New Year's Eve

This New Year's we spent the occasion with our darling super friends Tracy, Josh, Ari, and Noa.  Moxie was only up for a couple hours--actually only 1.5 hours--then she went to bed.  The grown ups ate wings, drank bourbon, and played poker.  It was really great. Here's the poker winnings: 1. Strider, 2. Tracy, 3. Josh, and, finally, 4. me.

Moxie's (and Strider's and Jess', and Bibi's) First Hanukkah

 Well folks, here we are just finishing our second Monday with everyone back at work.  Postings will likely be a little less frequent but we will try to fill them with triple awesomeness.  

After surviving our first full week of daycare and full time work we got to celebrate Hanukkah with family and friends.  It was wonderful.  

Bibi helped Karen as she wrapped up the latkes.  Having never had them before--YUM.  We had ours with homemade apple sauce from Tony.  

Luckily, our first big week of everyone going their own way hasn't driven the punk out of Strider.  Tony and Karen spoil him by always having Strong Bow cider on hand. 

 You can tell by Ryan's facial expression he believes everything I say--as he should.  It was really great to have time to chat and catch up with everyone--we hadn't seen people in a few weeks.

Moxie got time with Hannah (congrats for recently graduating college!!), Jacque (immediately below), Ruby (pictured above), Doug (not pictured), and Karen (way below).  Moxie put on a show for everyone by standing on Jacque's lap.  Her balance is crap but she's got some strong legs.  In the first picture here you can really see Moxie's hinky ear (her left).

Before we ate Ruby lit the candles and everyone said a prayer.  during the candle lighting we all got to wear cool glasses that either showed Stars of David or "Shalom" in the candle light.  See below where Strider attempts to capture the cool effects (also notice the bad ass salad Jacque and Hannah brought).

The meal was amazing: brisket, latkes, green beans (Strider's fav), homemade apple sauce, and for dessert--donuts.  These people know how to party.

Doug joined us a little late--he was a little sick--but, as you can see below, not too sick to make faces at Moxie and Karen.

 Moxie takes her holiday seriously.

Walk in the Woods

On Thanksgiving morning Grizzly, Strider, Moxie, and I went for a walk in the woods behind our house.  Oh, we took the dogs too.  Melanie, Griz's wife, was also at the house but slept through the hike in preparation for the day's festivities. Gyges and Pili hadn't been back in the woods for a while so it was all very exciting.  Lots of sniffing to do.  We got to see the giant trees that fell during Super Duper Storm Sandy.

Grizzly and Moxie decided to wear fun hats during the walk: Moxie in a cupcake and Grizzly with wings.  Jess stole the hat from Grizzly because she is a wuss.  You will note that Strider and I are totally bundled up and Griz has only a long sleeve shirt.  He spent much of his early life in Mongolia and thus is very comfortable in cold weather.  He actually radiates heat.

They dressed like twins.

Somehow Griz got stuck walking the dogs (heehee).

They aren't actually smiling--these are the facial expressions of men looking directly into the sun.

These two had lots to discuss.  Topics ranged from software to make movies to high jumping techniques.