the mayors of Wesley Street

We went to Auntie Quanie and Uncle Will's today. They live out in Oaktown and have been there forever. They know everyone and everyobdy! Cousins Cherie and Mike are stying with them (Cherie is their daughter) on there way back to HI and we stopped by to say HI. Auntie Lu and Uncle Ed popped over while we were there, so we got to see them too! Pia was sort of in a bad mood, cuz she was tired, we just had returned from a funeral and it was just one of those days. luckily the aunties and uncles always know what to do: uncle ed came baring ice cream (he works for dryers) and uncle will took sophia to a neighbor's house where they have a garden and chickens (in the city!)!

Happy Birthday Sarge!

try and guess who the bday boy is.

It was a friend from college's 40th bday. I wasnt actually invited to the party, but I crashed anyways. There was a big bash at Sonoma Chicken Coop in dtwn Campbell. (BTW dtwn has changed a lot! historic campbell has been renovated so much, i think they need to take down that historic sign!) It was such a blast. Lots of faces from the past. Drinks, food and karaoke to boot!

Natalie Justin and Wendy

My Cousin Wendy came by with her two kids today. I love when they come! Wendy is a professor at SJSU (i actually took a class from her, then realized i actually had to study and do the work, good thing the class was interesting!). When Justin was a little guy, Wendy dropped him off at our house near campus a couple of times and I watched him for a little bit. Now he is all grown up. Justin and Natalie played with Sophia and she had such a good time she wanted to get in the car with them and follow them home!

Wendy is a quilter. Last year she said i could pick a some squares and she would quilt me something. I chose the 50 states (which was from a quilting exchange- each person had one state and made 50 squares and then everyone switched until they got one of each state. when i get a chance i will take better pictures because the detail is amazing!). Nice quilt huh? Don't you wish you were me??

Fun with the Kelly Clan

No swim lessons on Fridays, so we met Karen and her kids at Cabello park. Sophia had a blast! Karen's kids are so amazing! They introduced themselves, helped Sophia get started playing since she was feeling a bit shy. They pushed her forever on the swing. Usually we have to ask her to get off, they pushed her so long, for the first time Sophia asked to go down!

PS here is another funny coinky-dink...Letty, the lady from yesterday's playdate-is sorority sisters with Karen. While Karen and I were catching up, she put 2 and 2 together.

Facebook UC style! Catherine and Karen Allison pushing Sophia
Jason monkeying around!

chillin in da UC

sometimes it's great to be home...so i mentioned before that the first 2 girls are karen's kids, my friend from elementary school. well, by coincidence we discovered that the little girl next to them is our neighbor (who we rarely see) and the parents and i went to school together. my dad came to the class for the first time and isabelle's dad recognized him, so they started chatting during the lesson (in fact my dad was so busy chatting, he missed seeing sophia's first jump in the pool!). after he mentioned that, we went over later today to see if they wanted to play. sophia had a great time, they have a big junglegym, a trampoline with the colorful plastic little balls (think the the kid area of ikea, that bounces) and lots and lots of fun toys! sophia seemed like another kid-she was so happy to have someone her age that speaks her language!

Walkies

one of my favorite things to do as a kid was walk/bike/play on the creek trails behind our house. looks like sophia likes it too. it's been good because when she is bored or in a crappy mood i can usually get her to go for walkies. today she actually ran the first

1/2 mile. she was poopin granspa out!

Day 2

day two of swim lessons. sophia actually asked to go back to the pool today. she protested a bit when we got there, but in the end she had fun and even put her face in the water and blew bubbles (it happened so quickly i didnt actually get the shot of that historic moment!).

Alyssa and Sophia and i gotta find out the other little boy's name.

ceramics

guess what you are getting for christmas...ha ha just kidding! well maybe not...

it was the second day of ceramics class, so it actually looks like i know what im doing here, i dont, but shhhhh dont tell anyone. today i actually got to throw 2 bowls even after i put the foot on the one from last week!

Swim lessons

Today was the first day of swim lessons. They rebuilt the pool since i was a kid, no more cement that cuts your feet or diving blocks that fall apart when you dive. It's a nice big pool with plenty of parking. There are loads of teachers per class and the tiny tots is a seperate section of the pool. I had a great suprise too, Karen Sunigren, who was one of my best friends in 3rd and 4th grade was there. Her daughter Aly is in the same class as Sophia. (karen is the blonde bending down, so you cant really see her). It's been fun catching up with her!

Hiking in Sunol

Went to Sunol for a hike. The paths werent clearly marked and Sophia walks a bit slower than everyone else, so we didnt go quite as far as I was prepared for (i brought gallons of water, snacks, the little container to collect bugs and keep her occupied a sketch pad, etc etc etc). the best part of the trail was throwing rocks into the creek!
we actually spent more time in the visitor center afterwards than on the trails.
sophia had a good time looking at the snakes and spiders they had on display. there were also containers of bones and feathers and other things from the animals and plants of the area. michelle picked up the turtle shell in side the box labeled 'fossils'. the empty little shell was kinda gross, and i could only imagine there was a naked little turtle running around somewhere. then we opened up up a box labeled 'mystery' - how could we resist, with a label like that. there was another turtle shell inside, and we squealed, and ewwwwed and laughed when michelle realized this shell was NOT empty...there was a shriveled up dry turtle inside. it had this weird long dangly dried up leg poking out of one of the holes. yuck!

Uncle Matt and Aunti Chelle entertained Sophia (and themselves) with the little green ball.

buggin

arghhhh. sophia has returned to her im not sleepy stage. she just would NOT go down for a nap today. so after about an hour, i gave up and jumped onto the bike. got to the quarry lakes and well you can see just how not sleepy she was.

...Might as Well Jump...

Uncle Ryan came for a visit today. Sophia had us jumping thru hoops (or at least over ropes). My Dad has rope every where for every occasion and Soph loves it! Ryan and I were trying to have a conversation but P wanted attention, so we ended up jumping rope with her despite the 10000000 degrees it was outside!

Lake Elizabeth

went to the lake again. there are soooo many more geese in the bay area now, what happened? man somebody needs some birth control education, they are out of control. the bad part is the poopies are every where!

Ceramics, Day 1

Okay i suck! i tried to sign up for ceramics class while in italy, but i thought i was lame and couldnt figure out how to get a code and pin. then i pushed it off and pushed it off because there was a billion other things to do. finally i tried again when we got home and ended up calling the place to figure out why i couldnt sign up (you actually have to call or go in to get the number, but it doesnt say on the site). so i finally tried to sign up for the class and of course it was full! i was number 6 on the waiting list, there was no way i was getting in. well Erin (the instructor) called and said there were so many sign ups, she was opening a new class on tuesdays, of course that was the day the power went out. Holly rocks, she changed her class to tues and signed me up too! the first day was lots of fun and i really needed the break away from sophia and to hang out with adults. im going to sign up for a class when i get to italy!

Happy Father's Day

Dad dunked his camera into the ocean while fishing in mexico last week - so that pretty much made searching for a fd present obvious!
went to the IHop. grandma and sophia played before breakfast arrived
Matt and Chelle
Maria is being an *sshat (you make a dorky face, you get your dork pic on the internet) and Im just goofy looking. what happened to my chin during the last couple of years? it has merged with the rest of my body.
WOW! Mini rootie tootie fresh and fruity pancake face!

Auntie Joyce's

I forgot to mention that Maria came of from LO and Joyce came EB side and we had dinner together. We were supposed to BBq some of the fish that my dad brought home, only by Dad blew out the power trying to fix the pool filter (that I blew out) and we were without electricity for a few hours (quite a few hours).

but that was yesterday.

today joyce invited us over to her p's a father's day bbq (one day early). sophia had a great time with joyce's newphew's. i think sophia is into ryan, he sings micheal jackson (and other 80s songs), is funny and looks good in a uniform. (remember boring school pics, then there were those crappy reflection ones? well times have changed, at ryan's school's school the kids get to dress up in costumes(they choose what) and take pictures- we saw the ones where he was dressed as a fireman, park ranger and captain stubing (or a missing village person)).

Lickies

Look at that big dirty mouth! I made brownies today, my mom taught her lickies!

Arzo

this is my fab friend arzo, she used to cut my hair all the time back in the day. then we moved to italy and she moved to NY so we hadnt heard from each other in a few years. i heard she was back and i desperately needed to cut that long hair off. she cut sophias too. it was great catching up with her and hearing what was going on.

houdini

we went to coyote hills to see the butterfly garden, but it was closed...so we wandered around the little natural museum they have with the native american displays. the best part was houdini, the turtle!

Lake Elizabeth

well, mom already has us on the go, making us 'have fun'! we went to play at lake elizabeth, it's a big giant park that has several different play areas. back in da' day (i sound so old school) i remember there were paddle boats that you could go around the lake with-and a 'lagoon' to swim in, they are tearing down the lagoon now and building water slides). i can tell when sophia is out of her element all she wants to do is go on the swing. but she had fun.

tiramisu

the Cologno Monzese Crew is coming over tonight for a TTFN dinner. Sophia helped make tiramisu.

Then we made some pizza dough!

Bea needed some last minute help on the translations and adding pictures into her presentation, so she, antonello and sophia mandato came over. antonello was great, he kept the kids occupied, got us lunch (pizza) and even cleaned up after everyone. the kids screamed and jumped and ran all over the place and had lots of fun. i didnt actually get any pictures of that...too bad!

afterwards we were supposed to go out for a bike ride, but it rained...oliver lucked out!

Good Gravy!

great....i've been trying to clean the house before we take off. i knew it was too quiet for too long...the little booger wrote on the wall. i made her clean it off with one of those magic sponges, this one doesnt actually work that great. note to self, buy some in the states. sophia went back into the room later with max and said 'no one wrote on the wall, there is nothing there.' l ike i said, little booger!