Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

We were sad on Monday to say good-bye to Jon and Faith, but at least we had a good visit while they were here. We made our traditional ice cream with them, played lots of games, and hung out both at our home and up in San Francisco (pictures here).

After they left we used Labor day to catch up on projects around the house -- including making Wayne some jean shorts to get through the "hot" days we've been having lately (I'm still amazed that 90 degrees feels sooo incredibly hot to me...granted I am five weeks to my due date, but didn't I grow up in Texas??). Plus we used one last birthday coupon for a free blizzard (Wayne chose to bring nerds for a Nerds blizzard...I, of course, had one involving chocolate...mmm). Ice cream and popsicles have, I dare say, been much more appealing lately even than normal. Fortunately the last couple of nights have seemed to be cooler and I haven't woken up multiple times from the heat, so hopefully we're making our way to "normal" bay area weather again. My swollen feet sure would appreciate it. It's amazing how quickly my feet can melt a whole tray of ice cubes. Really...it's a party trick for sure.

I had the chance to hang out with Kate on Wednesday, and work on another project. Wayne had reading to do for classes, as is becoming more common being the school year and all. Kate showed me some fun sewing tricks and we had some good laughs. It's amazing how much faster a sewing project goes with another pair of hands and eyes.

Saturday involved yet more errands, but those were unfortunately thwarted for the most part. Note to self: look up hours for the post office when you look up directions. Saturdays are not going to give you short lines that you care to stand in even when you find an open post office. Also note to self: not all shared-branching credit unions offer the same services, or the same hours; five minutes late to the other credit union means they won't be able to help you either. But note: some parking structures in San Francisco fortunately take credit cards or checks or better yet -- buying chocolate might validate the parking anyway, so all is not necessarily lost. Unless you get to the Ghirardelli chocolate festival in the last hour it is running, and all the fun demos have ended. So final note to self: next year go to the chocolate festival early and plan errands (that aren't going to work anyway) for another day. We did bring home some chocolate though, and get a few samples while we were there. And we learned there is some beach in San Francisco. Who knew?

We met some fun people this week too. Karl and Angela finally moved to the bay area (yay!) and we got to meet their little Thomas, who is a month old now. So we spent some time Friday and Saturday hanging out with the three of them. I don't envy them moving with a newborn though. Moving is crazy enough as is!

We also met the first of eight different artists that will be coming to this area in the next couple of months to give a lecture on their work and propose a collaboration project with SJSU Cadre students and the Montalvo arts center. One or more of these artists will be chosen and funded for this project next semester, so we'll go to as many of these lectures as possible to try and help decide. Wayne and I listened to Matt's lecture on Thursday about land use interpretation, and then had a chance to hang out and chat afterwards. Wayne spent all day on adventures with Matt and Wayne's fellow Cadre folks. He had a great time, and is looking forward to opportunities each week for the next couple of months to meet other visiting artists and share ideas. Good experiences, for sure.