California Winter 2025 Part I

Chasing Around the Barrels with Grandpa

Thursday February 27.

  Here we are in Los Altos, hanging out in Dan and Kelsey's new house. Our flight from Minneapolis was uneventful. Daniel picked us up at the airport, we got settled, played with Emi, took a walk to get coffee.

 It’s lovely here, 70’s, partly sunny. We had snacks on the plane, but I was still hungry when we landed, so I ate half of Dan’s sandwich and then had some frozen yogurt with my cappuccino. 

 Emi has once again changed dramatically. She walks effortlessly and she’s talking much more. She seems to be learning more words every day. She can definitely say bubble, ball, woof. She likes my necklace and she would like my earrings too if I let her! She loves books and will hand you one to read over and over again. 

 Friday February 28.

  Last night we went out to eat at a casual Italian place called Howie’s. It was pretty good. We split two different kinds of pasta and a pizza. I liked everything we had. Lee and I were ready for bed not too long after that, but I did make myself stay up until 8:30. I slept ok, just need to get used to it being lighter since they don’t have window treatments yet and the neighbors have outdoor lights that are on all night. I thought about getting a sleep mask but decided against it because I strongly doubt I could find one that was comfortable. I managed to sleep until 5, pretty good for the first night in California. 

I was out for a run by 7. I ran on the Los Altos bike path. It goes all the way to Stanford. I went 2.5 miles and then turned around, for 5 miles total. Then Emi went to daycare and Lee and I mostly took it easy. We’re both getting over colds and I just felt pretty tired today. We went on a late afternoon walk and now we’re hanging out until it’s time to go to dinner. Emi is home from daycare and asleep in the stroller.

Saturday March 1.

We went to a Peruvian restaurant last night. It was pretty good. Some dishes were better than others. It was in Los Altos, so not very far away. Los Altos is slightly more centrally located than Palo Alto it seems, so we end up in Mountain View or Menlo Park sometimes. My favorite thing we got was a seafood ceviche. It was delicious! We also got a couple empanadas for Emi (who didn’t want them so we ate them), a tuna cerveche that was also good, a pork belly dish that was kind of fatty, another pork dish that had a fabulous sauce that tasted great on rice, and a beef dish. A lot of times Peruvian means a take on Japanese but this restaurant was more straight Peru.

So I did my long 8 mile run this morning because it fit better with our plans. I ran on the bike path all the way from their house to the Stanford campus and back. I ran about to the bell tower for those in the know.

Stanford Bell Tower Behind Me

I was a chilly morning, low 50’s, but no wind. No sun either. I wore shorts and I was fine except my hands were cold. It was a nice run, but kind of slow. I’m still fighting this cold I guess.

When I got back to the house everyone else had gone out for coffee so I took my shower and packed for our excursion to San Francisco this weekend. By the time I was done with that it was time to take Emi to her swimming lessons. Daniel does them and the rest of us watched. Emi just loves the water! She liked everything they did except floating on her back. She could have jumped off the side and done the dive down exercise they do all day. The lesson was 30 minutes and by the time it was over she was cold. I think the water temperature was lower than normal. Poor thing, her teeth with chattering.

We got her changed and warmed up and then it was time to go to lunch. We went to a lunch/brunch place called Cafe Borrone in Menlo Park. They were good, everyone else got eggs and I got the apple waffle.

We had the Uber driver pick us up there and we headed into the city. We are staying at hotel Luma, near the baseball stadium. We have dinner reservations at 5:15; I hope we’re hungry by then!

The Ever Curious Emi