Category: Uncategorized

First we went to see old neighbors and visited Steve and Bear then Howard and Mimi

Later we went to the Palo Alto Junior Museum and Zoo, briefly interrupted by a great lunch at a crepes place in downtown Palo Alto.


In the later afternoon Ayalett and Ella and later Lucy, Olivia and Amy joined us. When it closed we played at the playground outside until it got too dark too see.

Later we drove to Cupertino to stay with our friends Dave and Rebecca for the last 2 nights.

Saturday Morning Cartoons…

We went to a trendy Cafe. But that’s not a Cappuccino, just hot chocolate

I really like this portrait of Lisa. And Leilani and I also noted that for once Andy managed to take a picture of an orb from it’s side…

Leilani took a lot of photos of Megan



It was very dry and most mushrooms grew on wood that was connected to (now mostly dried out) stream beds for water. These I think are honey mushrooms or Halimasch.

So that’s the standard way of photographing orbs…

Redwoods by Andy

Redwoods by Sonja

Remy levitating.



There is a herd of white deer on Mt Madonna. They like celery.

Andy and Dave fixed the oven

The kids played really nicely

We had a great dinner and flew out way too early the next morning.

And the video of the entire trip:

Leilani loves to receive mail and wrote lots of Christmas cards this year. Sadly she received almost none, it makes me so sad to see her come back from the mailbox disappointed, it’s the same with her letters, most go unanswered…

Did you know that it’s a bad idea to balance a treasured snow globe on your head?

That one letter I think will get answered.

I didn’t have much positive to say about our former tenant Kirk, but he sure left us a pretty hibiscus… Thanks Kirk :-)

Leaving for SF

Leilani Zitat der Woche:
Nein, ich bin kein Wissenschaftler, nur ein Erwischenschaftler…
(sorry, does not translate)

No, not a Christmas poem. An oh-my-god-is-this-language-hard poem…

Dearest creature in creation,
Study English pronunciation.
I will teach you in my verse
Sounds like corpse, corps, horse, and worse.
I will keep you, Suzy, busy,
Make your head with heat grow dizzy.
Tear in eye, your dress will tear.
So shall I! Oh hear my prayer.
Just compare heart, beard, and heard,
Dies and diet, lord and word,
Sword and sward, retain and Britain.
(Mind the latter, how it’s written.)
Now I surely will not plague you
With such words as plaque and ague.
But be careful how you speak:
Say break and steak, but bleak and streak;
Cloven, oven, how and low,
Script, receipt, show, poem, and toe.
Hear me say, devoid of trickery,
Daughter, laughter, and Terpsichore,
Typhoid, measles, topsails, aisles,
Exiles, similes, and reviles;
Scholar, vicar, and cigar,
Solar, mica, war and far;
One, anemone, Balmoral,
Kitchen, lichen, laundry, laurel;
Gertrude, German, wind and mind,
Scene, Melpomene, mankind.
Billet does not rhyme with ballet,
Bouquet, wallet, mallet, chalet.
Blood and flood are not like food,
Nor is mould like should and would.
Viscous, viscount, load and broad,
Toward, to forward, to reward.
And your pronunciation’s OK
When you correctly say croquet,
Rounded, wounded, grieve and sieve,
Friend and fiend, alive and live.
Ivy, privy, famous; clamour
And enamour rhyme with hammer.
River, rival, tomb, bomb, comb,
Doll and roll and some and home.
Stranger does not rhyme with anger,
Neither does devour with clangour.
Souls but foul, haunt but aunt,
Font, front, wont, want, grand, and grant,
Shoes, goes, does. Now first say finger,
And then singer, ginger, linger,
Real, zeal, mauve, gauze, gouge and gauge,
Marriage, foliage, mirage, and age.
Query does not rhyme with very,
Nor does fury sound like bury.
Dost, lost, post and doth, cloth, loth.
Job, nob, bosom, transom, oath.
Though the differences seem little,
We say actual but victual.
Refer does not rhyme with deafer.
Foeffer does, and zephyr, heifer.
Mint, pint, senate and sedate;
Dull, bull, and George ate late.
Scenic, Arabic, Pacific,
Science, conscience, scientific.
Liberty, library, heave and heaven,
Rachel, ache, moustache, eleven.
We say hallowed, but allowed,
People, leopard, towed, but vowed.
Mark the differences, moreover,
Between mover, cover, clover;
Leeches, breeches, wise, precise,
Chalice, but police and lice;
Camel, constable, unstable,
Principle, disciple, label.
Petal, panel, and canal,
Wait, surprise, plait, promise, pal.
Worm and storm, chaise, chaos, chair,
Senator, spectator, mayor.
Tour, but our and succour, four.
Gas, alas, and Arkansas.
Sea, idea, Korea, area,
Psalm, Maria, but malaria.
Youth, south, southern, cleanse and clean.
Doctrine, turpentine, marine.
Compare alien with Italian,
Dandelion and battalion.
Sally with ally, yea, ye,
Eye, I, ay, aye, whey, and key.
Say aver, but ever, fever,
Neither, leisure, skein, deceiver.
Heron, granary, canary.
Crevice and device and aerie.
Face, but preface, not efface.
Phlegm, phlegmatic, ass, glass, bass.
Large, but target, gin, give, verging,
Ought, out, joust and scour, scourging.
Ear, but earn and wear and tear
Do not rhyme with here but ere.
Seven is right, but so is even,
Hyphen, roughen, nephew Stephen,
Monkey, donkey, Turk and jerk,
Ask, grasp, wasp, and cork and work.
Pronunciation (think of Psyche!)
Is a paling stout and spikey?
Won’t it make you lose your wits,
Writing groats and saying grits?
It’s a dark abyss or tunnel:
Strewn with stones, stowed, solace, gunwale,
Islington and Isle of Wight,
Housewife, verdict and indict.
Finally, which rhymes with enough,
Though, through, plough, or dough, or cough?
Hiccough has the sound of cup.
My advice is to give up!!!

English Pronunciation by G. Nolst Trenité
(but study enough phonics and all the confusion will go away….)