Home (not so) Sweet Home

We're back from our travels. After a week immersed in the warm weather and buzz of the Bay Area, I'm finding Ottawa pretty bleak. The snow on the ground is old, so it's all dirty and hardened into crusty piles. We had freezing rain last night and our car looks like something you'd pull out of the back of your freezer. Good thing I don't have to go out today. All the travel and toddler wrangling has made me pretty tired. Henry was quite a handful on the flight back, refusing to sit in his own chair for more than three minutes at a time. After all, why would you want to sit in a dumb car seat when you can climb over Mommy and Daddy like they're your own personal jungle gym for hours and hours? Between that, lugging our stuff through the airport and the fact that I threw out my back the day before while running through the hills of Belmont, the plane trip ended up being quite taxing on my body.

Oh well--it was worth the effort. Our stay in California was a lot of fun. It's a great feeling to get on a plane wearing a big coat and gloves and land a few hours later in a place where you don't even need a sweater (although the weather wasn't perfect--we had a lot of rain and clouds). Henry loved being able to play outside without suiting up in 15 layers of snow gear, and he clearly enjoyed spending time with his grandparents and Uncle Jon. Tom and I enjoyed traipsing around the peninsula in search of good food and wine. Some highlights:

• A splurge-tastic dinner at Berkeley's famous Chez Panisse (the cafe, not the dining room)
• Delicious sushi lunch (twice) in San Mateo
• Shopping for wine at a small store in San Mateo where the owner first ignored us (we were the only people in the place), then suddenly came over and started raving like a total kook about his product line, the difficulties of wine retailing, and his experiences in Napa. We couldn't resist buying the cabernet sauvignon he recommended.
  
• Eating lots and lots of Point Reyes blue cheese
• Beer. Oh,the yummy beer (more on this topic later)

We also did the usual Christmas-type activities, including taking Henry to meet Santa at the local mall. That did not go over so well with Henry, who refused to sit in Santa's lap. So Tom got some quality time with the big guy in the suit.