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15 December 2007
	Hey, Happy Christmas and New Year to all of our friends! We're off to yet another London & Gran Canaria trip. Join us, if you wish.
14 December 2007
	As the school semester is drawing to a close we see some less traditional celebrations, like today's Stuffed Animal Day. Because she was warned that stuffed friends larger than a backpack would be turned away, Lila compressed "Pinky" into her rucksack with frightening vigor and determination. Then, once past the parental attendence portion past, out he popped for the goings-on! Lila wins!
11 December 2007
	To celebrate Chanukah with our children's peers we try to cook latkes each year. Actually, I'm the one that volunteers and usually cooks. This year I wound up helping the kids grate and mix their own latke batter, so Rose was working the stove in the teacher's lounge all day, for hours and hours. Oh, I love you, my silly wife! What irony, fate has.
10 December 2007
	This is a terrible panorama of our visit to the passport office. Evidently both Rose and I mis-remembered which year the girls' passports expired. Crisis averted. New passports in hand in time for the airport.
8 December 2007
	From left: Matthew, Neil, Jessica, Lila, me, and Isaac. We're in West Portal, heading to the playground with the cousins. On the climbing structure, practicing arranging strategic alliances and generally teasing the heck out of the opposing team. Isaac & Lila light the Chanukah candles at Zadie & Bubbie's house. Then we all dance around the kitchen in celebration; the kids moving so quickly that they're a blur! Rose and her baby sister, Pamela, who not so long ago got married and moved to Roswell, New Mexico. A bittersweet moment: Isaac bids Pamela farewell. She'll be back in March, 2008.
4 December 2007
	If it's a downpour in Golden Gate Park then it must be a school field trip to the Japanese Tea Garden and environs! Rose and I absolutely love to volunteer for the kids' school field trips. What could be better? We spend the day with our kids, help out in the educational process, and have a grand time? So with joy (and Gore Tex) we head into the park with Isaac's third grade class. The art, koi, and greenery of the Japanese Tea Garden is always a joy; joy multiplied by twenty-five or so kids! Here we're at the pagoda on Stow Lake, where we just saw heron and pelicans and ducks. It seemed like an inspired - and dry - place for a rest and a snack. Today the rain has been more for ambiance, giving the whole expedition an interesting vibe from our usual dryness. One of the children twists her ankle on the nature portion of our trip, so I hoist her upon my shoulders and we continue along. There's so much to see and do and appreciate; healing will happen later. Rabbi Shalom Ezran leads the Chanukah candle-lighting celebration at our shul, Magain David Sephardim. He's an awesome speaker, able to craft a lesson (rather than a lecture) that fits the audience at hand. At home Lila & Isaac continue with my favorite photos of all: the annual Chanukah candle lighting with their very own menorahs. Postponing bedtime, Isaac mimics Rose's attire, from her Ranger hat to her car keys around the neck to her clodhoppers (inside shoes). Comedian!
2 December 2007
	Isaac and I at the Tilden Park steam trains, in the East Bay. He's been jonesing for this for a while, and today it all just came together! The big cats at the San Francisco Zoo. Our kids usually aren't attracted to these predators at all, but today we caught them up-close and in motion. From left: my goddaughter Kaeli, Lila, Kevin, and disappearing off the right side of things, Isaac. We're celebrating Kaeli's birthday by ice-skating at the Kristi Yamaguchi Holiday Ice Rink at the Embarcadero Center. Kaeli's sister, Natalie, and a candy cane. Hey, does the excitement ever end? Wendy and Kevin's van runs out of gas on the steep hills of Fell Street. So we grab their kids, and our own, and mount a successful rescue mission.
1 December 2007
	Lila's early-morning breakfast calestenics: don't ask, I don't understand it myself. Lila's favorite new slippers, neatly arranged on her bunk bed.