a weekend in Healdsburg

Congratulations to Ted & Heather!  Dan and I snuck away for a weekend in Healdsburg to cheer on our friend Ted.  Such a delight to see Ted grinning ear to ear.  We loved sharing our "fun Ted" stories with some of the other wedding guests, that time he invited himself to Tahoe for Thanksgiving and brought the turkey, the time he broke his neck but came to visit us in New Zealand with his neckbrace and we went sea kayaking (I was 5 months pregnant with Ben at the time), camping on Cache Creek, skiing at Alpine.  The wedding was at Asti Winery in Cloverdale and absolutely stunning.    

And since we had time to spare before the wedding we spent a hour or so at The Shed in Healdsburg, chilling at the Fermentation Bar "Unusally offering by Tap."

And before the wedding we went for a hike in the redwoods with our friend Gabrielle.  It was amazing to walk around such large trees, the largest being over 300 feet tall and 13 feet wide.    

Fall Family Photos

Look, a photo of me!  We recruited Megan to help us capture a photo for our Christmas card and these fun photos are in mom's yard (where the last several years Christmas shot has been).  But this isn't the photo that will making it into people's mailbox in December, so enjoy these fall festival photos.

Empire Mine

We went for a visit to the Empire Mine in Grass Valley today and I thoroughly enjoyed hearing about how the video game Mine Craft relates to a historic gold mine, oh the things you learn through the minds of a kid.  The boys were both very impressed with the mine shaft and I love that when we played trivia in the car on the way home they both had retrained some of the information we'd picked up on our wanderings.  What a great way to spend a beautiful fall day.  

Cub Scout Campout

Cub Scout Pack 23 Campout, good times had by many.  Dan was in charge of organizing the scavenge hunt, which was thoroughly entertaining to watch the boys work their way through the clues (the simple part of reading the entire clue to the end was a lesson they had to learn several times, as the herd mentality would all run in the direction they thought they needed before they realized they didn't know what they were looking for).  I left early, but the boys spent the night and said their highlights were the s'mores, the campfire and the hike-a-thon.  Ben walked 10 miles and raised over $600 and Josh (as a honorary Cub Scout) walked 8 miles and earned a double scoop of ice cream.