Christmas morning at home!

This year is our first-ever Christmas morning spent in our own house. While we can’t wait to see our families, being here felt warm and new—something definitely worth repeating. After Diaz opened her gifts, we met the lovely Molina family at the local playground to let Sarah and Diaz get some fresh air in their lungs and sand in their shoes. The evolving set is here.




Diaz tries her new robe on for size

Diaz's first visit to a sports bar

Christmas Eve day. The Steelers are playing, but the game isn’t on regular TV in the Bay Area since all of the local teams are also playing. What are loyal Pittsburgh fans to do? Pack up your preschooler and take her to a sports bar at 10:30 AM.

New zoo review

We had a chance to sneak in a pre-holidays zoo visit with our friends Robert and Brent. Even though it was a bit too cold for some of the animals to come outside, we had a fun time. Diaz said that her favorite animals of the day were the dinosaurs. When questioned on this choice, she changed her answer to the “kitty cats,” more commonly referred to as African lions. A few pics are here.




You definitely don’t see this everyday

Diaz meets Santa, up close

While attending a Christmas party at the house of our dear friends, we were graced by a surprise visit from Santa! A bunch of kids were present, and were presented with presents. Fifteen minutes of wide-eyed curiosity are captured in this set.

Hunting for the perfect tree

Virtually traditionless at present, we decided to start one this year. Together with our friends Simon, Mari, and Hana, we headed down to Half Moon Bay to pluck a Christmas tree from the earth. If I remember correctly, Diaz picked the tree and we adults took turns with the saw. Our hunt was a success sure to be repeated annually. The photo set is here.

Thanksgiving weekend, 2006

Our second annual Thanksgiving dinner at the Shillings… we can’t believe it’s been a year already! As usual, Cheryl and Molly delivered quite a feast. The next day, we headed to Fairyland in Oakland with some friends to let the kids run off some steam among the crooked houses, slides, and Seven Dwarves.

Mostly, we were too busy eating, drinking, and playing with the kids to record Thursday and Friday in photographs, but a small set can be found here.




Diaz, Jack, and Owen at the Thanksgiving kid’s table



Diaz and Snow White at Fairyland

Family in Phoenix

For a year we’ve talked with Kelly’s family about meeting in the “middle” of the country to facilitate more frequent visits. As it turns out, Phoenix is a lot closer to San Francisco than Pittsburgh, but there’s a lot of Sanders family there, so Arizona is was. We’re thankful that Diaz was on the shorter flight.

Sunsets and scenery in the desert are out-of-control beautiful. I don’t think I’m ready to give up urban living, but the pebble front yards in Arizona could teach something to the white limestone front “yards” of Brooklyn and Queens.

Here’s the whole set.

Halloweek

It’s not quite Halloween, but that doesn’t mean we can’t start celebrating. We have a visit to a pumpkin patch, a pumpkin decorating session, and one Halloween party under our belts already with more to come next week.

This set is a collection in progress.




Margot, Diaz, and Sarah as The Distracted Butterflies

Diaz and friends at the de Young

San Francisco is home to the wonderful de Young museum in Golden Gate Park. It’s a rare day when three families with pre-schoolers successfully coordinate a visit to the museum. This wasn’t quite that day since we only got as far as the cafe, but we had fun nonetheless.

A small collection of pics is here.

Working the room

We can’t be sure where Diaz got her story-telling genes, but we strongly suspect that they were a gift from Kelly’s dad. And while we don’t remember what she was explaining, this set captures Diaz capturing us.

First meal out...

... in the new hood.

Pizza seems perfect for our first restaurant outing in our new SF neighborhood. And although Californians often mistake cornmeal dusted, sourdough crust for classic, Goat Hill pizza ain’t so bad.

Passing the pre-pizza time

A meal just isn’t a meal without three drinks

Eight fewer white walls

So many blues. But which one is right?

From Florida came gifts

Thanks for the shirt, Aunt Amy!

New threads for your old ass

I once heard that “reupholstery” is one of, like, two words in the whole English language where a “ph” doesn’t mean “f.” Do you know if that’s actually true?

Years ago, our cranky old cat Tasha (r.i.p.) destroyed our sofa. Although we had the brilliant realization that fixing the furniture before the cat kicked the bucket would be a waste of money, we didn’t really mean to put it off for so long after her departure.

On the bright side, without procrastination we would have never discovered the fun fabric stores in our new neighborhood, which doubles as one of San Francisco’s interior design hubs. Hopefully, we’ll get around to posting pics of the finished product.

Not for our house, but they’re fun to touch.

Faster cutting through science.

Hang your hat

We’re in. After being in contract since February, we’re finally spending our nights in our new house. A large percentage of our stuff is still in boxes, there’s painting to do, and the sofa needs to be reupholstered… but we’re still in. In fact, we've been here for a week now, but tonight is the first chance I've had to sit down with enough extra energy to chronicle anything.

A few moments in the hotel (while the house was in boxes) and with the movers are captured here.

Diaz and the aforementioned sofa

Once they stood

Some things are irresistible to a child. I’ve found that a line of standing dominos and a plate of chocolate candy are tied for first.

Alas, the fallen soldiers.

Dressing yourself is fun and easy

A few photos to mark Diaz’s sweat band phase. It was her look of choice for a week or so.

House of Sanders

We’ve been meaning to post these pictures for a while, but this moving, working, and parenting business sometimes makes your head cloudy. Anyway, Kelly’s family (sans sister) traded The Three Rivers for The Bay.

It was a great visit complete with beaches, lots of laughs, and vicious UNO games.






More photos here.

Homeward bound

It’s been 6 months since we signed the contract that will make us second-time homeowners. City red tape and inspection processes have kept us from having the luxury of an accurate closing date—we knew we were moving, but we knew not when. Until last week.

Finally, the City is happy and we’re moving in to our new home in a week. Diaz is excited about having a new room, and Kelly is hard at work crafting the color story that will define our new home.

Watercolors, Morrissey, and meatless sausage

With Kelly in Chicago attending the Pitchfork Music Festival for work (lucky duck) Don and Diaz are left with no supervision. We did eat a huge chocolate-chip cookie for dinner yesterday, but otherwise things have gone pretty well.

This morning, Diaz took her first crack at watercolors over breakfast and a soundtrack “Viva Hate.” Not exactly a typical weekend-with-dad, but it sure was fun.






Two other works are here.

Dillon Beach with the Shillings

We’ve been visiting beaches up and down the California coast since we arrived here last year. This time around, it was Dillon Beach on the boarder of Marin and Sonoma counties.




Diaz rocking the $3 shades


Kelly and Diaz where they’re happiest


Jeff takes the pets for a walk

Ahhh… jacket weather

Diaz is happy to be back in SF where it won’t be 110 degrees anytime soon.

Surf and sun. Lots and lots of sun.

The first weekend in July, we packed our bags and flew from Northern to Southern California for a few days. The first stop was Santa Monica, where the weather was great, the pool was filled with new friends, and the ocean chased Diaz until she belly laughed.





The second stop was Palm Springs where we hooked up with some friends and hid from the heat. It was July in the desert and the daily temperature hovered around 110 degrees—day and night. Diaz wasn’t terribly thrilled about this and welcomed our return to LA a couple days later.






A couple other shots are here. The flights (while only an hour each) were both a success, so more family air travel is on the horizon!

More fun with film

More B&W shots of Diaz... a couple gems. The set is here.

A perfect Saturday

Great weather. No plan. No car. Not since we left NYC have we had such a great day, all on foot.






After playing at the playground and stopping for dinner, we took in the street art. A few more pics here.

Who loves the sun?

Now that summer is here, you can find Kelly and Diaz in the garden. It’s Diaz’s job to make sure the plants are very, very well watered.






A few more pics here.

Remember film?

Don still has the same Minolta XG-M that his parents purchased about 25 years ago. It’s nice to leave the digital at home and remember how flattering film can be.

Dressed to impress

What looks good with shorts? How about an overcoat and some sweatbands. And yes, that is an inflatable pool inside of our house.

Kelly's favorite

Hey! Sara's got a pool!

Who knew? Diaz's friend Sara lives in a building with a pool! Margo, Sara, Diaz, and all the parents gather for a Mother's Day dip.

All pix by Maria



A short-lived dip in the cold-ish pool


Diaz and Sara eat pears


Margo and Diaz by the pool


Sara and Diaz take in the view

Birthday visitors

Don’s family joined us in California for a long weekend. The birthdays of Diaz and Luca are only 1 day apart, so we celebrated both all weekend long.





Rodeo sleeping bag circa Don's childhood


A few more pics here.

The cake

At our joint birthday party for Diaz (2 years) and her cousin Luca (3 years,) it seemed evident that sugar is a magnet for children. You would have thought that Diaz had never tasted cake before in her life, as the countdown went something like this:

1) We lit the candles and sang happy birthday
2) Diaz blew out the candles
3) Diaz calmly bent over the table and buried her face in the cake without a bit of shame.





A couple other pictures from the Diaz vs. Cake extravaganza are here.

Something like an Easter brunch

Easter Sunday. For us, it’s a good excuse to be around family and friends; this year we spent the day in Santa Rosa with the Shillings and Company. It was “brunch time,” but mostly we ran around and played with all of the kids.


Pics here.

Making good use of the garden

This Easter, we had a couple of Diaz’s friends from school over to ransack the nicely kept garden for plastic eggs. While the adults ate, drank, and snapped a thousand pictures, the kids collected their loot.

Chocolate was had by all and hyper-activity ensued! Pics here.

A week in Sin City

Don had to be in Las Vegas for work-- so why not bring Diaz, Kelly, and Kelly's whole Family?

pics here.

Smiles at school

School has turned out to be one of Diaz's favorite places to be-- her new friends have a lot to do with that.




Sarah and Diaz share the love