Whew June was crazy

Wow it's been a very busy month! Vera spend two weeks traveling from Hong Kong to Macau back to Hong Kong on to Kula Lampur and back to Hong Kong again and finally home. Here is a link to her trip photos on Flikr. While she was away, my folks flew in to help out with Zoe. It was a HUGE help to have them here. Zoe had a great time with Grammy and Papa! They did lots of fun things, including a trip to Habitot Children's Museum.

Vera turned thirty something a few days after she returned from her trip. We celebrated by spending the morning walking around College Street in Rockridge. In the evening we celebrated with some dear friends, Barb and Kathy, who we had not seen in several months. Here's a photo with the cake that had all thirty something candles. Vera could not blow them out - luckily Kathy is a clarinet player and had the lungs to get them out before the house caught fire.

Speaking of fire, the California wild fires have been horrible. The sun has been blocked by smoke and "particulate matter" making it a pukey orange-pink color. Today was the first day that the sun light looked somewhat normal, and we could actually see Mt Diablo in the distance.

We went to see Sesame Street Live with Zoe's friend Mackey. They both loved it. The cool thing was it kept their attention longer than any of us expected. Zoe talked about it all the way home in the car. She even talked about it for the next couple of days. "Big Bird dancing" or "Elmo singing". It's amazing, she really does appear to be remembering things and is able to talk about them later. (Her verbal skills have started to flower. Also on the drive home, Zoe said from the back seat, "Tummy hurts". She threw up shortly after we got home. That was the first time she was able to communicate with us that something was wrong. And both she and Vera then had a bout of the intestinal flu.) Here's a short slide show from the show:



This past weekend was San Francisco Pride. We did the Pride 5K run on Saturday. OK, well Vera did the run while Zoe and I did the walk. It was great fun! Zoe loved the balloons and the butterfly banners that are hanging on the posts through Golden Gate Park. "Futterfly, Mommy!"

On Sunday we marched in the Pride Parade. We joined the Our Family and COLAGE (Children of Lesbians and Gays Everywhere) parade contingent. This was the first year that Zoe marched. Last year we didn't get there on time. Zoe had a great time! She sat on one of our shoulders most of the time and waved to the crowd. She even let strangers come up and put Marti Graw beads on her. After the parade, we happened to walk by SF Mayor Gavin Newsom and took a quick photo.



I sold my Jeep today. I was sad yesterday after the guy (a fella named Chris from Sausalito) came by and we made the deal. He came back today and picked it up, paid in cash. I've had that Jeep for 10 years. So many memories. But I'm happy that it's going to be used for what it's meant for, hanging out in Tahoe, instead of sitting in my garage.



As for Zoe... She's putting sentences together.... "I no like it". She said this when we gave her rice milk instead of regular milk. She understands the concept of two... I was playing with her the other day and she saw our two cordless phones sitting on the desk next to each other. With out counting she pointed to them and said, "Two Phones". This evening as Vera was getting ready to read her a bed time story. I leaned over the give her a kiss goodnight and she said "Two Mommies". Then she took my face and gently pushed it over to Vera's face and said "Mommy, kiss mama." Enough said on that one.