Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Beatrice with her cousins Louis and Rosemary in Griffith Park

This year's Christmas card photo

Merry (belated) Christmas! and a Happy New Year!

Early in December I took Beatrice to see (a wonderfully authentic-looking) Santa at the Americana shopping mall in Glendale. We waited in line for 45 minutes surrounded by loud music, blinking lights, and shrieking children but Beatrice had a great time throughout, she was smiling the entire time, even when I made her sit alone on the lap of an outlandishly costumed stranger.

Christmas attire in Southern California

Then we drove to Dallas with the dogs, stopping on the way to visit Michael, Laura, and Boston in Santa Fe.

We spent the holidays with Dev's whole family: Mamo, Naresh, Suzan, Mina, James, Julie, Maureen, Rosemary, and Louis, along with me, Dev, and Beatrice, plus the two dogs and Maureen's rabbit Fifi.

And we even got snow for Christmas!

Louis had his Christmas balloon tied to his wrappings

Beatrice plays with her drum and xylophone from Aunt Mina

Beatrice opens her first Christmas gift from her mom and dad, the "bob and wobble lion"

The lion is a hit.

Playing the worst board game of all time.

Beatrice with her Christmas balloon.

James makes an excellent pie.

See the rest of our Christmas photos on Flickr and Facebook.

Happy Halloween!

We've had a busy month of Halloween-related activities, starting with our annual Block family trip to the apple farms near Placerville in northern California.


We also went to a pumpkin festival in Pasadena with Mina, James, and Rosemary,


and to see the fall foliage at Descanso gardens.

Then Dev and I helped out with the Mom's Club children's Halloween party on October 24.

The following day we had some friends and family over to have an all-pumpkin dinner and carve jack o' lanterns.

Then at last it was Halloween itself - we had a big open house with friends from all over the city while also handing out candy to the many trick or treaters in our neighborhood. More than thirty people dropped by plus a total of seven babies.

Rosemary in costume as an Indian princess,

and I made Louis an ultrasound costume.

And of course, I also made Beatrice's costume, a stack of pancakes.

Shackleton was a middle manager.

Cromwell was an old-timey motorist.

Dev was a ghost (again).

And I was Medusa.
See more of our fall and Halloween photos on Flickr and Facebook, including some great photos of our party guests and their costumes.

DIY is not always the best solution

On the plus side, Dev learned that shaving a dog is a lot harder and more time-consuming than it looks and now he understands why we should pay to have a professional do it.

On the negative side, our dog now looks like this.

Suzan's birthday and Kumar reunion in Ojai

We just got back from four days in Ojai, where we rented a very impressive house to celebrate Suzan's 60th birthday. There were a total of 15 adults, 2 babies, and 1 dog: me, Dev, Suzan, Naresh, Mina, James, Julie, Maureen, Mamo, Gale, Roger, Eddie, Sally, Krissy, Aaron, Rosemary, Beatrice, and Cromwell.

Beatrice met many of these people for the first time and she spent time focusing on each person's face and voice:

Suzan and Naresh brought Beatrice a beautiful Indian gold bangle:

(They also gave me a beautiful Tanzanite ring, photos to follow - )

At the pool:

Watching Suzan's birthday slideshow:

Krissy's amazing cake:

At the beach:

On a geology tour with Naresh:





You can find more on Facebook.