Happy New Year!

Done! Enjoyed! Here's Nick, Wini and Virginia in Union Square sometime before Christmas. They were also lighting a menorah that night in a public ceremony. We went from here to the St. Francis hotel to gawk at the huge gingerbread house and zip up and down the glass elevators.

In fact, there were a lot of gingerbread houses in our holidays this year. We made them out of graham crackers and Royal icing with the Girl Scout troop. Nick came up with a design improvement (the diamond-tilted cracker to strengthen the walls and support the roof) and it turned into a project even a pack of six-year-olds could handle with little supervision.



We made several of these houses over the holidays, but I resisted the temptation to pig out on them. The icing is powdered sugar and egg whites - pretty much straight sugar with something wet to make it flow. Not the best snack for a diabetic by any means.

That is, I resisted until we made this one, from a Trader Joe's kit. We were all mesmerized by this cute little a-frame. Wini pretended to take a bite.



The little tree and the bell on top were hiding hershey's orange chocolate kisses. Somehow, they were improved by the royal icing into something completely sweet and decadent, mmm. There were also a couple dozen of these around to add to the holiday temptations:

















This must have been the night we were in Union Square. We walked through downtown to look at all the decorations, and one of the department stores had given their window displays over to the SPCA. There were cats and dogs with their own private, expertly-designed rooms available for adoption.








We also encountered a strange statue.














These pictures were in downtown San Francisco at a concert of Peter & the Wolf. We had to zip up to the city after a long morning of rehearsals for Wini's ice skating show, and I felt horribly underdressed all night! Most of the children were in fancy Christmas dresses and looked adorable. We dressed more sensibly because we had to park in Daly City and take BART into the city, and there was lots of walking. Oh well, there's always next year.






Here's Wini in her costume from the ice skating show. Unfortunately, we took videos but not pictures of the performance. They looked like a set of spinning Santa tops.
















After Christmas, we headed down to visit Redondo Beach. We had heard that they had set up an ice rink in Pershing square in downtown Los Angeles. How could the city of angels with its temperate climate sustain an outdoor ice rink? We had to check it out. We combined it with Nick's love of public transportation into a day of taking trains to the city center. (Walter's comment: he was shocked that we could find anything fun to do in downtown LA.) The skating was awful (tiny rink packed with people in the blazing sun) but the novelty of it was worth the trip. It made a nice day outing for everyone, and we even worked in a geocache at the downtown branch of the library. All our pictures came out with squinty eyes because it was so bright that it was hard to see.



My daughter nabbed grandmother's sunglasses for the duration.




















On New Year's Day, we went to the polar bear swim at noon. Even though it was a little colder than normal, we figured it couldn't be too bad considering we're used to Northern California weather. Then again, we're not hanging out in swimsuits! We had plans for the afternoon, so Nick and I stayed dry while Wini and grandma actually got in the water. The sand in San Pedro had some odd black patches that attract 6-year-olds looking to get as dirty as possible.



From swimming in the ocean, we changed clothes and zipped north 40 miles to meet Nick's aunt Kay who likes to -- you guessed it -- ice skate. Nick caught a picture of me skating backwards. The reason he took the picture? This is the first time I've really "got it" about backwards skating. It was a lot of fun and now I can't wait to get out there again so that I can cement it in my legs and feet. Kay gave me the tip that I wasn't bending my knees enough. She was right, I'm not bending them enough right here!




With all the driving, the transition from the beach to the rink in a few hours, we were completely zonked that night. But it was a memorable way to spend our twelfth wedding anniversary!