Giving Thanks for Family Time

In addition to Thanksgiving weekend, we have had some nice family time lately despite busy school schedules.  We also get tons of pictures from Nana or Grandma during the day with updates of Lucy's activities.  

Thanksgiving at Nana's house

Visiting the reindeer and ostrich chicks at the Academy of Sciences

 Technically this is Nana's tree from a lot on Moraga, but it really looks like we were roughing it!

And the SI Santa party started our transition into December - a month of parties and more family time!

Best of November

Here are some brief highlights from the month of November

First, we voted.  Tommy escorted me and Lucy got to take a walk with Nana

Tom, Tommy, and Lucy all had the day off for Veterans Day, so they traveled to Santa Clara to visit Papa Tom and Arlo.

Lucy has been working very hard in her ballet and tap class.  We're looking forward to her first performance later in December.

After ballet, she switches back to her alter ego...

As for Tommy, we took the season off of a team sport so he has continued his gymnastics, moving up to Level 2, and participating in after school activities at school. This fall he did swimming, drumming, Legos, and a science workshop.

His class was split into two groups to create projects for the Science Fair.  Here's Tommy in front of his group's project.

In other family silliness...

We got side by side haircuts

Watch weekend cartoons side by side

She has been watching Tangled quite a bit.  I think Brown Bear is in the tower here.

This is how Tommy occupies himself with Nana's fridge magnets.

Someone is excited for it to be December...

Bear Birthdays

Yesterday Tommy declares that today would be Sam the teddy bear's birthday. Lucy then declared yesterday to be Brown Bear's birthday. And so today we had a teddy bear birthday party!

Davis

I remember that I read the email in the faculty workroom at SI.  Teaching summer school or getting ready for my first year teaching... The subject read, "Tim and Sara are expecting...." and the big reveal on the inside was "... a puppy!"

That puppy turned out to be the first of our brood of dogs.  In his youth, Davis was a snooty purebred who had little of the gratitude that the rescue dogs came with.  I got to spend a lot of time with him as a puppy since I was living in the city by myself and Tim and Sara took me in quite a bit.  I used to hide at their house during lunch during my first year of teaching since I was so freaked out and nobody talked to me at first.  Davis would ride shotgun in my car through the drive thru at Burger King.  I'd never had a puppy and I learned a lot from Davis.  As entitled as he was, Davis always opened his home to dogs and children that came his way.  Like Tim, Davis couldn't say no to a new playmate.

Even when we added all these dogs and all these kids to the mix, I always tried to give Davis some special love when I came over.  I will miss him very much and I know Cali will too.

I know Davis lived a long and happy life because the puppy pictures I have of him are all on actual printed film.  He predates my digital camera pics...