Long awaited Lake Union Park opens.

A beautiful, warm Fall Saturday for the opening of the new Lake Union Park. Walked through Pike Place Market's festival then down Westlake where I stopped to grab a bite-size chocolate coconut coated ice cream at Claudio Corallo (claudiocorallochocolate.com). Yum.

Uber-reunion Weekend

Eight-five of our fellow school mates from Castlemont HS, Oakland, got together to celebrate our respective birthdays in a beautiful San Ramon home. Many of the faces in the room I saw for the first time when I entered Kindergarten at E. Morris Cox, including my best friend Patty. Amazingly, we all remembered each other, some, to be fair, I saw at our 40th school reunion and our Girl Scout Troop reunion in 1998 and 1997 respectively. I read portions from a diary I wrote in 1957 which included mentions of many of the people in the room. It was hilarious. Given my poor spelling skills it's amazing I graduated. Now we're working on our 50th.








Il Gruppo reunites in Santa Clara after 40+ years when 12 California college students pioneered the first California college system's year abroad in Florence, Italy. Our year included the flood of 1966 which bonded us forever.
















From left, Dennis, Joanne, Sherrie, Ed, me, Gloria, Janice, Bill, and Judy. Present from Italy by phone, Marghi. Present through her newspaper column recounting the year abroad, Dede.




















Cal Poly roomies reunite and find we have lots to talk about after 40+ years.

Dancing girl

Sylvia had her first ballet class today. She was joyous.

3 - 3 - 3

Sylvia turns three years old. Her mom threw her a birthday party with friends and neighbors present. The theme was all things princess. Her mom made a birthday cake shaped like a crown. Only glitch was she ate some of the jewels before the guests arrived but mom quickly replaced them.
The first words out of her mouth when I arrived for the big event was -- "I'm the birthday girl." And she was. Our sweet little Sylvie.

Beach Bums 1

The last week of summer vacation, we took our little butterfly and super hero (face painting courtesy of their dad) to a week on Useless Bay, Whidbey Island. Our cabin for the week is on Sunlight Beach a stretch of sand, houses/cabins, lagoons and wetlands on a shallow, warm bay safe for children and a relaxing place for their grandparents and parents. At the end of the week, their parents joined us. It was a perfect vacation during a week of great weather (with the exception of one rainy morning). We'll try to do a week away every year. See Beach Bum 1 and Beach Bum 2 for a chronicle of the week in pictures which included picking blackberries and making a pie, picking apples and eating, picking pears and throwing, picking flowers and making an arrangement for mom's arrival, picking up rocks and shells and painting with nail polish to keep them forever shiny; catching crabs and eating them; making and flying a homemade kite, even better flying a big box kite on a windy moment on the beach; tossing rings, tossing horseshoes, tossing beach balls; playing croquet; splashing, running, and boogie boarding in the water at low tide; playing in the driftwood fort; roasting marshmallows and making some 'mores; fishing; canoeing, riding a raft behind the canoe, riding a log and pretending its a canoe; listening to StoryNory, listening to Recess Monkeys, listening to Raffi; playing the guitar; running, running, running.