Ice Skating: Fun times or Forget it!

Paulo (wearing A Dog's Life polar fleece from le•top's 2009 Fall/Winter Collection) isn't a fan of ice skating.

Ice skaters make it look so easy! Watching them glide across the ice makes me want to try the sport and dream of dancing and swaying gracefully on the ice, looking like a beautiful ballerina. STOP! One can dream, right? Well, I’m not too bad. Wobbly, yes. But I can skate a lap or two.

Miranda wants to glide as well. This is her 2nd time on the ice. The first time was when she was 3-years old. We went to Lake Tahoe and gave it a go. It was such a horrible experience for her. She slipped and fell so many times and vowed never to ice skate again! Well, that was then. This time was more pleasurable. She took a stack of buckets, held on, then push… push… PUSHED herself across the ice. Of course, she slipped and fell more than once, but she picked herself back up and tried again—until she made one lap around. Success!

Now she wants to skate again tomorrow. We can’t. You have ballet. Then we can skate the day after that! No, you have swim class. How about the next day? (I’ve run out of excuses.) We’ll see.

Miranda is wearing a Pink Leopard Faux Fur jacket from the 2008 Winter Collection.

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San Francisco Christmas Traditions

Magical Snow at the Hyatt on the Embarcadero

Sweetie and I decided to have breakfast out this morning and took a wintery cold (by SF standards) and sunny walk over to the Hyatt. They have an immense lobby which they totally do up for the holidays. It’s pretty magical looking up the entire height of the building from inside and seeing what looks like snow falling, but snow that is made up entirely of lights. There were many, many(!) children there having breakfast, and they were all chattering away about their elevator rides (“open” elevators overlook the entire scene), about seeing Santa (who was quite jolly walking about the restaurant, trying to sit on parents’ laps, to the squealing delight and utter, wide-eyed amazement of their children!), and about ice-skating afterwards. All in all, it’s a major “Oooh-Aaah” place even for adults, but the wonder and joy in children’s faces and voices definitely add to the magic. More photos follow (taken by sweetie who really is a great sport about being my personal photographer).

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Pumpkin, Gingerbread and the Aromas of the Holidays

Sweetie and I had dinner last night at One Market (and no, I didn’t see Posh, Becks and their little boys when they had lunch there this summer), and I was really looking forward to their seasonal Pumpkin Doughnut dessert…but we were too late for that! Instead, we tried a gingerbread confection that mysteriously disappeared after two bites (for me) while I was sipping my coffee and being mesmerized by all the twinkling lights, and people skating on the Embarcadero Center Holiday ice rink. Magical. Anyway, dessert reminded me of the Chocolate-Pumpkin layer cake recipe I saw in the NYT the other day. I haven’t made it yet, but it sounded so yum! I’m still searching for the ultimate pumpkin pie recipe, though…

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