January

Soooooo, January. O and I were lucky enough to get to spend the whole month in California with Dad and Abram. Andrew had to get back to work (sucker) but was able to stay around long enough to celebrate O's birthday and see him start to walk.

The big feature of the month was O's first birthday. Without any of his little friends around, he was stuck partying with his parents, Papa Petersen, and Uncle Abram. We started the festivities at the Randall Museum in San Francisco. Heard of it? Probably not unless you grew up in the city and loved spending Saturday afternoons in a room full of handicapped wildlife. The Randall is a little children's museum with a room full of rescued wildlife that can't be released back into the wild because of various handicaps. We always loved it for the ferrets that you could play with and the owls that were free to fly around the room. Downstairs is a model train room that really just makes you feel like you're in some train enthusiast's basement where he has slowly gone nuts over the years. As a kid you think it's great, as a parent you want to hug your child closer and protect him from the man grinning at you as he plays with his trains.

The rest of the party was pretty standard. Cake, some pretty sad decorations, and presents that took O a while to figure out. The cake was a mystery to O at first but once he caught the vision, it took hours to bring down that sugar high.

Other highlights of the month include getting to see the new Academy of Sciences building. I've been reading articles about it for months and while I was sad to see the old building go, I was curious what Mr. Renzo Piano could do with it. I was quite pleased and really really longed to live in SF again just to take O there every weekend. They kept all the best parts of the old building including the albino alligator and the taxidermy rooms, and upgraded everything else. I heart SF.

Also managed to hit up the MOMA, another absolute favorite of mine. Always come away feeling so inspired by modern art especially when I've started my trip with a stop at Zachary's. Muir Woods and Muir Beach. Zachary's again. SF Zoo followed by a trip to Pollyanna's. Shopping, walking and eating in Berkeley. These are a few of my favorite things (all of which we managed to do during our trip). Photos here.