They were so lovely we bought them up, just like that. And then when our friends came over for dinner, we knew what we had to do.

Our friend Sean said it was a little like choosing your monopoly piece – it was fun seeing which animal each person wanted most.

We’ll all have extra birthdays this year!

to this.

Now, I know what you’re thinking, but honestly, Vegemite isn’t that bad. No, it was something far more unsavory, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start with the good stuff. Tom turned 40 at the end of last week, and we decided to take a quick trip down to Santa Cruz for some fun on the boardwalk with Gini and Craig. It was a perfect day.

It started with a steam train – really the best start to any day for Tom. We weren’t on board, but we got to see it head out for a tour through the Santa Cruz mountains, and it was beautiful.

We checked out the boardwalk…

and had our lunch at the best taco bar. We’d stumbled upon this place the last time we were in Santa Cruz a few years back, and boy were we happy to find it again! $1.50 taco? Yes thanks.

Santa Cruz has a cool style going on – check out this mural:

How about a close-up of that awesome retro mod car? You got it.

Seriously, now – who doesn’t want one of those?

And just before we left town, we caught some surfing action along the coast. Gorgeous weather, awesome time.

Now for the opposite end of the scale. Are you sitting down? Both of our kids have whooping cough. That’s right – check your calendar, but it’s still going to say 2010, and our kids are still going to have this crazy thing I thought belonged to the history books. Here’s the story. Hot Wheels got a cough at the beginning of Memorial Day weekend, and we’d just been reading in the local paper that our county is currently inundated with Whooping Cough cases. Feeling a little alarmist, we brought him to the doctor and asked if he could have pertussis. No way, the doctor said. His booster was only a year old, he didn’t have any of the right symptoms, and the cough sounded like an allergic cough. It was Memorial Day weekend, so we pressed the issue – was he safe to be around people? Absolutely.

Let’s go forward a week. He was still coughing, but no real change in symptoms. Then we heard that some friends’ kids had been quarantined with Whooping Cough. “We’ve got to bring him up again,” I said to Tom. So off he went for another check – and more assurances that he was fine, but we said we really wanted him to be tested. Two days later, Honey was coughing and I brought them both into the pediatrician’s office. She swabbed Honey and said she’d bet they both had it.

HOW? I wanted to know. How do two healthy kids with all their immunizations get Whooping Cough? You might be more up to date than me on this one but I learned for the first time that no vaccine is 100% effective, and if we have enough exposure to a disease, we can contract it even if we’ve been vaccinated. When enough people in a community are vaccinated, you develop a ‘herd immunity’ so you don’t have enough exposures to risk sickness.

I just read this morning that our county has the highest rate of families choosing personal belief exemptions for vaccinations. Ten years ago, less than 2% of kindergarteners in our county entered school without their vaccinations – in 2009 it was 7.1%. Clusters of exemptions like that in a community increases risk for all of us. I respect that lots of people were scared by the autism fear, but the science just wasn’t there to support the scare – and I didn’t fully realize until this week the danger those exemptions pose not just to the kids who aren’t immunized, but to all our kids.

Personally, I feel horrible. I know we were acting on doctor’s advice, and I know it’s all around us, but of course I get hives at the thought that we were walking around with this unknowingly. I’m also pretty angry. Our kids have been miserable and we’ve lost a week of school and work and a good chunk of change dealing with this.

Here are our takeaways. Ready?

1. Don’t assume that your kids are protected by their immunizations.

2. Even if your kids aren’t presenting the traditional whooping cough symptoms – runny nose, slight fever, cough that ‘whoops’ – they might still have it. One friend of ours tested positive with no cough at all.

3. Tom figured the last one out – if your child develops a cough, call Wildcare. Tell them you found a baby bird and it’s coughing. They’ll have you tested and treated by mid morning.

Yee haw! What an awesome house. It was beautiful, laid back and cozy all at the same time. Here’s something else we found:

Snow! I guess nobody told the Sierras that Memorial Day is only a weekend away. It sure was beautiful though.

We took some nice long walks and appreciated the landscape around us.

It kept alternating between grey skies with snow blowing horizontally by, and bright spots with long views.

Here are the friends contemplating Donner Lake. They’re probably also contemplating their numb toes, but it still felt wonderful to be hiking around. It was simply amazing  - no agenda, no worries. We did some of this:

And some of this:

(That’s homemade tortillas – yum.) And some of this:

And, frankly, some of this:

Although not all at the same time, mind you. We were simply well prepared.

When I got home Honey asked me, “So what did you do? Did you go anywhere?”

I replied, “Well, ahh, let’s see – we went hiking, and we cooked, and we worked on a puzzle, and we talked…” She gave me a concerned look and said, “I’m sorry. It sounds like you didn’t have very much fun.”

Little does she realize. I keep replaying moments in my mind – doubling over with laughter, fresh cold air, delicious flavors, DJing for each other from our iPhones, swapping ideas and stories. It was rejuvenating. We stretched time together and still got home in time to enjoy Sunday with our families. What a gift.

I can’t even remember what they were talking about back there – all I remember is Honey’s friend asking her a question, and Honey saying, “Ok. Here’s what happened. Wait – do you want the long version or the short version?”

And her best friend replied, without a millisecond’s hesitation – “The long version.”

Like astronomers catching the Fab Five, or ornithologists sighting a white robin, or A’s fans watching Braden pitch a perfect game on Mother’s Day, Tom and I were completely amazed that we were there to observe the event. Incredible.

We canceled our annual egg and beer hunt this Easter, due to rain and Tom’s impending 40th birthday party in a couple of months. (There are going to be two bouncy castles, people – we need to stay focused.) It ended up being a lovely, quiet, rainy day and we had a lovely brunch with our neighbors. We actually hit the jackpot there, because Joan and Hank had us over at the beginning of the week to celebrate their Passover Seder with them, and then at the end of the week to celebrate Easter. Perfect bookend events.

I’ve never shown you this unbelievable bowl that Joan gave me (ok, us) for Christmas. It’s simple and delicate and perfect. Filled with Cadbury eggs, this one goes to eleven.

This photo actually cracks me up, because the eggs are these gorgeous pale blue eggs from Finn and Susie’s chickens, and the nest was abandoned in our back yard – I like them together, even though the nest is woefully small for the eggs. What would happen if they were real? It would be like swaddling a baby in a washcloth. I still love looking at them together though.

Last Sunday, Honey and one of our friends from across the street took their cooking interest up a notch. They took it to a… whole… ‘notha… level and made dinner for our families All By Themselves. We have discovered a new land out here, and it is good.

Tom was hanging out in the kitchen with them in case they needed help, but he had very little to do. Joan and I were in the art room catching up and being neighborly – Joan hand stitched dress cuffs for me while I put together an apron for the Sutter’s Fort adventure. That’s old-school neighborly, for sure. Too bad we don’t share a fence.

The girls cooked up pasta

and an incredible salad, while Hot Wheels dashed back and forth taking orders for his ’special drink’ – a lemon-lime concoction with so much sugar it’d make your teeth curl. (Suggesting that he rethink the sugar levels, though, brings you the same arch look I imagine you’d receive from the sommelier were you to suggest an ice cube in your wine.)

All the while, our other younger neighbor friend was working across the street with her father to make a lemon meringue pie. Now that’s ambitious. As Joan was walking out the door to come over to our house, she heard the following exchange between her husband and her daughter:

Husband: Now what does it say?

Daughter: Stir over low heat until translucent.

H: Ok – it’s translucent. What’s next?

D: Add the egg yolks.

H: What egg yolks??

Joan: [closes the door quietly behind her]

What a cliffhanger! Don’t worry, the green archer doesn’t actually get crushed by the… oh wait, wrong cliffhanger. The pie was delicious. As was the dinner itself – bruschetta, mixed green salad and pesto pasta. Now we’re getting somewhere.

It was a great night, although we only got one quick glimpse of our friends during the broadcast. If you go to the Oscars website, you can see them at the very beginning of the Visual Effects acceptance speech clip.

The place to go, though is to the Access Hollywood site, and check out the clip of Sandra Bullock talking about how much she loves Gabourey Sidibe. Keep watching, because as the interview goes on there are some awesome moments of Courtney and Russell in the background. I’m sorry Sandra, you were gorgeous and funny too, but there’s this moment when Courtney turns around and you see the cool layered detail of her dress in the back… it’s fabulous. And what a beautiful woman!! It’s not every couple who can just step into a situation like the Oscars red carpet and look so thoroughly at home.

There’s another photo of them on the Huffington Post site, which I love because they’re smiling at each other. That prankster Sandra hopped into the photo in front of them again in this one – she’s such a card.

Well done guys!! We’re all so happy for you.

Love is

Valentines on the fridge, and talking to Nana in the driveway

Tulips from friends

Treats from neighbors

New lavendar

A sunny day bike ride to the beach with best friends.

Honey’s best friend gave her a valentine poem yesterday afternoon. The last line of the poem is:

“We have power, that power is love.”

What a score in the best friend department. We all rode together to Sausalito to the best little cafe you can imagine. We bought root beers and sat outside for a bit. As we crossed the street to the cafe, our friend Amy asked Hot Wheels if he’d be her valentine. He paused and answered, “Wellll, I’m not sure if I can live with you…” She had to explain that living together wasn’t necessarily in the valentine contract.

Then we hit this tiny scrap of beach where the kayakers go out into the bay. There was a sea lion lolling around in the shallow water checking out all the boats and even one crazy swimmer. What a day.

Cause he is.

A lot can happen over a few weeks, but definitely the biggest news out here is that our friend Russell earned his second Academy Award nomination, for his work on Star Trek. We’re all bursting with pride, as well as curiosity as to what Courtney is going to wear to the Oscars. It’s SO EXCITING and I’ll have to get back to you on that. Can you imagine having to figure out what to wear to the Oscars? I can’t.

We do still have this lovely outfit that you’re welcome to borrow if you’d like, Courtney:

It’s a little hard to see, but it comes complete with a little white bird for your headband. Smashing.