the way, but then she hit a wall about halfway through, around the time we reached the dish, and was a crying, fussing hot mess for the last mile or so. We made the right move bringing a stroller this time, and plenty of water, snacks and lollipops, but she needed a nap and refused to sleep in the stroller. We weren't terribly successful calming her down and begging her to patiently wait til we got home for her nap.

When we made it back it was naptime for everyone, and then we got ready to drive up to Half Moon Bay Brewing Co for dinner (our favorite place, right by the bay)! We love the heated patio there so much. Unfortunately, when we got there, it was raining and the patio was a no-go. We sat inside, and were less than impressed by slow service since the place was packed full. It happened to be the weekend of Half Moon Bay Pumpkin Festival and people were everywhere. All in all, poorly planned and executed, though the truffle fries were addictive as always. We headed back home for margaritas and a short dance party with Valerie, and hung out for a bit before it was time to crash. It didn't really feel like Sunday night, too much excitement!

What a super fun, packed weekend and such a treat to spend it with family and friends who came thousands of miles (for other reasons, but also conveniently to see us! haha). We count ourselves so lucky to have such wonderful family and friends who we always enjoy seeing.

Festive Fall Dinner Party

We had such a fun weekend last weekend! It got off to a great start on Friday night with our newly married friends Angela and Tushar, who came over for dinner. Rich went to grad school at MIT with Angela and we have loved living close by her this year! They have had a busy few months getting married, moving in together and traveling to Seattle and Taipei so we look forward to seeing more of them when their travel schedule lightens.
I planned a festive fall themed menu for our dinner and it came out quite delicious if I say so myself! I made drunken pumpkin chili, pumpkin cornbread with honey pecan butter, salad with apple, pecans and blue cheese, and honeycrisp apple sangria, and we had mini cupcakes from Sprinkles Cupcakes for dessert.

I was going to have shredded cheese and cut-up avocado as sides for the chili, but that day I discovered the cheese was moldy and the avocado wasn't ripe yet, so no dice on those. We did have sour cream on the side at least.

I made the chili on Thursday so it had a whole day for the flavors to meld in the fridge and I thought it came out quite good. I threw in all kinds of ingredients; I'm not sure if I can remember everything that went into it!  Chili is always a smorgasbord of all the fresh vegetables, grains and legumes I have handy. I chopped an onion, a bell pepper, a tomato, three carrots, and half a large sweet potato, and started sauteing those. I added two cans of chickpeas, two cans of black beans, the remainder of a bag of quinoa, some oat bran, a can of pumpkin puree, an Oktoberfest beer, a jar of tomato sauce, some Tofurky kielbasa, and some water for the quinoa and oat bran to soak up. For spices I added chili powder, cumin, coriander, oregano, garlic powder, salt and pepper. I'm sure there were more ingredients but that's all I remember now! After a few hours simmering on the stove it smelled warm and inviting.

I failed to take a picture of the chili - this one is from Sweet Pea's Kitchen. It looked kind of like this.

While the chili simmered I also made the honey pecan butter (which is just honey, butter, and pecans blended together in a blender or food processor) and the salad dressing, which was inspired by the best salad I shared a while back.

¼ cup vinegar (any type) - I used apple cider vinegar
½ cup chopped parsley  - I used half parsley and half basil
¼ cup red onion/shallot, chopped
2 cloves garlic
1/3 cup sugar - I used some agave nectar, less than 1/3 cup
½ cup oil
½ tsp. oregano
Salt & pepper to taste

It's also just all thrown in the blender. My blender got a workout on Thursday. 

On Friday, I made the pumpkin cornbread. I don't bake very often and I hate the mess of flour, so I decided to try grinding oats in the blender to make oat flour instead of using all-purpose flour for a healthier twist. It was a success!  I can't wait to try making all kinds of whole grain flours this way. It was super easy, and I didn't have to buy flour! I used this recipe from sweet pea's kitchen and I would definitely make it again. It was easy to throw together, pretty healthy and TASTY with the honey pecan butter. Although, to be totally honest, that honey pecan butter makes EVERYTHING you put it on taste amazing. My friend Lindsey introduced me to that idea a few years ago and I have been keeping it in my back pocket ever since. 

honey pecan butter

pumpkin cornbread - picture by Sweet Pea's Kitchen

I also made the sangria, and rimmed the glasses with cinnamon and sugar. My favorite party trick! Rimming glasses is so easy and really takes the fancy factor up a notch. I used this recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction and of course modified it to match what I had since I did not have brandy. Instead I added some triple sec and cranberry vodka. 

We had a blast catching up with Angela and Tushar, and hearing stories about boarding school days and learning Chinese growing up. Always a great time! 

We had the red velvet and caramel apple mini cupcakes... mmmm

Nana and Papa visit

We had our first official visitors two weekends ago (not counting friends who stopped by while in town for work) when my mom and stepdad came to stay for three days. Boy had we missed them and were we happy to see them! We FaceTime often and I'm so glad we have that technology but nothing compares to being together.

I picked them up Wednesday night from the airport and Valerie got to stay up a little later than usual to open her presents and show Nana and Papa her twirling before bed. She loves her new ballerina outfit - leotard, tights and skirt - which is perfect since she demands to wear a pink tutu 90% of the time. It's very similar to an outfit I had as a child and becoming more apparent every day that she is my mini me. I loved twirly dresses, ballerinas and all things pink and sparkly much the same, although she also loves trains and construction equipment, which I did not. She got a hefty dose of her dad's personality too, but the similarities to 3-year-old me are uncanny.

Thursday morning I woke up to Valerie crying in my room, despondent that she couldn't find Nana and Papa anywhere - in other words, they weren't in their bed. "Where's Nana and Papa?!?!"
 "They're here! Don't worry! Let's go find them!"
We found them sitting outside on the deck having tea and coffee, and Nana was able to console Valerie.
 We made chocolate chip pumpkin pancakes for breakfast with Valerie's "help," and then we all walked her to school for a couple hours so she could take her nap while we went out for lunch and were surprised when she had a raving meltdown at dropoff. She did NOT want to say goodbye to Nana and Papa. I did not really see that coming since she never has a problem getting dropped off at school and was in good spirits the whole way there. But, we made our escape and enjoyed a fantastic lunch at Oren's Hummus Shop to kick off the weekend. We had the sampler platter with 3 kinds of eggplant, carrots, beets, yogurt cheese, and hummus and pita, and were all flailing with rapture of the taste-buds. We got the large hummus and pita to-go and wondered if they ship their hummus across the country.

After lunch we picked up Valerie (who had recovered from her abandonment) and drove up to San Francisco to have dinner on the pier overlooking the bay and Alcatraz. It happened to be Blue Angels practice downtown for Fleet Week, so we watched (and had our ears blown out by) jets swooping over and around us on our drive through the city. Valerie was not a fan of the blasting jet noises. Once we secured parking, for a mere thousand dollars per minute (slight exaggeration), we walked around the Maritime National Historical Park watching the fighter jets and the people. I hadn't ever been up to this northernmost point of San Francisco; it is such a cool area! I wish we had had more time to walk around and explore, but we had to make our dinner reservation at Fog Harbor Fish House, which was about a 15-minute walk from the park.

It was lovely! We got a table next to the huge windows overlooking the bay and enjoyed delicious seafood and a delectable hibiscus martini for me. Mom and I ordered shrimp and crab Louie salads, and wished we had split one; they were absolutely gigantic. I somehow still managed to finish mine, unnecessarily. One pound of lettuce and one pound of bay shrimp heavier, I had to be rolled back to the car. I forgot about my full belly, though, when I saw the sky.  It was an incredible, epic sunset over the bay as we walked through the pier back toward the car, all bright red and orange and pink.

Rich was flying back from Houston and arriving to the airport around 8, just as we were driving back home, so we stopped at the airport on our way to pick him up. It was a clown car situation fitting the 5 of us with Valerie in her carseat in the Mustang, but Mom and I squeezed into the back on either side of the carseat and white knuckled through the 30 minute ride home. My hips were compressed so hard my foot was asleep when we got home but we survived.

Friday we had planned to keep Valerie for the day, and were very glad of our decision after the dropoff debacle of Thursday, although some of us regretted it by the end of a day full of whining and crappy behavior.

We went to Tootsie's at the Stanford Barn for lunch so Rich could meet us and enjoyed the lovely outdoor seating there in spite of the hospital construction across the street. They didn't have a lot of kid options, so Valerie got to have chocolate pot de creme and french fries for lunch (and I helped her finish the pot de creme. Sometimes moms have to make sacrifices). We ate our lunch, were graced with a brief 20-minute appearance by Rich, and then headed out for a quick driving tour of the Stanford campus - which was a fail, because I drove us to Menlo Park trying to find campus, and then we had to get a melting Valerie home for her nap.

She was too excited to nap, so after waiting a while in vain for her to fall asleep, we finally got back in the car for an outing to the Stanford Shopping Center to get new shoes for Valerie, who was still squeezing her now - size 8 feet into size 7 shoes. It's become something of a beloved tradition for Nana and Papa to take her shopping for shoes so this was a highly anticipated shopping trip.

We hit several roadblocks trying to find girls' shoes. First we tried Macy's. We went to the top floor to the kids section to be told that all shoes were on the bottom floor with ladies' shoes. We found ladies' shoes, where there were no kids' shoes to be found. Next we tried Neiman Marcus, but quickly ascertained a similar lack of kids' shoes (and I discovered that place is a little too fancy for my blood! Shew!). Our last hope was Nordstrom, so we made our way there, and were relieved to find... drumroll please..... girls' shoes. They had a pretty good selection of some promising sparkly and pink kicks but Valerie was in a mood by this time. We had a very patient salesgirl help us try on several sizes of several styles and finally found a pair of bright-pink-and-orange sneakers that we all agreed were cute and fit right. Valerie kept trying to run off by the end so we wrapped up in a hurry. The salesgirl let her choose a balloon (pink, of course) and we left to find Papa.

On our way back through the mall we saw the American Girl store and thought it would be fun to look around in there. Valerie LOVED it and I love how sweet and innocent she still is in stores. She doesn't seem to quite fully grasp yet the concept of buying things. She was happy as a clam playing with the dolls and accessories in the store. She pushed them around in the doll stroller, stacked them in the doll wagon and fed the baby doll. Then we told her it was time to put the dolls back and get going. She was so good!  She didn't ask to buy anything; I think she just thought the store was a place to play with dolls. So sweet.

We made one last stop then, at Sprinkles Cupcakes. A sprinkle cupcake for Valerie and a red velvet for the adults to share! Yum. She devoured all the icing off the top (definitely my child). And then the combination of sugar and no nap produced her whiniest behavior yet for a most pleasant rest of the  evening.

here you can see the new shoes

We headed from there to Local Union 271 for happy hour, where Rich would meet us when he finished working. Right away, I placed Valerie in a chair while we waited for a server to bring over a booster seat, and she somehow pushed it over backwards and fell splat on the ground. I think it scared her more than anything; she cried hard but pretty quickly calmed down, her booster came and we ordered much needed sangrias and cocktails. I was busting out lollipops, youtube on my phone, and every weapon in my arsenal trying to keep her pacified for our short meal.

We headed home for an early bedtime for The Tired One and got to relax for a while before Rich and I went out for our first real "date" since we moved here. Mom and Paul were kind enough to stay home while Valerie slept and we went out for a late dinner just the two of us.

We went to Evvia, a highly rated Greek restaurant in downtown Palo Alto with lots of expensive wines. We had a delicious mushroom appetizer special and crispy zucchini cakes, and I especially savored the really good olive oil that came with the bread. Rich got the lamb that all the reviewers rave about, and I had more appetizers for my meal; the roasted cauliflower and grilled artichoke and eggplant skewer. I loved all of it, but Rich was less than impressed, and we were definitely feeling a bit gouged by the wine prices. I would love to eat there again when someone else is paying. Ha!

We had a big day at the beach planned on Saturday for our last day with Nana and Papa, who left that night on the redeye. We drove down to the boardwalk at Santa Cruz and had a perfect lunch at Ideal Bar & Grill right on the beach and then we hung out on the beach for a couple hours. Valerie was in heaven, chasing the surf, playing in the sand, twirling around and generally being adorable. It flew by all too fast and we walked down toward the boardwalk and then back to the car to head home.

Whew!  We squeezed in as much fun as we could in three short days and started our countdown til we see them again at Thanksgiving. What a great visit we had! We miss them already!

Sara and Dannon's wedding in Excelsior Springs, MO

This weekend we left California for the first time since arriving two months ago for a family wedding in Kansas City, MO. It was Valerie's first wedding and wonderful to see family, including some we hadn't seen in over a year.

We were there when Sara and Dannon got engaged in Big Sky, Montana, last July and it was so much fun to be there for their wedding as well. Sara was a gorgeous, glowing bride and we all had a lovely time, though it was bittersweet to see her walk down the aisle without her father, who passed away of cancer in February of 2014. There's something about a dad being able to give away his daughter and dance with her at her wedding that is especially poignant to me now that I have a daughter.  Life can be so cruel. But Sara and Dannon were surrounded by love and supportive family and friends and we knew her dad's love for her remained on that beautiful day.

here comes the bride

It was sunny, bright and clear, with a crisp early fall chill in the air. I went for a short walk before the ceremony and saw some flowers I couldn't resist snapping pictures of with my phone; the light was just perfect. The ceremony and reception were at the Elms Hotel and Spa in Excelsior Springs and it was a gorgeous setting.

Valerie and Grandma before the ceremony

 Valerie was the most excited to spend time with her cousin Aubrey who is about a year younger and was the flower girl. She spent most of the ceremony asking "Where did Aubrey go!?" though she was also very happy to spend time with her grandparents Opa, Tutu, Grandma and Noi and rotated between their laps.

waiting for the ceremony with Kelly, Whitney, Opa and Tutu

coloring with Grandma

she loves her cousin Aubrey!

too cute

She filled up on phyllo-wrapped brie appetizers as we waited for dinner and dancing -- she could not WAIT to get on the dance floor! As anticipated, she loved every minute and danced her little heart out. I thought she might make it all the way to the end of the reception at 11 pm since it would only feel like 9 pm Pacific (her usual bedtime), but she wore herself out and asked to go to bed around 9:30 so Rich took her up to bed.

at our table with Tutu, Opa and Whitney

She sure loved her first wedding experience!  I asked her on our way home what her favorite part of our trip was and she said "Dancing!"  No surprise.

may I cut in?

dancing with Noi as Grandma looks on

 On Sunday we drove into Kansas City for brunch at Chaz on the Plaza in the Country Club Plaza area before our flight home. It was a pretty chilly and overcast day but we lucked into the perfect brunch scenario. The restaurant has live jazz on Sundays until 1 pm and we arrived at 1:30, so although we missed the jazz, we were the only diners there and had the most beautiful private table all to ourselves! Rich had the lobster benedict on fried green tomatoes with caviar, I had the smoked salmon benedict and a mimosa and Valerie devoured pancakes and sausage. We were three happy campers!

It was another successful trip with Valerie, who is getting better and better at traveling. As long as I have all the essentials (pacifiers, water, crayons, snacks, and phone/tablet for shows) she is generally very well behaved and a pleasure to have along.

We will have great memories of this weekend and wish Sara and Dannon a lifetime of health and happiness together!