charli's favorite game

lemonade

Well, we're finally in St. Louis. What's that you say? We left San Francisco yesterday morning at o'early thirty on a plane, how could it possibly have taken us over 30 hours to reach St. Louis? Well, let me tell you.

As mentioned, we were on a 7am flight so that we could have a stopover in Denver to give Charli some time to run around, but still make it to St. Louis in time to attend Brian's 20 year high school reunion last night. We got Charli out of bed and took her to the airport in her pajamas, and everything was fine, we got on the plane with plenty of time to spare. We had even more time to spare than we thought, because our departure was delayed due to a mechanical problem - some indicator light in the cockpit was not right. So they had to have someone come in and take things apart, and that didn't fix it, so they had to take something else apart, and that didn't fix it, so they had to take something else apart, and that finally fixed it, and then they had to put the cockpit back together and we left. That took about two hours, which was about how long our stopover in Denver was. How inconvenient.

We finally got to Denver, about 15 minutes before our next flight was to take off. Brian ran to the other gate to tell them that we had landed and were running over, while Charli and I waited for her stroller to come up. If you have not used a stroller at an airport, you take it with you to the gate, get a gate check ticket, and then leave the stroller at the end of the jetway when you board. When the plane is debarking, usually the first thing that happens is they bring the strollers up to the end of the jetway so you can pick them up on the way off the plane. Normally, the strollers show up very quickly. For some reason, on this flight, I had to wait and wait and wait. We were first off the plane because of the close flight time, but it didn't matter because I had to wait for at least 10 minutes for the stroller. Another mother and I commiserated. The strollers finally showed up, I jammed Charli in (she was not being agreeable), and we ran to the other gate, where Brian met me and said they closed the doors about 1 minute ago even though he was there waiting and they refused to open them again. Did I mention we were flying United? United SUCKS. We hypothesize that they had oversold the plane and that's why they refused to wait for us (by odd coincidence, the plane at the next gate was 4 seats oversold and they were asking for volunteers; just the same number of passengers that got left behind from our flight (we weren't the only ones)). Our rescheduled flight included yet another stopover and got us into St. Louis at 10pm; when we told them we really needed to get there as early as we could, they managed to find something that got us in at 9:30. Hooray.

Since there was no way Brian was going to get to his reunion that night, we decided to tell United to suck eggs (for the day) and to just rent a car and head up to Fort Collins to surprise my family, stay a night, and continue on the next day. Now that's what I call making lemonade out of lemons! So we did that. We went straight to my mother's office, with the brilliant plan of sending Charli by herself into my mom's cube, and just standing outside listening for the reaction. We arrived around 3:30pm and did just that. It went off without a hitch - Charli wandered into Mom's cube without us even prompting her - except that no one was there. Bummer! Turns out we had just missed her, she had left around 3. Dam! Well, I guess we'll have to surprise her at the house, if she's going to go an leave early on a Friday and all that. So we headed to the house, where there were no cars and no lights and no answer at the door. Dam! Terrible thoughts creep through my head... I hope they're not doing something stupid like camping this weekend, and leaving early to do so... Well, Kim would know, right? So I called Kim - no answer. Try again, no answer. Call Brent, no answer. Crap! What if they're ALL camping together this weekend, no doubt somewhere in the freezing cold with no cell phone reception? Idiots! I give up on the idea of a surprise and call both Dad and Mom; no answer from either of them. Dam! WE'RE the idiots! What fool would think a surprise visit is really a good idea anyway? How could you ever know that your victim is actually going to be there? I call Kim one more time, in desperation. No answer. *SIGH*

So Brian and I started thinking about our alternative plans. We know some friends down the street have keys to the house, but we were pretty sure they were out of town this weekend, and there's no one home when we stop by. We're going to have to drive back down to Denver, stay in a hotel for the night, and United is going to have the last laugh on us. What a downer. As we're still sitting in the driveway wondering if there is ANY way we can get into the house, Kim calls! She just didn't hear her phone or something! She says everyone is around for the weekend! Hooray! And then Brent calls! Neither of them know where Mom and Dad are, but Brent can come over and let us into the house! And then Dad calls! He and Mom are together in a meeting with their financial advisor! I even manage to not let on that we're sitting in his driveway! Hooray! Christmas is saved! Not that it's Christmas, but you get my point.

So Brent comes over and lets us into the house, and we hang out with Charli and wait for Mom and Dad to show up. Before long they do, and the gaping and stuttering as they come up from the garage and see Charli running around, and then us sitting on the couch, is definitely worth... well, maybe not all the distress, but definitely worth the drive. And seeing as how we had all that distress anyway, at least we got a great result. :)

We had dinner out, and then I passed out early after having stayed up all night the night before packing, as I always do. We left the next morning as planned, had an uneventful trip to St. Louis (which included a DELICIOUS caramel apple from the airport, thanks to all the food vouchers United gave us), and managed to at least make it to the second night of Brian's reunion. It was unfortunately the night of lower attendance, and was not the night that included the tour of the school, which Brian really wanted to see, but it was the night that significant others were invited, so I was happy. :)

not quite two

My parents came out to visit this weekend because next weekend (Charli's birthday) we are going to be in St. Louis for an extended Thanksgiving vacation. We had a pre-birthday celebration with Bella and Darian, the children Charli does share-care with, and their families. It was lovely.

Bella brought some flowers for Charli; they were so cute.










Nina provided face painting. The face painting is amazing for 2 reasons: 1, she's really good at it; 2, you wouldn't believe how well behaved the children are while they're getting it. They sit perfectly still, and they wait patiently, and they do whatever Nina tells them to do (close your eyes, turn this way, etc).

The children decorated their own mini-cupcakes. This was fun, but degenerated into skipping the cupcakes entirely and just eating sprinkles.



Then we sang happy birthday (in both english and german. The german version involves jam in your pants - very strange) and blew out candles.

All in all it was very relaxed, simple, and fun. I hope Charli enjoys this until she's old enough to plan her own birthdays.

apples for apples

Sam's got a new coworker, Ben, who is originally from the other coast, where apparently apple picking is a common family thing. He wanted to go apple picking, and Sam jumped in with both feet and decided we should have an entire apple oriented day, going out to get apples, then cooking all kinds of apple based food, and playing apple games like Apples to Apples, which I've never heard of. She asked if we wanted to go, so we did, and I dragged Warren along with us, because he was visiting.

We went to a place called Gabriel Farms, where they charge you $2/lb to come and pick your own organic apples (WAY more expensive than buying your organic apples at the farmers' market). I guess it costs a lot of money to maintain the cash register and scale where people come to pay for the apples they've picked themselves and which they are about to transport to their own houses. Or, maybe it costs a lot of money to have a super cool Johnny Appleseed sculpture by your driveway.

Whatever the case may be, we had a lovely day for apple picking. It actually was quite warm, and sunny, and we picked mostly Fuji apples. I learned 2 things: apples from organic farms are ugly and blemished and bug eaten, and hand-picked apples from the orchard are incredibly better than apples bought from the farmers' market - I had no idea. The apples we picked at this orchard are so much sweeter and more flavorful than the ones I previously thought of as good. Also, now when I pick up the ones I got at the farmers market, I realize that even those are waxed. They actually feel rather gross after handling the ones that are not waxed. I think we ended up with about 15 lbs of apples among the lot of us. Charli liked to take one bite from each apple, and then put it back in the bin, and of course, she was super cute the whole time. Afterwards we had wagon rides, then we had a little picnic at a park we found, and then we headed home.

Once we got home, we got to start using the apple toys I bought. I bought an apple peeler/corer, which I thought was pretty prosaic, and a little thing to make adorable hand pies, which I thought was adorable (weren't you listening?). Warren's friend came over for dinner, and they made DELICIOUS pasta sauce and we had pasta and salad for dinner. Pretty much everyone contributed at least a little bit to the apple hand pies, but I was definitely the driver there (because they're so adorable). We made a ton of filling using the apple peeler/corer, which is, by the way, completely awesome and the coolest new kitchen thing I've bought in a long time, and it was pretty yummy. Then we handmade the dough, and I thought I'd throw in some whole wheat flour in place of some of the regular flour to give it some redeeming qualities, and we had to use a recipe that didn't need chilled butter to be cut into the flour, as I didn't have a food processor or one of those hand things that cuts butter into flour. We didn't have a rolling pin either, so we used an empty wine bottle, and it took forever to make these hand pies. But aren't they adorable? Unfortunately, they tasted terrible. The dough on mine was actually inedible - I just dug out all the filling and ate it with ice cream. I'll have to try another dough recipe the next time, if there actually is a next time.

In retrospect, I'd have to say that if you decide to have an apple picking day and also want to use it as an opportunity to buy some kitchen gear, get an apple peeler/corer and don't bother with an adorable hand pie mold.

go raiders!

Grandpa Jerry and awesome Aunt Kelly came out for the third annual Raiders weekend. It was our most successful Raiders weekend ever! What made it so, you ask? Well, THEY WON! It was a terrific game, the defense was awesome, and we had a great time. The other games we saw, they were always ahead until the last quarter, and then they lost it. But not this time!

We sat in the Black Hole (the Raiders end zone, stuffed full of hard core fans), and if only we could charge the random public for the swear jar, we really could have paid off Charli's entire college tuition - they actually chanted $5 words. Fortunately, Charli couldn't really distinguish anything, so she didn't learn anything inappropriate. I think we may not be taking Charli to the games anymore, or if we do, we will definitely not sit in that section.

The rest of the weekend was nice, too. We ate pizza, went to the farmers' market, drew pictures, read books, went to bluegrass night, and generally had a good time. Jerry and Kelly tried to see Al's boat on Monday while Brian and I were at work, but it poured rain and things didn't go quite as planned. From what I heard, they took the ferry to Sausalito for lunch and then Jerry dragged poor Kelly around all the shops for the rest of the afternoon.

ephstathia

Whenever someone asks us when we're going to have another baby, Brian always turns to Charli and fires off this question: "What's your name?" And Charli grins and says nothing, and then Brian says something to the effect of whenever she can answer etc etc.

Last night at dinner Brian asked Charli "What's your name?" (yes, that's what our dinner conversation consists of) and Charli grinned and said "I Charli!" So we're changing her name to Ephstathia.

a zillion words

OK, so if a picture is worth a thousand words, then a VIDEO must be worth at least 20 blog posts...