we paid a visit to stanford university, which was only a short drive away in palo alto.

rodin sculpture garden

beautiful facade of the stanford memorial church

back at home, rebecca spent time with her cousins…

since we would be travelling the next day, derek and jennifer cooked a delicious early thanksgiving dinner! it was a blessing to be able to spend the holiday all together.

with joe finished with his conference, we had one day to do some sightseeing as a family. first we stopped by alamo square for a view of the famous “pink ladies”, a row of victorian houses, with the city in the background.

architecture was generally very interesting, especially when virtually everything is built on a hill.

driving down a VERY steep hill. kind of came out of nowhere!

then we were off to see the golden gate bridge. poor baby, she slept through all the excitement!

next stop was fisherman’s wharf where we had lunch with a view. fried oysters.

then a short walk to pier 39 for a view of the lazy sea lions and alcatraz (if you squint, you can see it on the island in the background!). so much to do, but so little time. we’ll have to come back one day for a proper visit.

it was time to go… drove to sunnyvale and checked into our hotel. then a yakitori dinner with the family. delicious and beautiful!

day three. while joe was still busy at the conference, rebecca and i were able to spend the day with our family. first we went to the beautiful japanese tea garden in golden gate park.

jadon checking out the coy fish.

i loved the beautiful trees.

then we went to the embarcadero where we enjoyed the view…

a lovely peruvian lunch (pic of derek’s meal)…

a quick stroll through the market…

before heading home.

the day wasn’t over yet though. joe and i had a surprise mini reunion over coffee with our old friends from chicago, orlia and debra!

helen is visiting us this week in chapel hill! after church we went to “weathervane restaurant” for an authentic southern brunch, complete with biscuits and grits. i think the waiter thought we were a bit dim for asking “what are grits?”, a southern staple. but now we know, it’s kind of like a porridge made of coarsely ground corn. it was good… kind of gritty.

for dinner we tried an italian restaurant called “four eleven west”. a lot of shrimp. baby tried scallop, mmmm.

a lovely parisian mid-morning snack with my bff at faubourg in kerrisdale. freshly made pain au chocolat and apple spice cake.

rebecca got her hands on a red balloon (the one that she read about from goodnight moon, of course), which meant good times with grandma T and grandaunt K.

a belated post for joseph’s birthday from a week or so ago. derek and priscilla flew up from california for just a couple of days. rebecca got to play with her cousin and her new octopus.

then derek took us out to an amazing italian dinner at campagnolo. it was quite the feast!

shyla turned three and invited rebecca (and her parents) to a princess-themed birthday party. there were many little princesses running around having a great time, including rebecca who had her own golden tiara.

we celebrated grandma L’s birthday a few weeks ago at cousin elizabeth’s home, together with joseph’s other cousin simon visiting from ireland. we enjoyed a delicious and beautiful french themed lunch (complete with french onion soup!) and cake on her back porch. happy belated birthday mom!

it was wonderful to have friends we knew from chicago come through vancouver and pay us a visit. we brought jackie (our fellow canadian, now kentuckian egyptologist) to brunch at sophie’s.

then we had the pleasure of hosting debra for a few days in the midst of her westcoast roadtrip. making friends with auntie debra.

dinner at habit.