Happy Spring!

Spring has made it to San Francisco, so it's time to get outside! The farmers markets are opening, the sailboats are back out on the bay, the flowers are taking over the tiny yard, and the tourists have shed their "Property of Alcatraz" fleece pullovers!

I was able to finally go on my (3-times rescheduled due to rain) "walking photo class" at Crissy Field, where I took the picture above. It know it appears to be a fairly unremarkable shot of the Golden Gate Bridge, but I took it using the manual setting on my camera. I can now use the metering function, rather than ignoring the funny lines at the bottom of my viewfinder. Of course, since it's faster & easier to shoot in aperture-priority or shutter-priority modes, chances are I'll keep doing that, but it's nice to know I could in theory set them myself.

Here's Lucie at 4 months. Yes, I know it's almost time for her 5 month photo. I'm tap-dancing as fast as I can. In the last month I also: went back to work, suffered through another visit from the management consultant, travelled to Atlanta for a long weekend to do some work on my house and try to find new tenants, caught a cold from the kids, and did what seemed like a lot of laundry.

The cherry blossoms popped out mid-April, and all those pink puffballs reminded me of someone:

So Lucie and I spent a nice morning at the Japanese Tea Garden while Bren was at school. We admired the pretty flowers, fish, and ponds; Lucie took advantage of the peace and quiet to nap.

I picked up some poppies at the Ferry Building Farmers Market - I love them, but never bring them home as they always seemed to disintegrate instantly when I've tried in the past. So I asked the guy what to with them, and discovered my previous error - you really have to scorch the stems. (Like, over a gas burner -waving a lighter or a match over the end isn't going to do it.) So these guys lasted a little over a week.

Since my little class got me all fired up about using my camera, I dragged the kids down to the yard for a little photo session one warm afternoon.

The Brennan & Lucie portrait didn't quite work out:

Of course, it can't all be sunshine and cherry blossoms - the rain decided to return for a special Easter Sunday encore performance. So it was time for the Second Annual Living Room Easter Egg Hunt, preceded by the Second Annual Protest of Wearing the Very Special $1.99 Walgreen's Bunny Ears.

I had better luck with the ears on Lucie:

Brennan prefers to consume the contents of his eggs as he finds them, rather than rounding up the eggs first. Good thing he's the only participant in the egg hunt.

This year's I-have-to-put-something-in-the-basket-besides-candy gift was a box of big crayons, which was a bigger hit than I expected. Bren enjoys creating mini Pollocks and presenting them to Mommy & Daddy with a proud "I did it!" He also enjoys breaking the crayons, tasting the brown one just to be sure it isn't chocolate, and occasionally trying to color the floor.
In case you were wondering, I've really gotten my $1.99's worth out of those ears: