Play at Moscone Center

As San Francisco competes with more family friendly cities for conventions the city planners have really put some thought into making the area around the convention center a lot more fun.  I took the girls over in the late afternoon, but it gets dark so early now, for some run around time outside of the hotel hallways.

And then there was also a carousel!

Sunny San Francisco

Now that we are back in the US, we can continue the old tradition of spending Thanksgiving with the Zs in San Francisco…  Luckily Sophia had the week off from school, so we were able to spend a lot of time!

We spent Monday morning with the Nounas, (probably not grammatically correct Greek, but it works for us!) and ice skating at Embarcadero with Julia & Paul.  It was Alexandras first time on skates, Troy forgot to bring his skates, Sophia’s skates are in our sea shipment, so we all had rentals & had a great time!

And to the ferry building market for lunch

Then it was off to the office for Troy & back to the hotel for naps for the girls & I with more adventures to come!

Softly leaves are falling

What a joy it is to have a true fall.  Beams of sunlight thru red trees, followed by days of torrential downpour, such a joyous change from the past couple years – No Snow forecast for at least the next 14 days!

I took the girls up to the lake to enjoy a questionable day, and we were blessed by sunshine, and the joy of raking leaves.  And the bigger joy of jumping in them.  Combine that with throwing rocks in the water and swings at Nana’s park, well, it is no wonder that Lexa never took a nap!!

and Sophia has lost another tooth!!

All Hallows Eve

Sophia has been so excited for her first Halloween & of course Lexa just follows along with her, not really understanding, but enjoying the excitement!

We spent the weekend preparing for the great pumpkin arrival by carving & painting pumpkins, although at one point Lexa thought hers needed a bit of love…

Hanging out with Cleo before the candy adventure…

and with Scary Sean to protect them from other goblins, our Hermione & Dorothy were on their way!

Halloween begins

After a pumpkin play & the class Halloween party the girls were ready for an afternoon of trick or treating at daddys office. Our hermione was thrilled with the the hogwarts dorm drapery & dorfy (dorthy) was thrilled as well to be in the witch's castle!

Carousel heaven

Alexandra had her first big girl carousel ride at the zoo. An addiction begins!

Pumpkin Patch

We had the joy of taking the girls to the pumpkin patch today, on a beautiful weekend, for their first pumpkin patch outing (Sophia was 7 months & teething the last time we were in the US), and boy did it live up to all of our expectations!

We wandered for about 2 minutes before the wheelbarrow was laden down with huge pumpkins, and the girls were tripping over all of the vines in their eagerness… If it wasn’t for the size of most of the pumpkins, we wouldn’t have made it past the front of the field to where the true mystery lead… if you build it they will come… and a few photo moments -

life on the inside of a jack-o-lantern driving legally at 14 with a farm license hopefully the only time they will ever ride “standing up” in the back of a pick-up. and a bit of posing…