Wayne and Rebecca Madsen

It was our anniversary on Saturday. Our fifth.

In the morning, we drove up to Berkeley so I coud talk strategy with a colleague for my thesis projects. Paela and Rebecca came along for moral support -- and to get out of the house, I suppose. On our way back, we stopped at the mall to look for a video game (which we didn't find) and get pedicures. Paela was well-natured throughout the pampering process and I was just scared, but for my first pedicure, it was fun.

In the evening we sprung for our first non-family babysitter (i.e. paid) so Rebecca and I could go see some Shakespeare in the park. While we were enjoying a quiet evening alone, Paela was at home crying herself silly because it was the first stranger we've left her with [at least she went to bed early and easily and slept soundly, so technically it was only 45 minutes of fussiness and an evening of cat allergies for the babysitter]. The play, Pericles, really wasn't that great. In fact, for a Shakespeare, it was a flop. But I can live with the Bard being fallible. Quite fallible. However, at the same time, this performance of Pericles was lots of fun and the acting troupe did a fantastic job, as usual.

Friday evening, we watched Thomas while Karl and Angela went to the same play. The rest of the week was errands and work. I began to work evenings, so when Rebecca gets home I leave Paela with her, hop a lightrail downtown and work until late. We don't see each other much on those days [fortunately I can go home for lunch at least some of the days].

Last Saturday we went to the San Jose children's discovery museum. Rebecca thinks I should mention how, to pay for her lightrail ticket, we put 20$ cash in the ticket machine to get 16.50$ back in quarters. Which Rebecca has been lugging around all week in her purse [tee hee...makes me giggle! We couldn't believe it when quarters started pouring out instead of something sensible like dollars! hehehe.]. The San Jose children's musuem isn't that great. The exhibits are few, old and surrounded by pushy kids uncontrolled by their parents. Be thankful if you live near a good and up-to-date hands-on museum. Paela did enjoy the infant crawling space, going up and down the ramps. However, the price ($8 each) isn't much offset by the "play time" available. Perhaps it would be a better museum for parents of 4-6 year olds who don't mind bigger kids pushing their kids out of the way.