Seeing the Nutcracker in San Francisco and Hannukah at Alice's in Sacto

Here we are in San Francisco, in the War Memorial Opera House about to see the Nutcracker. Talia loved this two years ago and was not happy when we couldn't fit it in last year so we made it a priority this time. It was so cute seeing all the little girls in dresses to see it too. Some were really small but we decided Davina wasn't quite ready and there was one who didn't make it a few rows in front of us.

http://www.sfballet.org/performancestickets/nutcracker.asp





It was a very color-blind, politically correct Nutcracker. Clara was Chinese. Her brother was mixed-black, the Snow King was black and the rest of the cast were everything imaginable.

Here Talia is with Mémé and Tata Guk in the seats;



Look who was throughly spoiled by her grandmother and now has her very own Nutcracker doll, which made it in one piece back to France.







My friend Alice and I have talked about doing Hannukah for ages together with our kids but something always got in the way. Finally, we made it up to Sacramento and did the candle lighting on one of the nights.

Alice is helping Talia in this short video;



What is cool is that I have one boy and two girls and Alice has two boys and one girl. My boy is in between the ages of her two boys and her girl is in between the ages of my two girls. It's so cute seeing them all together. Hard to believe we used to be two single women in Hong Kong and now we're eight when together with our offspring.

To the left of Ronnie is Jonah and then Jack.



One small mishap occured. Davina was unclear on the concept and after lighting the menorah, leaned over and blew the candles out! No one's birthday tonight honey. We thought it was cute but also a riot but Davina got very upset.







Quite a collection at the end;



Then we did some group shots. Davina was too upset to participate;









I did get a solo of her though. Notice the doggie socks with the doggie PJ's. Scott (Alice's husband) asked Davina if the dog bit.



The next day, Zoë and her friends (Carly also had similar) had a Unicorn Tea Party.



We went for Dim Sum for lunch. I drove the girls and Alice took the boys. I wanted them to all sing but only Carly did the honors;



Luckily it was a big restaurant. We also had two boys that Alice was babysitting for from her kids' school.











This one has all the kids. Left to right; the older brother (forgot his name), Jonah, Carly, Jack, Ronnie, Talia, Davina and Joesph (the younger brother).