Californian temperatures? Not really.

It's been a few degrees below freezing for over a week now, but last night was the coldest:-5 degrees C. We found some ice in shallow spots where rain water was trapped. On the picture, taken at 4pm on the deck, the ice hasn't even melted. The funniest part is to observe the level of adaptation of the locals: at the market this morning, there were as many hard core in shorts blowing loudly on their hands to keep warm as people in big winter coats. I even spotted someone shopping in a ski suit!!!

Owl mittens

Little gift I knit for Anastasia for Christmas. Kyan got the same ones in blue.

Reading on the couch

Kyan is making big progress in reading, and Anastasia is closely following with her writing. It's always cute to see them read stories together...

By the Golden Gate Bridge

November not so chilly. Kyan had a day off from school and daycare. Excellent excuse to leave work early and go to the beach.

Pumpkins and elephants

Visit at the Oakland zoo after Thanksgiving. The first stop was at the elephants, who seemed to really enjoy the pumpkins. And for the rest of the tour, we heard Anastasia begging to go back to the elephants to sketch.

Zebra and spider

It's what the kids chose to be for Halloween this year. Kyan chose his fabric, a fleece with big white dots on mocca background, and I think it looks a lot more like a spider then if it would have been plain. He insisted on having all 8 legs, though. And Anastasia wanted to be a zebra with flowers...

Pumpkin

Halloween is around the corner, and we went to a huge pumpking patch in Petaluma. Kyan knew the place already as he had been there last year with his class. Therefor he was our guide in the corn maze, but even with a map, it took us 30 minutes to get out.