Mmmm... Limoncello

After an eclectic dinner at our Cooking Club, the hostess, Christina, pulled out one of my favorite digestifs... Limoncello! Dinner was really good (as usual), but for me this was the icing on the cake. I have loved limoncello ever since I discovered it in Italy a few years ago. Christina served it to us in an assortment of beautiful little crystal glasses that were all different. I thought they were so nice and the perfect thing to sip this delectable digestif in. It was a nice end to a really enjoyable evening. Next time I host and I've already promised a tasting of honey rum from the Canary Islands... another favorite digestif of mine. Maybe we have started a tasty tradition. :)

Birthday Buddies

At our regular Friday play group Maddie and her birthday buddy, Harper, were both going crazy for the activity table set up in the living room. I just love how inquisitive they look. I love their expressions. I can almost hear them thinking... "Oh, look at this.", "Cool! Did you see this?", "Oh yes, that is very interesting.", "Oh and check this out!" They are so serious.... it is adorable! :)

Cheers!

Tonight I hosted my first Wine Club meeting. We met at a local wine bar called Savvy Cellar in Redwood City. I had been a bit nervous to host, but happily it was a big success! It was by far my favorite Wine Club meeting to date! The wine and conversation were flowing and nobody wanted to leave. At the bar there were big piles of corks which I love. I started collecting wine corks when we lived in Europe in hopes that one day I will be able to turn them into something for our bar (when we buy a house). To me they represent all the good times shared with friends over the years, which is really what life is all about! :)

Cloud gazing

I'm a cloud gazer. I've always been fascinated with clouds and their fleetingness, one minute you see an amazing cloud formation and the next it is gone, transformed into something different. I love a good storm too. In Geneva we had some amazing storms with the most incredible thunder and lightning I have ever seen (and I used to live in Virginia where there are some really good storms). California just doesn't seem to get very impressive storms, but I can always do a little cloud gazing. :)

Checking out the neighborhood

I feel bad for our cat, Scout. We live in a condo and there is no yard for her to roam around in or explore. The closest she gets these days is our porch, where she likes to spend time checking out the neighborhood. I rarely see her sitting on the porch from down on street level so when I saw her there after getting back from a walk with Maddie, I had to snap her picture. Hopefully one day in the not too distant future we will be in a house with a nice big yard for Scout to enjoy. :)

Favorite things

Ceiling fans usually aren't on people's "favorite things" lists, but it sure is on Maddie's! I had kind of forgotten how much she likes them until the other day when we were out to eat with on old high school friend and she was going crazy for the fans in the restaurant. This morning we laid on the bed and watched the ceiling fan go around which we used to do when she was younger. She shrieked with glee and laughed and laughed. I love to see that she still gets so much joy out of it and she hasn't grown out of this adorable stage just yet. I took this picture at night with low lighting. I like the way the shadow falls across the ceiling.

Self portrait

Okay, so I meant to do a self portrait way earlier in the year, but I guess mid-February is still pretty good. Hopefully I won't look TOO much older when I do this again later in the year. Let's just hope I'm getting a little more sleep by then! ;)

Date night

Tonight Gary and I celebrated a belated Valentine's Day with a long overdue date night. Believe it or not this was our very first date night since Maddie was born! It's pretty sad, but we realized the last time the two of us were out to eat together alone was last January in a little town in France (that was over a year ago), just before I was put in the hospital on bed rest. Tonight's date wasn't anything over the top, just dinner and a movie. But for me it was one of our best dates yet. We saw Slumdog Millionaire and ate at a little Italian place we ate at on one of our very first dates almost six years ago. Très romantique!

A new car (for now)

Today our 4-Runner wouldn't start. After an unsuccessful jump and a call to AAA it was determined that our starter was kaput. We ended up with this loaner car, a Yaris, which Gary can barely fit into, but at least it starts! ;)

The start of a beautiful friendship...

Today Maddie and I joined Lori and Ari for an afternoon walk and a little shopping. The weather was perfect for a lazy afternoon strolling around and exploring downtown San Mateo. Ari slept for most of our outing and Maddie was taking everything in which you can see in this picture... something off to the side seems to have caught her attention. This kid doesn't want to miss a thing! She's a lot like her mom. ;)

Sunny days are here again!

I bought this book for Maddie today. She seems to really like the soft books I've bought for her in the past and this one was so cute! I also thought the title really described our day today. First, the sun came out (which I love, even though I love the rain too) and second, Maddie and I spent the day with my best friend's family who are some of my favorite folks! We lunched at their house in San Bruno and had a fantastic time laughing and catching up! It was a sunny day and we went out to play. :)

Reflections of the season

With all the snow falling in the mountains of course there was also a lot of rain back home. Even though it means being inside a bit more, I must say it is a welcome sight since we really need all the rain we can get! I like the way the tree is reflected in this puddle and thought it captured the feeling of winter here lately.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

Monday was the last day of our holiday weekend but instead of relaxing we were anxious to get home. Not only had the storm dumped a lot of snow (and it was still falling) but we wanted to get a jump on all the other folks heading down the hill. We were scrambling to leave by nine, just in time for Maddie's morning nap. Before we left I took a few minutes to walk around the neighborhood to get a few shots of the snow but after I got home and uploaded the pictures, nothing seemed too interesting. Oh well, at least we made pretty good time getting back. We were home by two with almost no tears! :)

Smile! (Please?)

It snowed pretty hard today so Gary and the rest of the gang decided to skip skiing and hang out near the cabin instead. (Turns out that was a smart choice as we found out later most of the lifts were closed due to high winds.) It was a perfect day to introduce Maddie to the snow! So we bundled her all up in her new snowsuit, trekked out to a nearby sledding hill and snapped some shots. Well, the poor girl was exhausted after a rough night of not sleeping and didn't want any part of it! The look on her face says it all. We will try again later, but these first pics of her in the snow will for sure be in the baby book. I just hope her opinion of the snow changes, because as she gets older we plan on spending lots of winter weekends up in the mountains!

A little slice of heaven

One of my very favorite things in life is strapping on my beloved snow board and surfing down a mountain of fresh powder. I just LOVE IT! The coolness of the air, the snow speeding beneath my feet, the freshness of the outdoors, spending the day with friends... I just love everything about it. I used to spend a lot of time in the snow, but these last couple years have been vastly different. Last year I was pregnant so I missed my first ski season in almost 20 years! And with Maddie being so young, today may be the only day I get to board this year (but maybe not). Saturday was my day to hit the slopes (Gary gets Sunday), so I took full advantage and boarded as many runs as possible. Yeah I was tired, but a very happy tired!

The end of a long day...

It's the start of the President's Day holiday weekend and we headed up to the snow! I was really excited for Maddie to see the snow for the first time. I was also looking forward to a little snowboarding, especially since I was on bed rest for most of last winter and the year before that the snow was pretty dismal in Europe. But we had to get there first! The journey wasn't easy for any of the cars in our group. At one point one of the cars chains had fallen off, another was lost somewhere near Stockton, and our 4-wheel drive was acting up. Oh yeah, and Maddie had been screaming for the past two hours. The drive was rough, but after seven hours we arrived! This picture of our truck safely in the driveway (all three cars finally made it) was the highlight of the day. The weekend can only get better from here. :)

Last minute packing...

Thursdays are busy enough, but today was even busier trying to get everything together for our trip to Tahoe this weekend. We leave in the morning and as usual, I've waited until the last minute to pack. It's even worse this time because I'm packing for Maddie's first trip to the snow. I'm not sure exactly what to bring for her, but I am sure I've completely over packed for just three days. Hopefully it will all fit! I was so busy with all of this that I looked up at the clock tonight and realized it was five minutes to midnight and I hadn't taken a single picture all day! I grabbed the first thing I saw, a stack of books I'd set aside to pack for our trip and took a few shots. Not great, but at least it was on time! Can you tell what kind of books are Maddie's favorite? The touchy feely "That's Not My..." series. We have six now and four of them are going with us. She just loves them!

So nice to meet you

My dear friend and college roommate, Lori is a mom for the second time! Little Ari is not quite two weeks old yet and I'm so happy to have had the chance to meet him while he is still so little. Our friend, Katy also was there with her baby, Dylan who is just two months old. Maddie was the elder of the group by far! I can hardly remember Maddie that small, but she was, and it wasn't that long ago. It really does go by fast!

It was a Gymboree day!

Tuesdays are Gymboree days. We have been going to Gymboree for several months now and Maddie just loves it! She can be tired, cranky or sleepy in the car, but once we arrive she lights up, kicking her legs and smiling from ear to ear. In this picture Maddie is in a big wooden boat. It was taken after our class, which is pretty crowded. Maddie's teacher, Mikey is fantastic and quite popular! Mikey likes to finish off each class with a song that goes, "Hip, hip hooray! Hip, hip hooray! It was a Gymboree day!" :)

Yummy!

Okay, so I'm not much of a cook. Never have been. When we moved to Geneva I was inspired to really learn to cook (especially considering the sky high price of eating out). I think I did okay, but I never took any classes like I wanted to. I never thought my first cooking class would be an Organic Baby Food class, but it was! Now I make most of Maddie's food and freeze it in ice cube trays for perfect potions. Lately I seem to be making a lot. She has quite a variety of fruits and vegetables now, including this medley of sweet potatoes, peas, cauliflower, and butternut squash. I really love making food for her. My hope is I will continue to develop my culinary abilities and will be making delicious meals for her for years to come! :)

Live, Love, Laugh

At first glance, today was a pretty uneventful day... a trip to Target, shopping for groceries, and catching up on housework. I wanted to take a picture of something to reflect the day so I started thinking about my favorite parts of the day; laughing on the phone with my best friend, holding my darling daughter, catching up with friends online, spending time with Gary, and listening to the rain we so desperately need fall on the windows. Nothing extraordinary, but sometimes it's the little things that bring the most happiness. Yeah, even on the most everyday of days, life is good.

A wagon of fun!

After we had breakfast at the Little Hands pancake breakfast fundraiser event we headed down to San Jose to help celebrate Donovan's first birthday. We became friends with D's parents in Geneva and we are lucky enough to now live relatively close by (compared to some of our other Geneva friends who have relocated throughout the US). I love pictures of babies all in a line and this shot is precious! It's funny to me that all the kids are looking all around except for the birthday boy who is staring straight at the camera. Well, my camera at least... there were quite a few cameras out trying to get a shot of this group of cuties. :)

Happy Birthday Grams!

Tonight we celebrated Gary's mom's birthday. All the grandkids were there to help celebrate and of course blow out the candles on the homemade birthday cake! I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but I loved that there were four candles on the cake, one for each grandchild. :)

Our little sweetie

Looking back at the pictures I've taken so far this year, I realized that I needed a better picture of our sweet little girl, Scout the cat. I took this picture in one of her favorite spots, on her downstairs scratching post perch. Even though she doesn't get quite as much attention as before Maddie arrived, she is still a big part of the family and we try to make an extra effort to be sure she knows it! :)

The beloved exersaucer

Oh the beloved exersaucer! It's great for me since it's a safe place to put Maddie (now that she's crawling) while I vacuum or run upstairs for this or that. She loves it too and recently she has figured out that she can pull on these little characters to make lights flash and music play. It's amazing to me to watch how much she's taking in these days.

Dinner time

Maddie and I stopped by grandma's house while we were out on our daily walk today. We were all hanging out in her backyard enjoying the late afternoon sun when I saw this little bird patiently waiting for dinner. With all the pictures from our daily walks these days it may seem like this is all we ever do. Believe it or not we are busy with other things too; I just don't seem to be so good about bringing my camera with me at other times of our busy days. And with the beautiful weather I just want to be outside every chance I can get because I know it can't go on this way all winter... it has to rain sooner or later, right?!?

Winter Blooms

On our walk today I noticed these vibrant flowers catching the last rays of the day's sun. They almost looked fake to me, but they were very much real. I love flowers and I've always admired the ones that hang on through the cold of winter. I really like how the colors pop in this shot.

Super Bowl Sunday

Well, this certainly isn't my best photo this year... it isn't even in focus! But it is one of my favorite subject matters, my friends and family. The big game was today and Chica threw a big Super Bowl bash at her house. It was a great game with great food and great people to share all the excitement with. This picture was taken when a few of us at the party went in search of Winkie, Chica's one eyed cat. I love the expression on the two little one's faces. I bet they are thinking, "What are we doing?!? We're missing the game!!" ;)