January

We were lucky enough to get a little sun over new year's.... for a short while, at least. Kenneth's dad invited us to spend the holiday with him (and Kenneth's sisters et al.) at his house in St. Petersburg, Florida. It started out sunny and we enjoyed walks on the beach and swimming in the ocean. But it soon turned colder than Berkeley (or atleast windier). Ironically our returning connection through Chicago was delayed for 6 hours because of torrential rains in San Francisco! Aside from playing with his nephew Eli (above), Kenneth had a grand time decorating his palm with the henna we picked out for his niece, Eva. His kindergartners were impressed! (though some thought it was scary too)

At mid-month, we went for an afternoon hike at Las Trampas Wilderness, about an hour east of Berkeley. Not only did we luck out with a sunny day, we had amazing sightings of wildlife: TWO bobcat, and TWO coyote!

We also found a hillside covered with holes like this (below), dug by the cat(s) -- footprints made it a sure I.D.


We're excited to approach the end of January, since we'll soon be moving upstairs (in our same house) to a sunnier room with a shared living room. Finally, our dinner guests won't bump their heads on the ceiling of our basement apartment! It is cold and rainy in Berkeley (oh so rainy; the only silver lining is that we've set out rain barrels to collect water for the garden we've planned). Thank goodness we love making soup and watching movies.