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July 26, 2005
Sci Visit
We're in the midst of big update detailing our weekend (see below), but the short version is that Sophie had a blast with her cousins, aunt and uncle. We had a great time too and feel like we had a very compressed but fun-filled summer vacation.
We had great weather, hit almost everything on our list (notable exceptions were Kodiak's and the Zeum), and even managed to get a date out of the bargain (we saw Wedding Crashers Sunday night.) Thanks again for watching Sophie for us, Aunt Sarah & Uncle Anthony!
In preparation for the entry details, we put up all the pics last night: if you like to open presents early (not to name names or anything, Sarah and Brandie): check em out!
Posted by Jacob at 7:35 AM | Comments (1)
July 24, 2005
Discovery Museum
text coming soon
http://www.baykidsmuseum.org/
Posted by Jacob at 11:51 PM | Comments (0)
July 23, 2005
Limantour Beach
You never know what you're going to get at the beaches here: it can be 90 and beautiful inland, and 50 and foggy at the beaches. To make things worse, if it's fogged in you often can't tell until the last few miles of the 45-minute drive out, and then you end up freezing in 50-degree, overcast weather in clothes suitable for the sunshine you left behind.
After checking the weather report we decided to try our luck Saturday morning, and hit the jackpot: it was completely clear and sunny, and warm enough for shorts and short-sleeves. Apparently the fear of an overcast morning kept everyone else away, because we literally had the whole beach to ourselves. Some seals making their way along the coast popped their heads up to look at us, which was pretty neat.
We grabbed breakfast at Brandie's favorite bakery on our way out, and made it back home in time for a late lunch of BBQ tri-tip sandwiches and chicken from Petaluma Market. Everyone showered all the sand off, then we met Mark and Julie for dinner at Boca. It was a lot of fun, the food was great and we got to sneak in our Hog Island oysters without actually driving to the Farm or the city.
Posted by Jacob at 9:49 PM | Comments (0)
July 22, 2005
Hamilton Pool
After a big day of driving (out to Jelly Belly and then San Rafael), everyone seemed up for a day of relative inactivity and relaxing. The weather was also pretty warm, so we opted to try out the pool near our office. It turned out to be very nice and hardly crowded at all, as the pictures pretty much show.
I had to work again so I met at the pool there for lunch, and got to witness Sophie's first real swimming pool experience. As soon as her feet hit the water she stooped down to put her hands in too, and then had a blast kicking around while we held her. She looks very focused in the pictures, but she really did seem to enjoy it.
That evening we had an early dinner, then walked around our downtown and got ice cream at Baskin Robbins.
Posted by Jacob at 8:49 PM | Comments (0)
July 21, 2005
Farmer's Market
We hadn't been to this since we lived in San Rafael two and a half years ago, but were happy to find out it was more or less the same fun experience. Things had shifted eastward, so the west end underneath the old studio apartment was kind of quiet and empty. At the other end near the new plaza however things were hopping: the food court is centered there now, and seems to have more variety.
We bought a bunch of excellent strawberries, kettle corn and some bread to snack on later, while Jess & Julia got their faces painted and I think went on a bouncy blow-up ship. Sophie got tired near the end and started to melt down, but we made it back home for bed-time. Eula survived staying home most of the day with just Eliot to keep her company, which was a relief.
Posted by Jacob at 9:32 PM | Comments (0)
Jelly Belly
The Scis arrived safely on Wednesday afternoon, and after a short wait and some confusion at the rental car counter were able to join us for a late lunch at a great cafe near the office. Sarah & I went to the daycare to pick up Sophie so she could join in the fun. Afterwards we enjoyed the good weather from the park in our neighborhood and relaxed while the girls burned off some energy on the playground equipment there. For dinner we made risotto, only this time with a combo (scallops, shrimp and calamari) rather than just the scallops with asparagus.
Thursday morning we were all up early and had a fun raspberry- and blueberry-pancake breakfast. I went in to work and then got picked up in time to drive over to the Jelly Belly factory for their tour. It was packed for a Thursday afternoon, and a lot of fun - not quite Willy Wonka, but pretty spectacular anyway. Sophie wanted to hold her required hat rather than wear it, and I got her free Jelly Bellies at the end of the tour.
After the tour we packed up and drove back to San Rafael for the Farmer's Market.
Posted by Jacob at 3:48 PM | Comments (0)
July 19, 2005
First Cousins!
Sophie's cousins are coming to meet her tomorrow. She can't wait, and neither can we!
We're hoping to hit the Bovine Bakery, Limantour Beach, Hog Island Oyster Co., San Rafael's Farmer's Market, the Jelly Belly factory, Zeum and Boca. Who knows what we'll do with the other days of their trip!
And with any luck, Uncle Anthony'll be able to stay up late enough to check out Kodiak Jack's.
Posted by Jacob at 12:38 PM | Comments (0)
July 12, 2005
Sophie: 7 Months Old
At seven months, we're happy to report Sophie is sleeping through most nights. She goes to bed around 9pm, and can usually sleep until 5:30 or 6am. She usually takes about 3 naps a day, seemingly longer ones on weekends at home where it's a little quieter than daycare.
She eats solid food twice a day (mid-morning and mid-afternoon), stuff that we've steamed, pureed and frozen in the ice-cube tray (yams, green beans, peas, squash, apples, peaches, pears, avocado, etc.) mixed with rice or oatmeal cereal and formula. Other times (about every three hours) she nurses or has formula.
When she's awake she's pretty active and loves being in her bumper jumper. She's also capable of sitting by herself for quite a while to play with her toys. She isn't crawling yet, but has face-planted a few times lurching toward the cat or dog. She can get up on all fours and rock, but then she usually splays out onto her belly with all four limbs in the air moving in a swimming motion.
She hasn't been in a real pool yet, but we hope to remedy that soon! She loves being outside, and can still be entranced by watching trees move in the wind. One night recently I noticed her waving back at the tree outside our house as she was falling asleep, it was quite neat!
Posted by Jacob at 6:18 AM | Comments (0)
July 11, 2005
Eliot Update
Just in case anyone out there was wondering (Stretch, where have you gone??), Eliot is alive and well after adjusting to being bumped down another notch in the family hierarchy. He still gets out for the occasional neighborhood tour, but spends most of his time reclining on his special bed above the Tivo (which means of course the bed is heated, an important factor, and that when we're watching tv he can feel like we're all paying attention to him - a must!)
He and Sophie get along well enough, on the rare occasion Eula relaxes her guard enough to let him near the baby. Sophie gets very excited whenever he walks by, and clearly would crawl after him if she could. Now that her bumper jumper is hung downstairs she can watch him ooze through his pet door into the garage, which is apparently quite fascinating.
For anyone who didn't know, Eliot is the reason our website has its name. It's long story, but due to his girth and attitude I took to calling him "Tiny E", after the SNL skit where two guys drive around talking to a miniature Elvis on their dashboard (played by Nicholas Cage.) His punchline was "Man, that is huge," delivered with the familiar Elvis drawl.
An earlier version of our site was also named after Eliot ("El Gordo"). That name was unfortunately taken when we were considering domains, so we chose to use "Tiny E" and figured "Ranch" would be an appropriate addition since Eula had come into the picture.
Posted by Jacob at 9:17 PM | Comments (0)
July 6, 2005
New Toys!
We realized recently that aside from a herd of stuffed animals Sophie had very few toys to play with. I researched a bit online and bought a clutch cube and some soft blocks. Those did the trick for a while, then Brandie did some more research and came home with a jackpot of items from Tiny Love (see above). We've been really happy with their products, and Sophie's been entertained for quite a few hours playing with (ok well, mainly chewing on) them.
Posted by Jacob at 7:44 PM | Comments (3)
July 5, 2005
On The Nightstand
I'm currently in the middle of My Life (Bill Clinton's autobiography), Winning (Jack Welch's followup to Straight From the Gut), The Witches (recommended by Brandie, one of her childhood favorites by Roahld Dahl), Bob Dylan's Chronicles Vol. I and David Sedaris's Naked.
I'm finding Naked to be less lighthearted and more consistently melancholy than the other two Sedaris books I've read (Dress Your Family In Corduroy and Denim and Me Talk Pretty One Day). I haven't laughed as heartily or as often, but maybe it's something I'm bringing into the read.
I really enjoy Bob Dylan's writing in Chronicles. I don't remember many specifics and it's possible he isn't communicating a lot. He just seems to have this easy, lyrical way of writing that's soothing and mellow as he drifts from subject to subject. It's really a joy to go along for the ride, whatever he happens to be writing about.
I loaned out the Little Britches and Little House series to Erin, and am looking forward to discussing both with her!
I've also borrowed but haven't yet read Dispossessed (Ursula LeGuin's other very popular series) from Chris, and Live From New York (a series of interviews with SNL castmembers) and Kiss Me Like A Stranger (Gene Wilder's autobiography) from John.
Posted by Jacob at 10:05 PM | Comments (1)
July 4, 2005
Happy Fourth of July!
We celebrated our independence with a long weekend packed with fun and several firsts for Sophie including avocado, being barefoot at the beach and swimming in a pool.
We had a wonderful 4th of July and hope that everyone else did as well.
Posted by Brandie at 9:34 PM | Comments (1)
What A Difference Seven Months Makes!
I think I've gotten taller, don't you?
Posted by Jacob at 4:59 PM | Comments (1)
July 2, 2005
How We Setup Our Website
A few people have asked how we put together our site, so I thought I'd make a post out of it. It's surprisingly simple and easy to maintain once the setup is all out of the way, and I have to give all credit and many thanks to our friend Steve for providing the inspiration and helping us get started: we're by no means experts, and wouldn't have been able to do it without his help!
Initially (back in the El Gordo days) we used FrontPage and the free webspace our internet provider offered to create our webpage. It was fairly easy to use, but filled up fast and was a pain to manage all the content broken into small pieces. After we moved we decided to get serious and have our own domain name: picking one took a lot of thinking about, and was probably the most time-intensive and agonizing part of the process.
We elected to use PHPWebhosting for our site, mostly because that's what Steve used and being in unfamiliar territory I wanted to avoid introducing any new problems into the recipe. It's $10 a month, with seemingly unlimited use (we've got a lot of content on there and they haven't squeaked yet.)
Next, to register our domain name we went to Verio. There was an annual fee, I don't remember exactly but I think it was around $70. It looks like they're offering webhosting services now too, might be worth checking out in lieu of phpwebhosting.
After we had our domain name and webspace, we needed content. Fortunately, we invested in a digital camera in 2000 and have used it a lot since. With FrontPage, we found managing all the thumbnails and links to be the biggest pain of the process. We wanted something automated, and noticed a few of our friends using a program called Dalbum.
DAlbum is available free from their website, but requires an ftp client to actually get the pics from your local drive onto your ftp site. We chose SmartFTP for that, it's also free from their website. The installation instructions are on the page, and are pretty straightforward.
Once it's setup, adding new pictures is a very simple, drag-and-drop process with the ftp client. Afterwards you just login and click a button and the program generates all the thumbnails and organizes all the content for you. It has a web-interface that allows you to add captions to photos and descriptions to albums, but we found that we were losing a lot of the posts into "the void" after we'd update. We wanted a way to archive things so we could look back on events and interact a little with our families and friends: weblogging seemed just the thing.
For our weblogging we use Movable Type (also free from the site.) Like DAlbum, once you set it up it handles all the layout and archiving itself. Updating it is about as simple as sending an email. There are versions that are easier to setup too, but we again chose to copy Steve literally.
And that's pretty much it! It might seem like a lot at first glance, but it's really pretty simple.
Posted by Jacob at 10:54 PM | Comments (0)
July 1, 2005
Boca Restaurant Review
Friday night we tried out a new restaurant near work called Boca. It's billed as an Argentinian steakhouse, and looked nice enough when we peeked in during construction. Our friends who've been came away pleased, and from what we had heard it's run by the chef from Aqua (neither Brandie nor I have ever been there, but we've heard enough good things about it and always wanted to go.)
Armed with our review we came ready to try the lobster corndogs, fries cooked in duck fat, roast chicken and Gaucho steak. We also were packing some friends (Mark, Julie, Kristen and Tim) and several bottles of wine (actually, it was Mark & Julie's wine, but Sophie had her own, a vintage 05 Similac.)
We had to wait a bit for our table (they seemed busy, but not unreasonably so for a Friday night) then managed to get a great spot outside on the patio. The evening breeze was great, and we were all appreciating the excellent weather.
I tried the corndogs, empanadas and a bit of Mark's iceberg wedge salad. Brandie got the roast chicken and I shared the Gaucho with Mark. All the food was excellent, and made us feel very decadent. Sophie was as usual (knock knock!) very well-behaved and made it nearly to dessert before she started to melt.
We're eager to go back, and can't recommend it enough. Finally some competition for the Buckeye's steaks, and it's on the way home!
Posted by Jacob at 10:59 PM | Comments (0)
New White Stripes - 'Get Behind Me Satan'
I have to admit, I feel as though I have turned that magical old age where I am behind the times on the latest music. I was listening to Justin Timberlake and Avril Lavigne and thinking I was pretty hip. Then my 17 year old sister called Avril a "poser" and I had that horrible feeling of being old.
So, forgive me if this White Stripes album I am reviewing is passe. It's what I am listening to and enjoying.
Forever For Her (Is Over For Me) takes me right back to high school. I don't know what it is about this track that makes me feel like it is 4:00 on a Friday mid summer.
Take, Take, Take reminds me a bit of the Violent Femmes. I like the processing done to Jack's voice and the repetition of the chorus helps me zone out when assigning bugs or doing an excel spreadsheet. (See, I AM getting old!)
The album as a whole is a bit all over the place. Their last album had a "sound" and this one seems to be stretching across a bunch of different genres, which is great.
I dig the White Stripes. Thanks to my husband for buying me this great album.
Posted by Brandie at 5:13 PM | Comments (0)