Visit from ma and pa

Mom and I enjoying a day at the ball park for the Cardinals-Giants game.

Dad's favorite spot in California.

Casey and grapes!

Emily pushing away the paparrazzi in Napa.

Group photo at Mondavi.

My folks came to visit for a few days a few weeks ago, and we had some great times. The best was perhaps our visit to the old faithful geyser of california, which is one of only 3 old faithful geysers in the world. I have seen two of them now.

Slow Food Festival

On labor day weekend, we headed out to the Fort Mason Pavilions in San Francisco for the Slow Food Nation Food Festival.  Slow Food is an organization that works tirelessly to preserve access of fancy foods to rich people.  We had a great time there and got to try some tasty foods and beverages.  The best part was hobnobbing with San Francisco's elite.  We even saw the mayor and his wife cutting in line for chocolate.  

Here's the cheese plate.

Emily eating pizza in front of a snail bread sculpture.

precious moments #2

here's emily driving.  she also drove most of the way so I could rest.

Precious Moments #1

Welcome to our blog, which is full of precious moments!  The plan was to begin with our trip out west starting in beautiful Madison, Wisconsin, and ending in gorgeous Woodside, California.  Of course, we are already really behind on our blog.  I am not promising greatness here.  

First off we have a picture Casey took of me getting ready for my defense. I didn't give my committee all the Table of Contents, List of Figures, etc. because I figured that I would have corrections and have to totally redo it anyway. Well, Laura informed me at 8 pm the day before my defense that they all needed it to sign off on my thesis, so the morning was spent hustling on that.   

After all that, the defense went fine. My mom came to town and Laura brought us to the terrace and then Casey, mom and I met Marissa and Michael for dinner. After that Marissa threw me an awesome party and my mom stayed up until after midnight partying! Now she really wants to get a Wii and Rock Band for the family. The rest of the weekend was spent hustling to get corrections done, get my thesis deposited, and getting my stuff packed into the stupid UHaul trailer. We have no pictures of any of that. It is going to take a little while to get used to the blogging lifestyle.