January

Well '08 is already moving...January was a good month for us, we got into a preschool for next fall after getting caught up in the frenzy. Can you believe over pre-school? For those of you who don't know the schools in the Bay Area aren't great, that being said all of the parents go insane trying to get their kids into the few schools that are "acceptable" whatever that means. Anyway, after a few days of stress we decided not to join in on the craziness and visit 15 schools...I'm not kidding people here do that and we selected the school based on location, cost and not having to have already been on a waitlist while Sasha was in utero. Not bad criteria eh?

Our weekends were filled with fun outings with friends. And we actually got to go out on our own a fair bit this month. We saw Jamie Oliver from The Daily Show- our friend Tristen treated us and we had a great time! And we also got out to see a live band at Yoshi's on an actual date night [Thanks again Tristen for babysitting!] We also went down to San Jose to see a hockey game, which we won. The Sharks are actually pretty good, we haven't been since DC and were surprised at how much fun we had. Maybe next month we'll try for a GS Warriors game, the games are a lot closer and our team is also doing quite well.

Sasha is talking more every day and starting to put sentences together. She really is a chatter, I'm sure no surprise to many of you. She is a lot of fun and is getting a little more daring each day. She is starting to really enjoy the slide and is more independant going off on her own to explore. She LOVES bathtime- there has been more than one night that she's stayed in for 45 minutes. We still read a lot but her favorite thing is playing at the park in the sand or with other kids. She knows all the names of her friends but we think she has a crush on a little boy named Nico she plays with twice a week. We've been told they hold hands while in their strollers and she talks about him quite a bit at home. She is also singing- yes she knows the tune to, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star", "ABCD" and "The wheels on the Bus". She may not know all the words- but she sings like she thinks she does!! It's adorable! I think she'll be quite the karoke singer. She definately knows what she wants and can clearly communicate- even with picking what song to sing, if I start she'll stop me and say, "No No" until I say the title of the song she wants. It's a lot of fun and a great age- we get to see her learning new things every day!

Workwise, Alex is working on 3 major remodels in SF and his company is revamping their image to be more "green". Alex taking an interest in that a long time ago [in school] is quite excited and is hoping to get LEED certified this year. January was incredibly busy for Amy, the remodel in Crocker Highlands, a 900k project, was fast-tracked and we had to crank out a permit set in about 3 weeks while still getting the contractor enough information to price. It was stressful and a lot of hours but with working on her own she knows other months will be slow so you have to jump on it when it's there! Amy also started her foray into the real estate world. She is working for a local broker called Red Oak Realty and is getting geared up to start up that business as well.

That's just the beginning of what will hopefully be a great year! Here is a link to some pictures of this month:

http://picasaweb.google.com/amyres/January08?authkey=-V8TZ6K6-xA