T'Gallant Winery           Perfect on a wintery afternoon!

I took the babies down to a playground by the beach. It was freezing! Gracie kept inching closer to the water...but I didn't think she'd actually go in.  Well, she proved me wrong and took a nice, icy mid-winters dip in the Bay!

She's thinking about it....

...and getting closer...

...and, she's in!

Making cookies with a 1 yr old and a 2 yr old is really interesting, but fun! It was Noah's first time using cookie cutters and all he wanted to use was the tow truck shape. He loved "painting" the icing on too!  

We took a drive up to the Alpine region where the horrible bushfires happened 6 months ago. On a cold, rainy winters day, and since most of the rubble has been cleaned up, it was really impossible to appreciate just how awful it must have been.  Six months along, landholders are still bulldozing piles of fallen trees and burning the wood to clear their properties. It was amazing how much regrowth has already sprouted up though. 

From the cockpit...

What used to be someone's front yard & mail box.  If I remember correctly, the spray painted circle with and X through it on the rusted box were symbols used as salvage crews painstakingly searched every property and indicated if any remains were recovered. 

Whole neighbourhoods were flattened

Back to winter!

After a fabulous 7 week vacation, we are back to reality. And back to winter, brrrr.  We took the tram downtown and had a long walk and a yummy Japanese lunch; we have missed the authentic Asian food available here.

Lansing

Here they are playing, having fun and making a good photograph nearly impossible

Berry Picking

We went strawberry picking and came home with 15 lbs of berries. Needless to say, we are having strawberry everything right now. The kids were entertaining, and perhaps a bit disruptive to the serious pickers. All Anna wanted to do was eat the berries and stomp on the ones in our crate, and Noah kept wanting to take off his shirt for some reason (and it wasnt hot, or even warm that morning). Go figure, that's Noah. In any case, it was lots of fun for them.