An Urban Girl

(To the tune of  My Favorite Things from Sound of Music) Posing for portraits  And Riding on horses Choo Choo train trips  And Smelling the roses Delicious Pomela, Sauvignon Blanc Mr. Urban has a fabulous trunk **** Little girls singing, Christmasy beats Mommies are making, home-madey treats Smell of oranges and spices abound  That Mr. Urban is quite the hound   Red Nail Polish Ginger Bread Man Walking in the cold I simply remember my favorite things And then I don't feeeeel so old

The view at Christmas time from Maman's Lodge We decided to stay in Los Altos this Christmas holiday.  We have made plans for each day just as we would had we been on vacation, so to make sure the holidays don't pass us by in a rush of chores, emails, or too much coziness by the fire place... Maman's Mr. & Mrs. Snow Vacations this time of the year usually take us to Vancouver, to Maman's lodge, where we usually get snowed in.  Where every corner of the home is decorated in melt your heart decorations.  Where there are so many presents under the tree and so many stockings by the fire place in the living room that you must take refuge in the kitchen to find a place to sit.  Where I find more people I love per square inch than most anywhere else in the world... Maman's Christmas Village But this year we decided to stay in Los Altos.  To spend time with people we love here , to see what our home turns into the night where a big fat bearded man is su

After a week in our nation's capital which was cold, cold, cold, an awfully delayed flight, which left him on a stiff airport seat for over ten hours, followed by a six hour tuuuuuuurbulent flight, Mr. Urban walked through the door this morning and sat to breakfast with us girls as though he was just upstairs. He is one of those people that can wear a dress shirt on a long flight, work throughout the flight, and walk out the other end fresh and ready to attend a meeting or a breakfast with two girls that grow shy with distance, and he needs to dine and charm them back to their normal cheeky selves. But inevitably a warm shower, a toasty home, smell of pine and twinkle lights, steamy vanilla milk, and the sweet sound of a two year old loving you to pieces is bound to make you fall asleep and dream sweet dreams (at least until the said two year old pokes you and talks into your ear "Open your eyes, daddy.  Let's play some more! ". HOME SWEET HOME

One of the things that makes my relationship with my Mr. Urban wonderfully cozy is that we usually genuinely enjoy the same things.  And where we have dissimilar interests, we really enjoy hearing about the other persons interests and pursuits du jour over a good cup of coffee or glass of wine or sometimes late at night...  So, even though I would never make time for Jonah Lehrer, Malcolm Gladwell, Dostoevsky, Plato, or John Stewart (although he has an infinitely higher chance of persuading me to make time for him than the others mentioned) in my overly busy life,  I absolutely love hearing about their work through the mouth of my beloved Mr. Urban.  He is a great story teller.  And an excellent teacher. BUT, there is a limit to all things wonderful.  And although my Mr. Urban's third greatest love of all time is  Technology, I feel that I am often an unsatisfying partner in that department for him.  I mean I am not rigid or anti technology.  I did switch to Google for

When you room with a Toddler suddenly you become aware of sources of joy abound. For the past few months the UrbanToddler has been all about Choo Choo trains.  And yesterday, we finally took a rail trip to the City. She was on pins and needles from the time she arrived at the platform waiting for her train to pull into the station.  She picked a seat by the window and stayed focused the entire one hour ride.  Nothing was too mundane, nothing too small to go unnoticed by her big eyes. Our plans were to take a cab from the train station to the Ferry Building where we were going to meet my friend and her baby for lunch.  But seeing as we had some extra time we decided to start walking and take a cab when we could no longer walk.  Amazingly my girl wanted to keep walking and before we knew it, we had gone the entire two miles, albeit at a rate of two miles an hour. The weather was beautiful.   And the ocean, the birds, the fluffy clouds scattered in the blue sky, the Bay Bridge