Visit from Grandpa 1

This weekend, Grandpa joined Claire and me for a farewell to California visit. This Grandpa is not to be confused with Claire's other grandpa, Papa. On the fridge she has pictures of both grandpas, and likes to tell us, "I got two grandpas. One. Two." and show us the pictures.

In just two days, we had quite a few adventures. On Saturday, Claire and Grandpa watched while I successfully completed my "gold" belt test in Taekwondo. This will be my last test, given that we are moving to Houston and my belly is starting to protest. Thanks to Grandpa's visit, I didn't have to make babysitting arrangements for my test, the logistics of which had been bothering me, since Maria lives 20 minutes away from my "dojo" by car.

Next, we went to the Palo Alto Junior Museum, which is a (free) hodgepodge of games for kids and a small zoo. Claire holds her own against the onslaught of other kids. She'll let a kid know if they are invading her turf, e.g., "No Little Girl, that's my ball." We had milkshakes and burgers at In N' Out, napped, then went on further adventures to the bookstore and finally the playground. Claire was worn out at the end of the day! When Claire was asleep, I sprung a birthday pie on Grandpa, as well as his birthday gift of Malcolm Gladwell's newest book "Outlier," which he had been interested to read.

Sunday, while Grandpa was at church, Claire and I slept soundly. When we finally got up, we went to brunch at Hobee's restaurant in Palo Alto, which I like because they cater to little kids by bringing out a fruit plate with whipped cream as soon as you sit down, crayons, and a good kid's menu. We enjoyed our breakfast and then went to the Baylands for a hike. Baylands is a fun place to go because there is plenty of space to run around, a big field where people fly model airplanes, and a bird walk. Right now there is no water, but at other times of years there is a lot of water birds around.

We had a great time with Grandpa! Check out the picks, upper left, Grandpa Visit November 2008.

Trick or Treat - Halloween 2008

This year was the first year that Claire had a sense of what was going on with Halloween. Leading up to the day, she has been fascinated by the "feo" decorations on our street - these are scary ("ugly" in Spanish) Halloween decorations that some people put up on our street. She has insisted on going for walks to see the "feo decorations" and stood, fascinated before the display of skeletons, ghosts, and gravestones. One particular house had a small line strung from door to the sidewalk along which would travel a skull/ghost making spooky noises. After we would watch she would run back home calling for mommy or daddy to pretend that we were, "Coming to get you!"

The night itself, we described the protocol - you knock, say "trick or treat," then people put candy in your basket. She was pretty excited about dressing up a like a lamb/rabbit ("conejo" in Spanish). Our dry run of the "trick or treat" routine went well, but when it came to actually going to a door, she was left speechless. She was also ambivelant about trick or treaters coming to our door. Not exactly scared but definitely wanting to hold on to mommy or daddy for the duration.

She came back with a good (small) haul of candy, which we proceeded to eat for dessert. One new candy was the pixie stick. I showed her how you can make your finger wet and then stick it in the candy. She thought it was yucky but tried it a couple times to be sure. Mini M&Ms were the most favorite, but I have to say that this might have been a dead heat with the broccoli that we were giving her at the same time.

The next day, she was ready - she made us put on her costume to do it all over again! Check out the photos (Trick or Treat 2008, link above left).