Happy Holidays

(Click to enlarge) Photos top to bottom: Canadian girls on the beach in Santa Barbara, Reuben lounging on Butterfly Beach, Thanksgiving dinner with the Roaches, sky and rice fields near Davis, run Reuben run, Gabbi and Charlotte (friend) enjoying the leaf pile, Halloween, Mike and Wendy, Reuben soccer

We just returned from a whirlwind trip to Ontario to celebrate the holidays with our families and our colleagues. It was cold and snowy and felt a bit like Christmas. As we're approaching our second Christmas away from home, we are happy to have been able to be at home a couple weeks early and now look forward to a quiet break here. Here's what our busy fall looked like.

• Reuben enjoyed playing fall soccer. He made some new friends on his team and as a result we made some new friends with some of the parents


• Gabbi has joined Girl Scouts and is finding it to be a fun way to get involved in activities with girls her age


• The early fall was mostly about the San Francisco Giants. Cam became a big fan early on and then a die hard fan as the season progressed. Cam took Reuben out of school one day to go to a game. There was much celebrating in our house when they won the World Series. Go Giants!


• Reuben got into the Giants so much that his Halloween costume was the SF Giants' closer - Brian Wilson. People weren't disappointed to be pulled away from the game once they saw Brian Wilson aka 'Fear da Beard' at their door. Gabbi made an awesome vampire


• Mike Thiessen and Wendy Adema visited us over the Canadian Thanksgiving weekend. We had so much fun checking out Canadian shoe designer John Fluevog in San Francisco that we all bought a pair - unique soles for unique souls. http://www.fluevog.com/


• Blue North (South) hosted the Do More Good Summit in Sacramento with our non-profit clients. For two days we learned about trends in marketing and shared best practices. It was a great success for Blue North. There were six Blue North employees from Ontario that attended and three of them stayed with us
• We haven't heard a single rat this fall. Thank you Rusty-the-rat-tracker


• Our family competed in the annual Davis Turkey Trot. We all ran races ranging from one mile to 10k. It was a cool rainy day but we all felt like winners


• We spent American Thanksgiving weekend in Santa Barbara, one of our favourite places on the planet, with Jeff and Priscilla Roach and their three girls. The Roaches live the school year in Laguna Beach and the summer at their cottage in the Muskokas. We had a great time hanging out with people who say "eh?" and kids of very similar ages. Jeff is a cool guy who is all about cool and hip marketing. You can follow him here: http://twitter.com/glitteration. Priscilla and I were pleased to discover our common interest: grammar


• Our friend and neighbour, pianist Lara Downes, put out a new CD. Check out this interview with Lara and learn about her latest CD at the Canadian Yummy Mummy Club. A great CD for young kids http://www.yummymummyclub.ca/lara_downes_nocturnes_for_night_owls


• Speaking of celebs, Cam and I saw Leonard Cohen in Oakland the night before we came home to Ontario. We both commented that it was probably the best concert we've seen. Cohen is 76 years old and still has the gift of a golden voice. In Cam's words, "he drips cool"


• As we approach Christmas, the leaves are almost off the trees, the rain has settled in and it's gotten quite cool. We plan to spend the Christmas break in Davis. We've made a list of things to do including a day in our pjs, watching movies, playing games, going to San Francisco and just hanging out together


• We wish you all the best of the holidays and a happy new year