terrific day

Today we had a really terrific day. I thought I'd better write it down, so that we can appreciate again in times to come.

First, Charli slept late. Yay!

Then, we decided to go to the farmer's market at Civic Center, because we were unable to go the Alemany market yesterday. We've been to this market before, and it wasn't very good, but we were pretty much out of vegetables. The weather was so great, we decided to walk over. We stopped at Jackie's Cafe on the way and got delicious lattes, which we finished up just as we reached the farmer's market. Wow! The market is 10 times better than it used to be! There are a lot more stalls, and the produce is way better now, and there's a ton more variety! It's awesome! We got delicious strawberries, and Ranier cherries, and white nectaries, and lots of vegetables, and kettle corn...

Then, we got some breakfast at Max's Opera Cafe, where none of us have ever eaten. A new restaurant! How exciting! It's set on kind of a plaza, so we could take Charli outside to run around without being right next to the road all the time, which was really nice. And breakfast was delicious!

Then Sam had to go to her volunteer art program, and Brian and I took a leisurely route home, including stops at the comic book shop and a baby store (where Charli demonstrated a serious obsession with shoes) and a furniture shop. When we got home, Charli went down for her nap and I looked up projects for making kids' art tables. Boy o boy do I have plans now!

Then Sam came home and we did some deck work, and then we had a lovely webcam with Mom and Dad, where Charli might have come up with a name for Mom: Binka? We'll have to see if it sticks. She seemed to apply it to both Mom and Dad, but I think we'll try to encourage her to actually call them different names. It'll be easier on everyone (except her). :)

Then we had leftover curry, which was not as lovely as it was last night, but it certainly was easy to prepare. And then Charli went to bed, and I worked on lots of blog posts, and now we are right up to the minute with what's been happening! What an awesome, productive day!

I have no pictures of today, so instead I give you this picture from yesterday, and you will just have to take my word for it that we are as happy as Charli is cute.

bonk

Charli fell down the stairs today. :( She's been taking a lot more tumbles, which I guess is expected as she gets more adventurous. I live in the hope that this will make her more careful in the future, but it is probably in vain.

Other than that, Charli is doing terrific! She is developing new skills incredibly quickly, and she seems to pick up 2 or 3 new words every day. She still says 'bonk' (indeed, she said it after the afore-mentioned tumble), frog, bat, shirt, pants, socks, Nina, grandpa, jacket, night night, light, that, ding, up, oops, yeah, o geez, doggie, agua, eyes, feet, knee, toes, hand... She recognizes all kinds of animals, from cows and dogs and cats to crocodiles, elephants, and kangaroos. She makes fishie lips and lion roars. She is learning to nod 'yes', where previously she only shook her head 'no'. This is a lovely development. :)

Here's how Charli asks for some of your food: Aaah. Aaah. Aah! Aaaaah!! AAAHH!! AAAAAAAAAH!! And then when you aren't fast enough, WAAAAAA!

fire on the roof

Last night around 11:30 or 11:45, our doorbell rang a few times kind of frenetically - it rang once and then stopped. Then it rang 1 1/2 times and stopped. Then it rang again and stopped. None of those rings were long enough for me to actually reach the doorbell, and you can't see who's at the door or buzz anyone in if they've already hung up, so I just ignored it and kept on doing my thing, whatever that was. A short while later, someone knocked on the door, said there was a fire in the building, and we all needed to get out. At that point, my mind went pretty blank other than "Get Charli." Sam was home too, but Brian was still at work. We got the baby and some stuff together and headed out to the street.

Just as we got down to the lobby, some firefighters broke down the door on the way in. We headed out and they headed in. We had pretty much no idea what was happening, and couldn't see any fire, but there were 3 big fire trucks and couple of smaller fire vehicles right outside, and they were sending the ladder up the side of the building. Turns out there had been a fire on the roof, and a passerby had seen it from the street and was the person ringing all the doorbells, trying to contact someone to tell them there was a fire on the roof. Our neighbor in #2 was the person she actually managed to contact, and he ran up to the roof and tried to put out the fire with the hose up there. He was able to contain the fire, but not actually extinguish it. There had been a party up there early in the evening, and some idiot had put their cigarette in the planter box, where it smoldered for a while before eventually setting it on fire. Fortunately, our deck is made of ironwood, which doesn't really burn so well, so the fire was not able to spread much. The planter was just redwood though, and is now gone.

The damage was not too bad, as it turns out, thank goodness. There was obviously damage to the deck, and a little bit of damage to the roof below it, and some of the siding on the deck wall nearest the planter melted. There was water damage to the unit below the planter, and in our stairwells where there was soot tracked all over as well as water damage from the firehose pipes. But no one was injured, and Charli and I actually got to meet some neighbors from across the street, who saw I was standing outside at midnight with a baby, and asked us to come inside while we were waiting.

Perhaps you are wondering how Charli was throughout this ordeal? Well, she actually slept all through me getting her out of bed and wrapping her in a blanket, the door being bashed in, and all the general chaos out on the street. She didn't actually wake up until I started talking to someone, and then she lifted up her head, and pointed and said excitedly, "Guck! Guck!" Yes, Charli, those are trucks... She stayed awake for maybe the next hour or two, being very cute and happy, and then she went back to sleep without too much of a fuss when we put her back to bed. What a wonderful child.

Firetrucks outside our building


Hanging out outside at midnight


Cleaning up a bit


Damage

fun with kelly

Kelly came out for a totally laid back weekend. She got here Friday and I showed her lumosity.com, Sam's new employer. That took up pretty much the whole the time until Brian got home and they headed off to the ballpark for the evening.

Saturday we went to the farmer's market and missed the empanadas AGAIN! Man, we suck at that. But we got lots of other yummy things and had a good time anyway, as we always do. Then we sat around for a while, like we do every weekend after the farmer's market, and then we wandered over the Castro to shop and visit Tiny Tots and look at our house that we never got to see the inside of, much less buy. On the way back, some incredibly rude gay guy crossed paths with us and referred to us loudly to his friend as "breeders". Wow! I've totally never heard that before! Crazy!

Sunday we all went to the game. We headed out early and took a walk down the Embarcadero - it was really nice. We left the stroller at Brian's office and headed for our lovely seats just off home plate. Those are some nice tickets! Charli likes garlic fries and churros. Sam did not get beaned by any foul balls. Maybe around the 6th inning we headed inside to try to get Charli to take a nap, which didn't work at all, as expected. But at least she actually could run around a little bit, as opposed to when we're sitting out in the seats. Brian and Kelly and Sam headed back to the seats for the last inning, but we still didn't win. :( Boo! At least we were dressed for success.

Monday Kelly found out that our favorite spa, re:fresh, had closed. Boo! But on the other hand, she got to go to bluegrass night at Amnesia - yay! So, all in all, a highly successful weekend (except on the Cardinals side), and one we hope to repeat again soon!

brent wins

It's Kim's birthday today - happy birthday, Kim! She and Brent are still in New Mexico, apparently looking at houses (not for themselves) and breaking things in them.

So since we talked to Kim, Sam remembered she hadn't read their blog in a long time, and she brought it up on her computer. Charli looked over her shoulder and saw the picture of Brent and Kim, and completely unprompted, said "Bent!" Wow! Charli recognized him AND knew his name AND said it out loud! As a matter of fact, she said it twice, but the second time Sam and I were asking her. Brent wins!

wedding (no, really!)

Mom and Dad came out this weekend for Alina and Tod's wedding up in Sacramento (third time's the charm!). We had a lovely and busy time. We got to the farmers market too late on Saturday to get empanadas (they run out), but the ranier cherries are just coming into season, so that's exciting.

Sunday we got up and tried to go to Judy's Cafe for breakfast, but they practically refused to seat us for some reason - we hypothesize it was because of the baby. I got mad and just walked out, and we ended up eating at a Denny's about halfway to Sacramento. Bums!

Once we got to Kalei's (the wedding was at Alina's parents' place), we were swept up into the whirlwind of activity. Alina had asked me to take pictures, so I just started clicking away. Brian took care of Charli, Sam helped Alina get ready, and Mom helped everyone else. The wedding was in a little gazebo in the yard, with about 30 friends in attendance, and it was really very nice. Charli got to wear her fancy dress again, although not for very long, since she got tired and fussy right around when the actual wedding took place and Brian changed her before putting her down for a nap (we could hear her wailing all through the ceremony). After that, it was more pictures, followed by lots of delicious food, and a sleepy drive home (for me, anyway. Sam had to take over). A lovely time was had by all.

hot weekend!

Well, thank goodness I can back-date these posts. Otherwise you might think I hadn't posted in over a month. :)

This weekend it was REALLY REALLY hot! And it was predicted and everyone was talking about it, so I went out and got a kiddie pool to put on the deck in anticipation. Man, kiddie pools got fancy since I had a kiddie pool - it was almost another stroller story, but I controlled myself and got one for about $10. It has no slide, or ring toss, or ball toss, or water cannon, or separate wading pool vs. deep pool... Yes, you can get all those things in an inflatable backyard pool. Ours just has a little shade thing and a little sprayer and it's shaped like a hippo. How can you not love it? We spent Saturday afternoon being roasted on our deck with our feet in the cool water. Aaaaaahhhh!

Sunday it was supposed to be even hotter, so we decided to go to Lake Anza over in Berkeley. It turned out to be not as hot as Saturday on our deck, but it was perfect for the lake, and the lake was perfect for us - it's got a beach with shade on it! Unheard of! We spread ourselves out on the sand in the shade, and it was glorious. Of course, one must still apply sunscreen - Charli was very helpful.

This was Charli's first time in water that isn't a bath... I think. I don't think she's gone swimming with her nannies - she's been to the beach for sure, but I don't think they go in the water. The ocean's freezing here, and I'm pretty sure Nina's the only one who would take them in the water, and she wouldn't take 2 kids in the water unless she had another adult with her, so I really don't think Charli's been in water deeper than maybe 6 or 8 inches. She seemed to like it! I was napping when Brian and Sam took her into the water deep enough for her to swim in, but they said she really liked that too - she enjoyed kicking her legs out behind her, and then didn't want to put her feet back down when they came back to the shallow water.

We had a great time! Sam made chicken and we had a delicious chicken sandwich picnic, plus strawberries and watermelon. We also brought along Charli's bubble maker (thanks again, Mom), and let me tell you, when we turned that on, we were the hit of the party! Kids came round from near and far...