Light-up Night
On Friday night we went to the Embarcadero Center once again to celebrate the start of the holiday season. We started at Sens for Happy Hour and met up with Ranee, Sophie, and Jamie.
Some of us got stuck outside of the restaurant while the fireworks were going off but we all made it inside eventually. We all had a good time hanging out and decompressing from a very hard work week.
Even the babies had a fun time. 😉
The Tsaos took off early to go watch the lights turn on inside the Hyatt. We usually do too but we were having too much fun at Sens to head over in time. After some food and drinks, we did eventually make it over to the Hyatt to see the lights and the tree already lit up.
Kumquat woke up for a little bit to see the lights too. It’s still pretty as ever and makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
For the past month, we’ve been at work without our manager who has been on extended sick leave due to her battle with breast cancer. We all knew that she wasn’t feeling well but not exactly how badly. She had treatments last year too and came back just as strong and we were expecting the same this time around. Then on Monday morning, we were called in for an emergency meeting at lunch and were told that she had passed away on Sunday night. It was such a shock to all of us since she was the type of person who didn’t want to worry us with details and kept a lot from us on purpose. So the rest of the afternoon was spent grieving and coming to terms that our fearless leader wasn’t going to be returning to us after all. We were all in tears and most of us took the rest of the day “off” with a minimal workload and time to process. This is a photo of Sue having some “Janie Time” back in June when she was only 10 weeks old. Sue was a great person, awesome therapist, and I learned so much from her. *sigh* I’m going to miss her.
This evening, a bunch of us met up at our other manager’s house after work for a little “family time”. She’s been out due to hip surgery too so it’s as if all the birdies at work haven’t had their mamas around for almost a month. I took off work a little early in order to hurry home to pick up Kumquat and then headed back over the bridge to Alameda. I had thought about not bringing Kumquat but I’m so glad that I did. I think we all needed some “baby time” to lift our spirits. It was like she was a “therapy baby” for all the girls and made everyone smile. Steph brought her buffalo chicken dip and we ordered Indian food for dinner. We all sat around the table talking and laughing as we usually while reflecting on all the funny times we had with Sue. I think we’ll all heal in our own ways but this was a nice start. We just need to remember that we really are a family at work and that we’ll get each other through it in the end. I feel so lucky to be able to spend most of my waking days with such great people. Kumquat had a pretty good time tonight too. 🙂
On Saturday morning, Teresa took BART into the city to have breakfast with me and Kumquat. We met up at the Ferry Plaza and had some breakfast sammiches and coffee out in the sunshine and then did a little shopping for some produce. 
Walking back to the house was also quite pleasant.
At noon-ish, I drove T back to Oakland and then I headed over to Lake Merritt for a stroller run around the lake with Ranee and Sophie. We signed up to run a 5K Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving morning so this was considered one of our training runs.
It was sunny and warm and running with a stroller is hard work! The rough terrain, hills, and dodging people also didn’t make it very easy but we finished 3 miles and got a post-run treat at the Farmer’s Market nearby.
It’s Halloween AND Giants Day today! Wow. That’s a lot of stuff going on in the city. Mirian even took Kumquat to the parade that went along Market Street this morning in hopes of catching a glimpse of the World Series Champions.
I wore my tiger costume to work today but we didn’t do anything special once I was home. As usual, there was no trick-or-treating in our building so we still have a huge bag of candy here for us to enjoy. Heh Heh. Kumquat didn’t wear her elephant costume today but she gets to wear it tomorrow for a special storytime at the library.
It was a quiet Halloween night for us…just Kumquat and her two pumpkins…next year we’ll take her outside. Promise.
Jimmy’s on an overseas business trip so we went down to Alameda to hang out with Eleen and Zoe on Tuesday evening. We brought over some tasty Hawaiian food and just hung out. Zoe has put on some cute little cheeks and a belly and it was so neat to see how much she’s changed since we first met her. She’s SO adorable.
Jesse did his monkey dance for Zoe and it worked like a charm. She got to take a little catnap while Kumquat played with her toys.
Jason and Jia wanted to break in their new grill and they just finished furnishing their new place so we went to their apartment for a BBQ on Sunday.
We also invited Jen and Kevin who live nearby. We hadn’t met their little Keenan yet and Kumquat hadn’t met them yet either.
Keenan is such a cute little guy and he slept for most of the afternoon.
But when he was awake he sat and watched our chunky monkey playing with her toys. It was great spending time with Jason and Jia and we got to catch up with the Lams since we hadn’t seen them since before Keenan was born.
They were also so sweet to give Kumquat a box full of cute clothes, some books, and a toy that she loves. Thanks for the gifts, Lams! And thanks for the tasty eats, DiDi and Jia!
Recent Comments