On March 22, we celebrated four years of love, wearing platinum, and driving each other crazy. I bought them at Market Hall before meeting for dinner at Noodle Theory up the street. I think the scent of the orange rose should be bottled.
At the Ferry Building. Click photo to see more photos on Flickr.
Nana and Papa hunt came to visit to after Ava’s birth. Their week-long mission included: doting on Bea, helping Allison with Ava, weeding the yard, planing doors, and building a set of shelves for the kitchen.
On Sunday, Bea and I drove to the airport to welcome them to the Bay Area. We had a nice walk around the neighborhood and looked at some open homes and chatted with neighbors.
In the early part of the week, we mostly stayed at home. On Tuesday Allison and Betty toured a pre-school in Piedmont that accepted Beatriz. Wednesday night I made a risotto from Jamie Oliver’s new Italian cookbook.
Thursday and Friday was spent going to the lumber yard and hardware store to buy tools and materials to build a set of small shelves to fit into a small nook in the kitchen.
(the space used to hold a water heater, but we replaced that with a tankless water heater outside).
Larry shared some of his secret building techniques and I hope to employ my new skills in building a set of built-in cabinets next to our fireplace.
Building the cabinets in the unusually cold-weather was a real challenge, but fun nonetheless.
Corner clamps are a nice alternative to mortise and tenon joinery
We had a nice meal Friday night at Doña Tomas. On Saturday we made the trek to the Ferry Building Farmer’s Market where I picked up dry-farmed new potatoes, romanesco, and Niman Ranch skirt steak (which became dinner Saturday night).
We spent Saturday afternoon at the DeYoung and returned home to cook dinner and watch River and Tides.
Sunday Bea and I took Nana and Papa to SFO to catch their flight. Returning home, we all felt a bit sad to have them go.
At the airport. Look at Bea’s new Hasselblad.
Happy thoughts (click photo to see more on Flickr)
From the short note I sent out:
Ava Josephine Skidgel was born at 3:22 pm on December 27, 2006. She weighed in at 7 lbs 10 oz and was 19.5 inches. She and mom are doing great. Bea is happy to have a baby sister. While dad is joyed to have two beautiful daughters, he’s now getting used to idea that he’s outnumbered.
We left around 3:30 am. I dropped Bea off with Kim, Augusto, and Stella. We went to triage and were admitted since Allison was slightly above 4 cm. Allison worked through out the early morning and afternoon and Ava entered the world doing a cork screw twist. Dad graciously cut the cord and she began breast feeding within the first few minutes of entering this world.
Lindy Johnson, our midwife, delivered her into this world and we were helped by Stacia Biltekoffe, our Douhla at Alta Bates in Berkeley.
And for those who knew, I kept the secret about Ava’s sex the whole time, told no one, and Allison never found out (although one time she tried to get it out of me and I wouldn’t tell).
I’m going to put snow on you! Click photo above to see more on Flickr.
Bea walks in the snow. Click photo above to see more on Flickr.
Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Dave sent us a package for Christmas. After placing the gifts next to the fireplace, Bea had some fun running around in the “snow.” I guess it’s a good thing we had the furnace fixed recently.
After snow time, we had a nice meal at Oliveto, perhaps our last hurrah before baby #2 arrives.
Here it is, our official holiday photo. Given #2 is due any day now, we decided to go light on the decorations this year–a wreath on the door and standing the holiday cards along the mantel are about all we could do this year.
This may be the last photo of Bea in her Rosy Radish sweater.
Allison, Beatriz, and John wish you best this new year
I’m still painting the picket fence: one more coat of paint for the long stretch of fence that runs along Shafter Avenue. We planted more this weekend and ordered olive and meyer lemon trees which we will plant next Saturday.
Oakland is planting two trees (non-bearing plum trees) in front of our house. One will be planted on the 42nd Street side and the other will be planted on the Shafter Ave side. Allison has been hounding them relentlessly for three months about this. I guess the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
JP thinks our house color is brown–WTF! I’m never going to consult him when it comes time to color-correct a film. :-p
The developer who bought the house to the right of ours decided he liked our fence so much, he’s building one just like it next door. Allison said if someone had moved in and bought the house, they would feel too embarassed to copy cat the neighbors. This design-challenged chap, however, is flipping the house so he won’t be living there. While it’s said that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,” if he copies our house color, we’re going to smack him.
More photos on the flickr account for those who are interested.
Bea had several friends over this morning to celebrate her second birthday. Besides running around the house with her pals, she played in the backyard. Highlights included crawling through this fabric play tube tunnel and catching bubbles with nets. Mom served cupcakes with the letter B on top of each cupcake.
View more photos from the party on Flickr.
Bea Behind Bars
We took off Wednesday night for NYC. Since I’m in between Adobe and my new job at Radar Networks, we decided to shoot off to the Big Apple since I probably won’t have much time off until Skidgel baby #2 arrives in late December.
We saw concerts in Central Park and in Prospect Park (Brooklyn), the Dada show at MoMA, the Punk show at the Met, ate at Craft (really worth it) and Otto (great pizza and pork charcuterie), and walked around lower Manhattan like crazy. At the MoMA there was a contemporary print exhibition that was quite nice. I wanted to get a printing press for the garage after seeing it. Across the street at the American Design and Craft Museum, was a nice exhibit of the Eames Lounge chair. I sat in one and watched a short doc on the factory that makes the chair. I was amazed by the machine that scans a hide and calculates the most efficient way to cut the required patterns to fit the entire chair.
Beatriz was introduced to the Toys R Us in Times Square and was in shock at the many variations of Elmo dolls. As it turned out, none of them seemed soft and cuddly enough. Rest assured, I found one on the upper east side after our visit at the Met. Bea was sleeping when I bought it and when we surprised her with it, she went gonzo!
I came close to buying the customary barge (a camera/laptop bag by Crumpler that Scott Fegette turned me onto). I’m going to think about it a bit more before committing.
Our one celebrity sighting was Tom Hanks at a upper east side cafe.
Ultra Sound of Skidgel Baby #2
We visited the East Bay Perinatal Center yesterday morning and had the 12-week ultrasound to peek at the new additon to our family. The baby looks fine and has a good heart beat (the third picture).
Beatriz was very sweet during the ultrasound by pointing to the picture of the baby on the screen, saying hello and blowing kisses to her new sibling.
The baby is 13 weeks along and is due between Christmas and New Years.
Beatriz loves icecream.
After dinner, we went over to Piedmont Avenue to get a scoop of icecream. Bea loves to say icecream as much as she loves to eat it.
