Category Archives: Real Life

Real Life :: San Francisco Halloween 2010!

Real Life, Real Life : Alix, , ,

Hey everyone! So was Halloween as spooktacular as you had hoped?? I hope you got a look at Dottie’s super adorable little Peach….she was insanely cute in her little gnome outfit! Our halloween was super fun….we had some last minute costume switcheroos and the threat of a little rain but it was still loads of fun! Even with huge rain clouds looming, the City by the Bay managed to look lovely….in a nice ghoulish way!


We began the day at the Bay Area Discovery Museum where Greg’s band, The Time Outs performed their annual Monster Stomp gig. Despite the rain, the place was packed with lots of little kiddos, all in costume hoppin’ and boppin’. It’s crazy cute. One little dude got so into it, he took his shirt off and was jumping up and down—after madly searching for a stage to dive off of.


Wolfie and one of his best buds Cole totally have the jaded rock star attitude down. “Yeah….I saw the Wiggles back in 06. When they still had the original Yellow Shirt Greg. Wicked.”


After the show, the rain stopped so we let the boys hit the play area. If you are ever in San Francisco, you must head across the Golden Gate bride to the Bay Area Discovery Museum….especially on a pretty day. They have tons of outdoor play spaces (like a full size boat for kids to climb around on) and they always have cool hands-on exhibits.

Here are the boys doing their best “Angry Bird” impersonations in the little nests that are sprinkled throughout the grounds:


Sooooooo we had a bit of a mishap that day. The ride to Marin is twisty and turny and poor Cole got pretty car sick, and well…..he kinda thew up all over the back seat. Argh. He really is the sweetest kid around, but it was a little bit of a mess. We ended up putting him in Wolfie’s Ben 10 halloween costume so he didn’t have to wear his vommy pants. Cole is a lot taller than Wolfie (and let’s face it, the dang costume was SUPER cheaply made) so it started to pull and rip at the seams. It was a blessing in disguise because frankly I wasn’t a big fan of the thing to begin with, but now we needed to come up with a new idea—STAT! Wolfie wanted to be Harry Potter, but that’s kind of a tricky one to pull together in 4 hours. We toyed with an Evel Knievel theme…..but the wobbly helmet was a little heavy and got veto-ed by me.

A quick trip to Target (to scoop up Febreeze for the car, ahem….) yielded this magical goodness. Listen, I’m not a huge fan of those pre-fab, built-in muscles costumes….they kind of creep me out., but I have to say this was kind of cute! More importantly, someone felt MIGHTY proud struttin’ around in it. And thus, Captain America was ready to throw his mighty shield this fine Halloween:

Oddly, we didn’t see any other Captain America’s all night, mostly Iron Man and Spiderman. Wolfie got lots of thumbs up and “Hey! It’s Captain America!” shout outs. And YES! He wore that little hood/mask thing THE ENTIRE NIGHT!

Please pause for a moment and marvel at my PIKACHU pumpkin!!! It ain’t easy people…

I, alas, was a costume fail. I usually love dressing up but I was sort of racing around like a mad woman. I was trying to do some dramatic eye makeup thing, and it ended up smudging all over my cheeks and in a fit of annoyance, I just made myself a lame zombie doll.

Now Greg, on the other hand, he did it up. I’m not sure if you are familiar with the show WIPE OUT (it’s totally ridiculous, but we love it….it’s like Super Mario but with real people, all racing through a crazy obstacle course!), but Greg went as the Big Red Ball from the show. He made this insane huge paper machine ball. He was paranoid that it would collapse when he cut the holes for his head….but he did it successfully. Whoo hoo! It was so great….until we got to our friends house (where we trick-or-treat every year) and realized we forgot to cut ARM HOLES!!!

It still ruled. Although in the dark we got a lot of, “Hey! It’s a meatball! Awesome!!” A few people thought he was a giant tomato too. It’s really the costume that keeps on giving…

Our friend Tom went as the Disco Gorilla. Equally spectacular.

Oh yeah, so every year we go over to our friends Chris and Jim’s house. They live in this super cool area where all the homes are Eichlers….all very mid-century and super groovy. They are a super fun family and we love hanging out with them. You HAVE to see my favorite house. Look closely at the front door….see that happy family standing there?

Only….it’s not a happy family. IT’S A FREAKIN’ PAINTING OF THE FAMILY THAT WAS DONE IN THE 70s OF THE FAMILY STANDING IN FRONT OF THEIR DOOR, WELCOMING YOU TO THEIR HOME!!!!!! AMAZING!

You might need to look twice…this is a painting on their front door, made to look like the door is open. So brilliant. It freaks me out every time.

Their whole neighborhood really gets into the halloween spirit and I love all the decor and cool pumpkins. One of the houses was showing old black and white monster movies (like Frankenstein and Nosferatu) on the side of their wall. Super cool.

PS

Of course Wolfie couldn’t resist trying on the Big Ball at the end of the night…heehee.

Real Life :: Feeling Halloweenie

Real Life, Real Life : Alix

Oooooh the Halloween count down is on! It’s such a fun time of year but boy have we been crazy busy. Here’s a little bit of what we’ve up to!

We started the weekend off on Saturday morning, when Wolfie’s elementary school had a big Harvest festival. It’s a fun carnival with games, pumpkin decorating, costumes, sugar skull painting (for Day of the Dead), tasty BBQ and bake sales and all kinds of silliness. I couldn’t get it together to wear a costume (I had to work late the night before) but I thought this made for a festive, spooky ensemble:

The rib-cage skeleton dress was from Target’s Rodarte collaboration and it’s covered in sequins. The funniest thing was that one of the moms came up to me and said, “Hey! Great halloween outfit!” then she paused and said a little apologetically, “Or um….you know….regular outfit.” hahaha. It’s kind of funny being known as the mama who is a tad eccentric in her wardrobe.

Each classroom sponsored a game booth and our class took on the illustrious Water Balloon sling shot! Lemme tell ya, filling up 100s of water balloons is no easy task. Thankfully we had some fantastic helpers.

Here’s Wolfie taking on the sling shot….he’s wearing his Ben 10 outfit which is TOTALLY too small and seriously makes him look like Captain Wedgie…some modifications are gonna have to made by Sunday. You’ll notice that the ground is all wet…this was partially from the water balloons and partially from the MASSIVE RAIN we had!!! But the rain didn’t dampen anyone’s spirits. A fine time was still had by all! And the sun even managed to peek out for a bit.

Then on Sunday we hit Tricycle Fest, an awesome free gig put on by the San Francisco Public Library. My girls The Devil-Ettes danced (adorable as ever), amazing (and super adorable) indie folk singer Francis England performed and of course Greg’s rockin’ kid band, The Time Outs, played an action packed set too! Even though it rained cats and dogs and had to be moved indoors we had an incredible turn out. [pardon me whilst I slip on a little Hipstamatic photo action….]




And FINALLY…..I saw some super amazing costumes that I thought you guys would love to see. FINALLY no rain on this day. We begin with the Scooby Doo family. Um, how cute is this Mystery Machine wagon??

I thought this jelly belly costume was so simple-but-clever! Yep, those are little balloons in the bags.

This Sushi Girl was adorable….her red bag was made to look like soy sauce—the “rice” was made of packing peanuts!

Looooved this adorable brother and sister combo:

hahaha, the recycling kiddo is so California huh! Amazing. Yes, that’s a milk jug on her head. Love it.

And finally, my personal fave….. the CLUE family! Pure genius!

Only four more days til Halloween friends. I can’t wait to see what costumes you guys cook up. We’ll see what happens to little Captain Wedgie. As for me, I’m just crossing my fingers it doesn’t rain on Sunday!


And for the record I believe it was Colonel Mustard, with the lead pipe, in the library.

Real Life :: Chasing Fall into the Apple Orchard

Real Life, Real Life : Alix

Every year we go to our favorite pumpkin patch at the Western Railway Museum. You take a little vintage train out to the patch and they have bales of hay, games, music and yummy treats. It’s really awesome. But as charming as it is, it’s not reeeeeally a pumpkin patch. They schlep the pumpkins in from somewhere else and you get to cruise around and pick your faves. Don’t get me wrong. I love it. But this year we decided to mix it up and try something a little different.

It all started with me craving a little bit of Autumn. When I left Prague, the weather was like this:

It was full-on fall. Crisp and lovely. My favorite time of year. When I got back to San Francisco, I was thrust back into summer. Our weather is decidedly fickle in September and October. We had a HUGE heat wave with temperature in the steamy 90s. Lemme tell ya, I was not feelin’ it. Who wants to be sweatin’ their butt off in October?? As a result, I have been craving AUTUMN. To help me out, Greg had a great idea. We decided to head towards Tahoe….to an area called APPLE HILL. Apple Hill is a winding scenic road with FIFTY different apple orchards, ranches and pumpkin patches. I was in apple-lovin’ heaven. We decided to pick 3 or 4 to go to. The first spot we hit was one of the most charming: Willow Pond Organic Farm. Super sweet!

Yep. There really was a Willow Pond.

This little farm was an honest to goodness pumpkin patch, with punkins on da vine! I loved it.

Wolfie specializes in picking extra huge punkins.

Of course the other big sell was the sweet  little apple orchard. I love picking apples and drinking cider. My favorite apples are Honeycrisp—which you can only get during a small window in October. They are a little sweet, a little tart and you guessed it…..crisp. Mmmm.

With two pumpkins in hand, we kept on driving. It was a really pretty drive. And while these are redwoods, we DID see lots of trees with changing leaves…and the air was perfectly crisp.

The next place we went to had an awesome corn maze…..and of course more pumpkins. We got two more at this place.

Each apple orchard was different and unique. Some were a little bit of a circus—overcrowded and had more of a cheap carnival vibe. I wasn’t that into those. Neither was Wolfie.

Of course he *was* thrilled to have a little Sno Cone action. I was on the prowl for a caramel apple. Caramel is one of my favorite things and caramel apples? Fuggitaboutit. As a side note, I don’t recommend getting a caramel apple when you go to the movies. I did that one time and it was a mess. I kept trying to eat it quietly and it was all crunchy and juicy….I had to wait for the loud action scenes to take a bite and then it got all dribbly and messy. Yeah. Definitely leave the caramel apple at home.

We finally got back on track and hit the orchards that were more off the beaten path.

You may notice a shirt change on Wolfie. We had a little exploding sno cone action and his tee was a sno-cone mess. Miraculously I found a spare shirt in the back of the van. Yes. I said VAN. I drive a Jetta and Greg rolls the Honda Odyssey. Woot woot!

The last apple farm we went to had a HIGH-larious name. Something like “Ken’s Apples and Laurie’s Dolls”.  We weren’t going to go (the name kind of scared me….I was expecting lots of soft bunny dolls and “kooky” ragdolls) but then we saw these gorgeous flowers and had to pull over.

The dolls were as bad as I expected (L-A-M-E…..sorry Laurie), but the place was really pretty and manicured and Ken turned it out with the apples.

They gave away free apples that were peeled into a curly cue. This was a big hit….

We definitely had a super awesome day…..the guys listened to the GIANTS game on the way home. (GO GIANTS!)

Now to carve the FOUR pumpkins we walked away with…..and make some apple crisp. And come to think of it, I never DID get that caramel apple. Hmmm.

Please swing by later today as we will have a couple of fun (and easy!) crafty posts for ya!

Real Life: Alix’s Prague Adventure.

Real Life, Real Life : Alix,



A little over a week ago I got back from my work trip to Prague. I was there for three glorious weeks filming five spots….and I loved every minute of it. It’s *such* a beautiful city. Of course I missed my little Wolfie like craaazy, but I am so proud of the work we did. I have to say it was completely weird to have nothing to worry about but ME for three weeks. I felt a little selfish, but my mother gave me some great advice and said it was a fantastic gift and I should enjoy this amazing opportunity. I already shared some photos of my adventure with you guys while I was still in Prague (see the post here), but since everyone seemed to dig it, I thought I would share some more! Here is pretty Prague….

These shoes carried me all over the cobblestone streets of the city….crazy comfy. I highly recommend. Who says a mama can’t have stylish AND practical foot gear??

We discovered that many buildings had little icons hanging over their doorways—a lobster, a pretzel, three violins, a golden snake— these were used back in the day to help ensure that parcels and letters were delivered to the right house. Apparently homes didn’t feature prominent addresses back then and you literally had to say, “The house at the end of the road. With the lobster. Yes lobster. The House with the prawn got my boots last time, so please make sure you look for the LOBSTER.” It was really fun looking for the different icons and I thought would make a great game fer little kiddos too….



Prague is a great city for kiddos! There are so many beautiful little parks, fun street cars, a fantastic zoo, a cool castle, boat rides….the list goes on and on.


Food is very meaty here, but tasty. Our favorite dinner was at the Cafe Savoy for SCHNITZEL. Oh my god, this was the most delicious thing EVER. It comes in a special chicken version for kiddos as well as noodles with butter. I took note of a popular bagel shop and lots of Euro-style pizzerias too so there seemed to be plenty of kid-friendly options (just in case you have a picky penny like I do who won’t gobble down goulash). I feel like I should do an extra post just on traveling with younguns. What do you think??

And then, of course, there were the marionettes. They ranged from adorable to spectacular. They are everywhere and were really, really cool.

Of course, some were cooler than others….

A lot of you have asked me about my job, so I thought it would be fun to take a little peek at my work…

Despite all the perty pictures above, we were truly working non-stop. I think we had one completely free day, but the rest of time it would be a few hours here, a couple of hours there. We stayed at the schwanky Mondrian Oriental hotel. (Alert Gossip Girl fans! You may recognize this as the place where ol Chuck Bass was supposedly staying when he got shot in the season opener….ahem. You know. If you watch that sort of thing…) Hilariously instead of “Do Not Disturb” signs, you placed a red tassel on yer door. Gold tassel was “Please service my room”. I spied a blue tassel in the restaurant but never quite figured out what THAT one meant. This is me with bed head in the morning…

This was my little work station. Have a cuppa coffee (although somehow I was transformed into a cappuccino drinker over the course of the trip!), then check ye olde bloggie and then get ready to hit the road….castings, set builds, script rewrites, meetings, more meetings, late night meetings (9 hour time difference), fittings, rehearsals…..ahhhh. The list was endless. But we loved it all. I was lucky to be traveling with some really great people and even when pressure and stress levels were high, the guys and I always managed to make each other laugh.

Unfortunately I can’t reeeeally show you any of our sets until we are finished, but here is a sneaky peek. Some of them involved miniatures….but that’s all I’m sayin’!

Our director’s were a wildly creative and amazing husband/wife team. They were super cool and I loved working with them. They also happened to have THEE cutest little boy ever who would occasionally drop by the set. This is the fabulous Yuki! And maaaaybe he’s standing inside a fake airplane. But maybe not.

How cute is his style? He was also sweet as can be.

I have so many more photos, but i think I’ve bombarded you with enough for one day, eh?

Bye bye Prague! Til we meet again….

Real Life: Fairyland.

Real Life, Vintage Kiddo Photos, , , , ,

One of the real joys of living where I do is that I’m less than 15 minutes away from Fairyland!

What is Fairyland you ask?

I must admit, I had no clue either for the first 15 years of living in the Bay Area. I used to see the technicolor sign early in the morning when I rowed on Lake Merritt, but I finally experienced it as I should—as a parent the other weekend and had a blast. I might never have thought of going until I saw these cutie pie pictures of Wolfie going and rave reviews from Alix.

See that key that Wolfie is using?  Well, a big part of Fairyland lore and history centers around the Talking Storybooks and Magic Keys.

At every little tableau, like the Snow White one Wolfie is at, there would be a small box that boys and girls could insert a special magic key. Once the key was in the box, it would spill out some delightful little Bing Crosby-like diddy that matched the little scene. Pure vintage awesomeness. They just created a new magic key for its 60th anniversary celebration last weekend!

Oh, and the Peach had such a good time. Who wouldn’t when you see things as yummy as this:

Fairyland was built in 1950 by the Oakland Lake Merritt Breakfast Club.  Rumor has it Walt Disney even came to Fairyland often to get ideas for Disneyland.  Numerous artists have contributed exhibits, murals, puppetry, and sculptures to the park. Some of the better-known artists are Ruth Asawa and Frank Oz. I wonder who did these for these two cuties, eh?

The park opened on September 2, 1950. Admission was 9 to 14 cents, depending on age. The original guides to the park were a dwarfish married couple dressed in glamorous Munchkin-style costumes. How terrifying would that have been!

The entrance to the park was the shoe from The Old Woman in the Shoe. The entrance through the shoe was sized for children so that adults had to bend over to go through. When we went you could see that the Old Woman in the Shoe was still kicking, although her digs had certainly re-heeled and polished up a bit.

It’s amazing to see how little has changed from when it was built in the fifties.

And a few signs of the times…

There weren’t that many rides, but there were enough to keep the average six year old very happy. Check out this great Alice in Wonderland ride.

The Peach was completely entranced. Albeit a bit nervous at first…

And after a little coaxing she also was a big fan of the crooked house too.

Sadly, the Peach tuckered out before we could get to the big attraction—Willie the Whale!

When we told our neighbor, Joyce that we went to Fairyland that afternoon, she smiled and asked about good old Willie the Whale. Joyce grew up in the house next door and inherited it from her parents.  She is a long-time resident of the East Bay and went to Fairyland herself as a little girl.  She said that everyone who grew up going to Fairyland and returned as a parent always says the same thing—”I remember the whale being MUCH bigger!”

I wonder what the Peach will think of it when she’s an adult?  We plan to go again very soon!