When did the dentist become a pariah? It hasn’t happened yet for Venezia, as we’ve been able to build it up as something magical and she still seems to consider it practically a trip to the candy store. Of course there is the balloon, the selection of prizes, stickers, toothbrush and dental floss at the end!

I was able to sit in on the visit this time, and Venezia was a true trooper despite the reality of the procedures: x-rays (she was statue still, only to have the x-rays misplaced by the careless attendant), cleaning (uncomfortable!) and fluoride (a little hurty!). Check out the snapshots:

Dentist

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We had a fun outing today… went to a neighborhood south of San Francisco called Bernal Heights. There was a quaint main street with a few shops, but the highlight was a park atop a hill that afforded incredible views. We had a modest picnic and enjoyed the sights. Click below for the slide show… click on the slide show while playing for larger views.

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Just felt an earthquake, which, by my standards, was massive. I was in the middle of a bizarre dream, lamenting some obscure committee decision that hadn’t gone my way, when I was ripped from the slumbers with an alarming jolt followed by a rolling side-to-side shaking. I leapt out of bed as the floor continued to quiver, and made a move to get under the bed. It was at this point that I realized in mild panic there is no room under which to get. Now the quake was still going on, mind you, as I racked my brain for plan B. Unfortunately no plan B before the event subsided… note to self: come up with Earthquake plan (Venezia has no “under the bed” either)…

I made a point to estimate the duration of the shaking, and guessed the initial shake lasted 4 to 5 seconds. After it was over, there was this residual swaying, which I imagine was the building settling back into place, rather than the earth still moving, but I’m not sure. The sound of the quake was strange… it was a muffled cadence, kind of like a train moving along the tracks without the clacking part. Let me tell you, there is no better alarm clock than an earthquake. Side note- weird, as the girls are out of town now, and when we had one of the the last earthquakes here I was out of town!

There has been continued coverage on the local news with citizen reactions, including accounts of pictures falling off shelves, dogs barking, and more. Others described a sharp jolt, vertical shaking, a 10 second temblor, and that it was felt across the Bay. Initial stats indicate it was a shallow quake, 4.2 on the scale, occurring at 4:42 am, centered 2 miles ENE of oakland, within the city limits of Oakland. For reference, we’re about 3 miles north of Oakland. Here’s a google map of our house marked near the epicenter.

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Well, we’re back from our nice long visit to Miami for Christmas–this year we were able to spend 10 days in the warm tropics, since Tony is on a month-long break from school!   We arrived in Miami a week before Christmas with a planned trip to DisneyWorld before Santa even arrived! 

Our first day we spent at DisneyWorld, we were hard-core park attendees, getting there before the park opened, and leaving when the park closed.  Venezia did great and we even pushed her 3-year old psyche by seeing how she would do with Pirates of the Carribean ride and the Haunted House!  No problem!!  I stuck with Venezia with the kiddie rides and shows, since I wasn’t able to sneak off to any of the REAL rides.  Thunder Mountain, Splash Mountain and the like should only be enjoyed by those without health problems, or babies in their tummies.   Oh well, we still had fun!

A highlight for Venezia was getting to meet Pooh and Friends at a dinner in the Crystal Palace.  I was pleasantly surprised by how outgoing and sweet she was to all the oversized characters.  She would approach them by herself and give them each a hug and kiss, turn to pose for the camera, then turn to wave at them good-bye.  (The same for Mickey and friends the next day–see pictures).

The second day we went to Animal Kingdom.  This was a little less hectic and more “relaxing” than the madness at DisneyWorld–a nice choice for our second-day park outing.

This Christmas was the first year that Venezia really “got it” in terms of anticipating Santa and the reindeer, and opening presents.  It was so much fun watching her open gifts and reacting to the presents she received!  We had a busy but fun Christmas day visiting with many of the Cesarano family!

The other pictures I have included are from a short trip down to South Beach the day after Christmas.  I wanted to find the tattoo shop called “Miami Ink” which has become the focus of a reality show on TLC.  I’m not a tattoo person, nor do I plan on ever getting a tattoo, but I really like the show!  So my mission was to find the store front on Miami Beach.  I’m really the last person to be starstruck, but it was pretty cool to see it in person, and so I had to take my picture in front of it–despite the fact that I was crawing with embarrassement for fear of looking like a cheesy tourist.  Another pic from the beach you will see my 20-week “bump”.  1/2 way there baby!

Another highlight from the trip was Tony and I getting to go out BY OURSELVES to see a movie.  What made this so memorable was the fact that we have not had gone out just the two of us in 4 months!

With more time left on Tony’s break–we have decided to trek it up to Portland!  We’ll be leaving bright and early Saturday morning to drive up there and stay about a week.  

With that being said, I must get to unpacking the summer clothes and repacking for winter in Portland!

Happy New Year!  Here are the pictures again…

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Today a bunch of haas students were bussed down to the Google campus. I have always heard cool things about it, but not many specifics other than something about a cool cafeteria where employees eat free. Well I must say I was blown away (in whatever sense you can imagine me being blown away by something).

They treated us like first class, starting with the limo buses we took down. employees are offered this service for their daily commute from sf, including episodes of seinfeld and wifi access. of course it’s free.

other highlights include but are not limited to: the 100 foot rule: you are never more than 100 feet away from food… that might be in the form of a kiosk with fruit, bin snacks and juices, or maybe a full service sushi cafe. of course all free!

they also offer haircuts, massages, laundry service, a gym with aerobics room and personal trainers, and have a couple of outdoor infinity lap pools with fulltime lifeguard. can you imagine telling someone what you do for a living… I’m a lifeguard at google.

people can bring their dog to work, they have pianos you can play in several of the lobbies for anyone to play, and my favorite quote from our tour guide was “our pastry chef is awesome.” Traci, if you are reading this, I think the blazers should have a pastry chef.

other highlights include random scooters to travel across campus, flatware and plates made of recyclable material, organic food, occasional jugglers on Fridays, beach volleyball court, and various display screens throughout campus that show in real time the search words that people are submitting around the world.

all in all it was a great time. aside from the environment and the culture, we heard from a panel of employees about their work, and had a q and a session. everyone was friendly and welcoming. At the end we had a great lunch with current employees to hear about their jobs.

so if you ever get the chance, I encourage you to take a tour of the campus. I suspect that it won’t be like any company you’ve seen before!

PS- this is my first post from my PDA, so please excuse the lowercase letters…

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So, quite a few activities lately to catch up on.  Last week was Tony’s Orientation Week for school and every night and every day was filled with more opportunities for social outings and activities than Tony and I have done in the last three years!  I think the purpose of O Week was to remind the graduate students of college life when they were 19 years old as in-everything MUST involve drinking!  Of course, Tony (and myself) can’t hang like that anymore, for one, we’re just too old, and two, we have a 2 year old!! 

Despite our old age, we were able to catch a few early meet-and-greet gatherings and continue to get to know more students, partners and kids in the program.  However, Venezia has probably made more adult business school friends here than she has kids her own age.  At one restaurant/bar last week, it was quite amusing to watch her excited reaction whenever she saw someone she recognized and knew.  Imagine those guys on SNL who bop their head to the music and point and wink at people in the bar.  That was Venezia. 

O week ended with an outing to a San Francisco Giants Game with other HAAS students.  The stadium is really nice and Tony and I spent most the time just walking around it checking out the view of San Francisco, the Bay Bridge and the water. Very pretty!   (pictures link below!)

Mony arrived on Wednesday and as always, we have so much fun when she visits!   While she was here, Tony and I celebrated our 5th year wedding anniversary with a great trip into San Francisco.  With so many pockets and neighborhoods to explore in this huge, amazing city, we decided to stick to one area—and we picked Little Italy in North Beach (how appropriate since that is where we honeymooned five years ago!)   We patroned numerous little Italian bars and restaurants (including “The Saloon”–not Italian, but the OLDEST bar in San Francisco!) before settling on a hole in the wall place for a delicious dinner.

Other quick happenings that I won’t go into much detail:  we visited Great Uncle John and Dolly today in Alameda (Tony’s mother’s side of the family), we’re hosting a neighborhood BBQ on Sunday for all the HAAS students and families who live in our apartment complex, we call ourselves The Village People, ummm…let’s see….Tony’s car is currently missing–perhaps it is stolen, and we have a 1 year birthday party to go to on Friday.  Oh, I’m sorry, did I say TONY’S CAR GOT STOLEN??!!!  That’s right.  Look for a blog entry in the future regarding that.  In the meanwhile, please enjoy some of our latest photos!!

Click here for photos

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Felt a little tremblor this morning, actually I heard it more than felt it.  If I weren’t in the Bay Area, I would have thought it was just a garbage dumpster being emptied outside.  But here is the proof–the epicenter was just 3 miles east from our neighborhood!

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/nc40188353.php

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Sunday, Venezia and I explored Tilden Regional Park in Berkeley.  It’s HUGE with so much do do and see!  There are tons of hiking trails, picnic areas, a golf course, steam train rides for the kids, a carousel and a lake for swimming in (see pics below).  The only thing we got around to doing was the carousel, she chose the LION to ride!!  We will definitely have to go back to this place to explore some more!! 

It’s great having so many things for us to do and see close by where we live.  I have to admit, I have not become bored or homesick yet because every day there is something new and interesting for us to discover! 

Click here to see photos of the girls at Tilden Park

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Our third outing into San Francisco via the BART was to Glen Canyon Park.   The hike led us through a eucalyptus grove and along the canyon floor.  Steps led us out to a rocky outcropping with views of the tree tops below.  The hike was short and sweet and ended quickly because Venezia took a little spill.  She cried and cried–for her scratched arm, and because we had pushed her to her limit with nap time.  Just like all our other San Fran outings–she conked out before we could get home.  In this case, she couldn’t even stay awake for lunch at a local diner (see pic).

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/medoraces/album?.dir=/cbbascd

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Y’know when some restaurants are just going to be difficult? Like today we went to a diner after our hike and it was nice and all, but they didn’t take visa. And by the way there have been lots of places out here that are cash only. What a pain! How do you not take credit cards in this day and age? I hate using cash because I have no idea what I spent it on.

Also the restaurant offers sandwiches but fries are extra. Whaaat? how do you not include fries? the beauty of fries coming with your sandwich is you don’t have to feel like a fat slob by ordering them extra. of course I caved and ordered the frits but I didn’t feel good about it. And on top of it all the bathroom was through the kitchen, around the meat slicer, and behind the reconciliation office. And it was a one man deal. Amazing there wasn’t a line.

Anyway, we went on another excursion today, a cool hike in a surprisingly rugged park right in the city. Venezia took a bit of a spill toward the end, no big deal, and it didn’t even slow her down until she later rolled up her sleeve and realized she had a scrape. From then on it gave her a reason to fuss on and off the rest of the way until she just fell sleep in Medora’s arms on the way to the diner. All in all a very enjoyable outing. See Medora’s post for pictures

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