A couple years ago we went up to Mendocino (about 3 hours north and west of us) for the 4th of July weekend.  We had such a great time, we thought we’d do it again this year! 

We stopped at Navarro vineyards on the way, and took some beautiful pictures.  Alex is loving his new “work” camera, and it is the reason for the incredible upgrade in our photos!

We got up to Medocino around dinner time.  The last time we went we took Milo, and there were a bunch of restaurants that we could sit on the patio and bring him with us.  Unfortunately we didn’t know that for many restaurants they had changed their policy.  So poor Milo spent more time in the car than we had hoped.   

This is our hotel.  We had a great room with a huge bed, couch, and jacuzzi tub.  Both Ella and Milo enjoyed the jacuzzi tub!

The view of the bay.

Ella with her “packpack”

Not sure what she’s waiting for, but love this pic.

On the 4th we took our new and never used beach tent, and set up camp down by the ocean.  Mama enjoyed the shade, and Ella enjoyed the water!

We also had some great dinners.  And although we didn’t take pics of the food (I know only some of you are disappointed), we did take lots of pics of us and mostly E in and around our meals.

Ella enjoyed the bacci as well…

We had a great time.  Ella refers to Mendocino as “the country.”  Swimming, walking, eating… a wonderful relaxing weekend.

One of the joys of a transracial family is learning about new things… culture, food, hair?  I love talking to everyone I come in contact with about E’s hair, to get ideas, suggestions or recommendations.   I also read a lot of blogs on hair, and am always looking for something different to try.  I’d read for a while about yarn braids, but they looked pretty complicated.  Monday I watched a youtube video and I’m like… I can do that!  So I went to Michael’s and bought one skeen of black yarn.  Figuring I’d save it for whenever the mood struck.

I get home that night and E had been playing in sand…. if you have or know a kid with kinky hair, you know that that’s pretty much the worst thing ever, maybe aside from paint or glue.  Anyway, it meant washing her hair 4-5 times and scrubbing her scalp to get all the sand out.  There was probably at least 3 tablespoons left in the tub.  To say it was traumatic, would be putting it quite mildly.  But since her hair was conditioned (we’d washed recently, so conditioning was the only opion) I figured, ehh, why not put it up now.  I know it had said 1.5-2 hours to do, but I figured I could do it faster.  I can’t.  It took close to 3 hours.  Alex got home about 3/4 of the way through and started taking pictures….

I divided her hair into 4 quadrants, then divided those in half, and sectioned out about 10 “boxes” to braid.  You take 2 pieces of yarn, about a yard long, hold them both by the middle wrap around the top of the hair, and braid 2 pieces of yarn, 2 pieces of yarn, 1 chunck of hair.  When the hair starts to run out you take one of the sections of yarn, and give one strand to the hair section.  Once the hair all runs out you keep braiding until it’s as long as you like.  Then tie the yarn in a knot, and cut.

This took 2 movies and a Backyardigans.  She sat patiently for the back half, the front was more of a struggle, it was getting late, and I’ve never spent more than an hour doing her hair before.

But she was so happy when it was done.

The next day, I gathered it up into an easy ponytail.  She loves to swing it.

The idea is that is should last 5-6 weeks.  If it truly does, it’ll totally be worth all the pain.  It’s super easy, she can wear it a lot of ways, and frees us up in the morning not to have to do much.  And I imagine it’s really a protective style, since the hair is braided up in the yarn, and shouldn’t break too easily.  We’ll see… but for now – it’s fun!

Our second anniversary of Family Day was on the 9th.  But Alex was in Mississippi for work, so we had to delay our celebration until Friday night when we were all together.  Alex and Ella made a cake, complete with sprinkles, as they are the only reason for making a cake in the first place (according to E).  Then we had to sing — and have candles.  E is obsessed with “blowing out the fire.”  Here are a few pictures I happend to take on my iphone…

Blowing out the candles.

Her toe happened to land in the cake, and only a parent would think to lick the frosting off

Family cheese (I was on the couch with the camera, so excuse my absence!). 

I let Ella wear the necklace I bought for her for her very first Family Day, and she kept saying “you gave this to me?  for my family day?”  It’s nice to have a day to remember how we chose to be a family, and celebrate together.   Happy Family Day!!!

Monday was my birthday, but I was out of town for work… so Alex and Ella sent met this video.

Sometimes during the day our nanny will text us pictures she’s taken of the kids.  I love this.  I love knowing that Ella is having fun.  Today she sent this picture.  And sometimes, you see a picture of your kid and all you can think is “man, I love that kid!” So so much.  E, you’re amazing.

There are things that you just don’t think about when you are contemplating becoming a parent.   I knew that one day we would have to choose schools for our daughter, but I guess I figured that if we sent her to public schools that would be a decision we could put off until College!  Boy, was I wrong. 

When our parents sent us to preschool it was a much simpler choice.  But, also, neither of our mothers worked outside of the home… so grain of salt there.  I went to the co-op down the street, Alex went to his Aunt’s basement preschool.  Done and done.  So one of the “joys” of city living is deciding on a preschool.  There are tons of schools in the city, but it gets more limited when you need full time care.  So the down the street 3 hours/3 days a week just doesn’t work for us.  We went to a lecture a year or so ago sponsored by my mom’s group, which was helpful, but it was information overload and I still didn’t know where to start.  This fall there was a “Preschool Preview Night” where a bunch of schools set up in an auditorium to hand out fliers.  It was packed… and we, stupidly, brought E in her giant stroller.  Ugh… after about 45 min of trying to yell above the din, we left, with our plastic bag full of brochures to schools we would probably never look at.

And then we moved… so the few schools we had picked out, got reorganized.  Sometime in January I realized that many schools deadlines for applications had passed, and that we were late to sign up for tours.  Tours.  Required tours.  I begged and pleaded at one school, and they added us to one of their last tours left.  I scoured the internet, based on our new zip code to find other schools.  I finally came up with a list of 3 schools we were definitely interested in.  150 Parker Avenue School, Pacific Primary, and the JCC Rosenberg center.  All full time programs, all, apparently, very difficult to get into. 

So, the tours began.  Our tour for Pacific Primary was not scheduled until the beginning of February (due to the aforementioned begging and pleading).  So, our first actual tour was at Parker.  Super cute school, little red building with a great playground, and not far from our house.  They are a play based school, and developed curriculum based on what the children were interested in at the time.  Cute, eh?  As we stood in the damp playground on a cloudy Saturday morning I took a look at the other 20 or so sets of parents also listening to the Director talk about the school and it’s programs.  I realized something kind of funny… Alex and I were the only people there wearing sneakers.  I know, odd thing to notice.  But, like I said, it was a dreary wet Saturday morning in January, and I was going to wear comfy shoes that kept my feet dry.  So then we worried — maybe we weren’t the type of family they were looking for.  We were jeans and sneakers on a Saturday type people.  But, the school was really great.  We knew E would love it.  One obstacle was that the school closed for the month of August — closed, completely.  We’d have to figure out someone/something to do for an entire month to occupy our child.  Okay, not the best, but we could figure something out.  We talked to one of the teachers and found that currently there were no adopted children at the school, and although there was one African American teacher, there were no AA kids.  So… not sure.  Loved the school, but was it the best one for us?

All the applications were due February 1st.  And applications included essays.  Essays!  Application fees, and one said we could send a picture.  Anyway, I employed my better half to create our essay responses, which were amazing, of course.  And because we stall on everything, Alex hand delivered all three application packets that morning on his scooter.  Now we wait.

Well, we didn’t have to wait long.  That following Saturday there was an envelope in the mail from Parker with an acceptance letter tucked inside.  We had one week to decide if we would accept, and accepting meant giving them a hefty deposit by the end of that week.  Ugh… what to do?  Our tour at Pacific Primary was scheduled for the middle of the “decision week.”  So, at least we would be able to see the other school (no word from the JCC yet) but wouldn’t know their decision until March!  So we had to make a choice, without knowing what our options would be.  And, this is when the wailing and gnashing of teeth commenced.

So, tour #2 at Pacific Primary.  We were in a group of probably 30 sets of parents, huge group, so huge they had to divide us into 4 groups just to tour the school.  They have two buildings (as of 2 years ago, doubling their student body).  The school has been around since the 70′s and many of the founders are still very involved in the school.  They were created to help working parents, so they are year round, full time, provides meals, etc.   They have a real focus on diversity, and the kids really represent the makeup of the city (huge plus), and, according to their flier, about 8% of kids attending had been adopted.  Another plus.  And, of course, the school was great.  They have music and art classes, field trips, and each class has an animal name (cute).  We left thinking, wow, amazing school – but there’s no way we’ll get in.  Priority at most preschools is given to siblings, and they were looking at a huge sibling population for the fall.  Somehow we estimated that they had about 12 spots for fall – and on our tour, at least 30 applicants (and they had 6-7 tours). 

So, we left PP to head over to Parker to take a second look, since we still had to make a decision that week.  With our chances looking slim, we were concerned if we turned down Parker, an excellent school, we could be left with no school for fall.  So we went back, had a great talk with the Director (who had been so helpful through the whole process, answering all of our questions, and offering many solutions for our family).  We got to see a class in action — a parent had come in to give a talk about Chinese New Year complete with PowerPoint and dragon parade.  Okay… feeling good about Parker — so we, check in hand, accept.  Big sigh of relief.

March arrives…. and so does an acceptance letter from Pacific Primary.  Crap!  Oh, here we go again, trying to decide.  I guess it was a good position to be in – to choose instead of being left with nothing.  Many moms on my group were posting things saying that they applied to 7 or 10 or 12 schools and didn’t get into any.  Any!  So, grateful for our problem.  After much deliberation, we decided to go ahead with Pacific Primary.  It just was a better fit for our needs, and E will love it. 

We called the JCC and were put on a waiting list for a tour… yeah, they had so many people apply that they couldn’t let them all see the facility.  Oh well, there goes that application fee!  Not surprisingly, a “wait list” letter came in April confirming that they didn’t have any spots for us for 2010. 

So, here we are… Ella just got her classroom assignment.  She is a Sandpiper.  She couldn’t be more excited.  The other day she made up her own song about her class… “A piper, a piper, a piper in the SAND!”  She will sing it on demand, so I encourage you to ask.  If you ask her what happens in September she’ll yell “I go to my school!” What is the name of your school? “Pri-Mary!”  She asks to go every day.  Every day.  I hope she’s this excited to go when it actually starts.  I think she will…

Ahh, and we get to do it all over again for Kindergarten.  Ugh… welcome to San Franciscan life.  We love it!

On Saturday we went to the San Francisco Zoo. It was an absolutely beautiful day. We met up with some friends, and Ella and Ben Luka had a fabulous time. Here are a couple pictures…

I have been neglecting this blog lately, and for that I apologize. See, it’s so easy now to take a quick picture with an iPhone, upload to Facebook, type in a snappy caption, and DONE! But this means that I spend less time doing proper blog posts, and for those of you who don’t use Facebook, you don’t get the great updates of Ella. And that’s really why we’re all here. So, without further ado, here is a video seen nowhere else but here! Feel better yet?

I finally found all the camera cables (everything disappears when you move!) and uploaded all the pictures off the camera. To my surprise, they went back before Thanksgiving. So, for those who want the more thorough tour, visit our Flickr site. Otherwise, here are the highlights:

Wayne joined us for our annual Thanksgiving party. He has come every year for the past 8 years. He and Ella had a ball playing in her toy chest.

This year we ordered a Heritage turkey from a local farm up in Point Reyes. We ordered before we had a confirmed headcount for dinner, and this happened to be a small year but a big bird. Somehow we decided since I was taking the day before Thanksgiving off, it would be a fun family outing to drive up to Point Reyes to pick up the turkey. But no one else could come with me — so I drove 4 hours round trip by myself. But the turkey was delicious, and well worth all the extra effort.

After the “Big Move” (and it was — so it deserves caps and quotes, believe me). We decided to do something Christmasy. We hadn’t decorated the old flat – because we were moving, and it didn’t make sense to decorate the new falat because we were traveling to SLC for the holiday. So one Saturday we decided to take the bus downtown, and hop on a cable car. Ella had never been on a cable car – despite living in San Francisco her whole life. I guess we don’t have many new visitors anymore… Anyway, she loved it. She was entranced with the break man, and could hardly peel her eyes from him to enjoy the amazing views.

Then we walked down to Union Square to check out the Christmas tree and the ice skating rink. Elle will have to wait another year or two to try skating, but she loves to watch the kids go by.

Before we left for SLC we had to open presents from Meme and Papa, since we wouldn’t be seeing them for Christmas. Ella was very excited, and opened all the presents — even those that weren’t for her.

The next morning we set out for our 12 hour drive to SLC. As soon as we got there, we had to pack it up and drive over to Ann and Lon’s house for the annual family party. They even had a Santa! Ella’s last experience a week or two before with a neighborhood Santa had not gone well, so we figured she would not be excited to see this one. We were so wrong. We kept having to pry her off his lap so another kid could have a turn.

After Santa, and a huge buffet dinner there was the annual nativity play. We haven’t been to SLC in about 7 years for Christmas, and had no idea how the production had evolved. Costumes were sewn – no more bring your own bathrobe! All the grandchildren were sheep. Yep… Elle was the only black sheep. Oh, but she loved it. She ran up to me, in costume and said “Mama! I’m a sheep! Baaaaaaa”

Christmas morning at Grandma and Grandpa’s house

We had a wonderful time, but are glad to be back home, settling into our new house and enjoying the new year.

The entire month of December was one bit of craziness on top of another. The big news – we moved! We bought a flat in the Central Richmond district of San Francisco. The timing fell that we were packing up right after Thanksgiving and moved in before we left for SLC for Christmas. It was incredibly hectic, but we’re all moved now and loving it.

We drove out (dog and child buckled in tight) to SLC for Christmas with Alex’s family. We had a fabulous time, and Ella loved playing with her cousin Gray. Eventually I’ll pull all the photos off our camera and upload.

Things are back to normal now. Ella has graduated to a twin size bed leaving her crib behind with the old house. She’s taken to the change remarkably well, and hasn’t looked back. We’re deep into potty training, and she is doing very well – even testing the waters with training pants! Our next challenge is researching a preschool for her come Fall.

Ella talks up a storm. Her favorite things are to ask you “what happened?,” “you okay, Mommy?,” and “como estas?” Alex has also taught her to count to 10 in German — which she does usually by shouting the numbers. Her favorite being “fumpf!” She loves to help in the kitchen, and enjoys doing dishes.

Amidst all the folks who talk about how bad 2009 was, it was a great year for us. Alex stayed very busy at work, as did I. And Ella is growing and amazing us day after day. 2010 looks to be even more eventful and exciting. Can’t wait.