Holiday Celebrations

Back home from Sayulita, it's get-ready-for-Christmas time!  Since we would be spending half of winter break in Truckee, we had to move fast to fit in some of favorites, including the Union Square Ice Rink.  

Luckily for my back, the kids are more comfortable on skates now, although they do gravitate to the railing.  It got a lot better when we picked up one of these little penguin dudes - we must have lucked into a skate session with inattentive staff, since half a dozen were just sitting out, no rental required.

We capped off our skating with lunch in a big department store - the kids requested the Cheesecake Factory in Macy's, which maybe wouldn't have been my choice, but I do enjoy marveling at the view of Union Square and the vast number of tourists who are eating there no matter what the day or time.

St. Nicolas visited December 6th, filling the stockings with favorites like lemon sticks, licorice pipes, kinder milk bars, salty licorice, and small bricks of marzipan.  Unlike Halloween, I don't find that I have a difficult time staying out of the kids' candy.

We like to visit the California Academy of Sciences at holiday time, to see the live reindeer - and briefly turn into one:

Instead of catching a planetarium show (which was a bit of a disappointment, as I am incapable of staying awake during the shows and was kind of looking forward to a nap), we admired the tropical fish downstairs, and wished Claude a Merry Christmas:

And then spent a little time in the atrium, to watch a short film about northern lights inside the belly of an enormous inflatable snowman, and play in the indoor "snow".

Of course, it's very important to remember a special holiday BEFORE Christmas - Lucie's birthday!
We started the day the very best way - opening presents:

Lucie had been coveting the pom-pom hat at our last trip to the ski shop in Truckee, so she was pretty pleased to find it in her present pile.  Brennan decided to join the fun and made his own hat out of wrapping paper.

We generally let the kids pick the restaurant for their birthday dinner.  Even though we are often away from home for Lucie's birthday, she always has a plan.  She was very clear that her 6th birthday dinner would be at the Lodge at Tahoe Donner.  She's very fond of their mac & cheese, and stuffiing all her pockets full from the giant bowl of after-dinner mints at the hostess station.

Since we have things like jobs, ski passes with blackout dates, and renters willing to pay holiday rates for the Truckee house, we couldn't spend our entire break in the mountains.  Christmas day we hurried home to see what Santa had left.  (Here's a hint:  waaay too much stuff)

We got home a bit too late to enjoy the biggest gift, and rainy chilly weather brought further delay, but a year-end sunny day finally gave us the chance to enjoy the new bikes. So we said farewell to 2016 and the little bikes.  Brennan's been upgraded to a 21 speed Hot Rock 24 with street tires -

- and Lucie is riding his old Hot Rock 20 until she grows the 1 inch she needs to be big enough for her new Hot Rock 24.