Memories of Fall

as a kid it was my favorite season by far, marked in the sky by the gathering of clouds, each fleeing the spooky october winds, swirling about frantically but finding no quarter. i loved that halloween was coming, that a live fire would soon be crackling in the fireplace, casting a particularly warm glint in my father's already glowing eyes. fall: my favorite season by far.

babe's last post described the delightful summer we berliner's had, packed so full of fun that i hardly noticed it had gone by. the cruise, family camp, and every little giant leap Lucas took, packed into three short months, from the spring to the much beloved fall in a heartbeat. so what has fall brought us? i'm not sure how much i can describe that doesn't revolve around Lucas so I won't bother trying. the little guy is talking NON-STOP now and it's hysterical: "oh no trains ding ding wooooooow nai nai? one two three ooooooh mommy daddy todd! dee vee dee, football poh poh eeesh... why yet, yee, sam say, mmmmmmmm? gate close push bye bye home bye bye daddy bye bye mommy.  ooooh tunnel!"

Halloween Parties
Fall, of course, starts with Halloween. We had two fun parties this year and we were decked out in fine style. Babe was a dangerously beautiful vampiress, which I contend she always has been, such is her power over me. Lucas, who's short name is Luke, was, in a delicious example of irony, was Darth Vader. Personally, I love that he was a little bit evil. Babe had been pushing for a scare crow, and not the Dark Knight version, but I got my way and the little dude ended up with a really cool Darth Vader outfit, complete with a light saber and helmet. The first party was the Drinan's whose parties always rock, year after year. We don't know how they do it, it's always 50 people minimum and the house always looks fabulous. All of our friends almost always make it so the kids get whacked out on candy while the rest of us get to visit with each other. This year Jon Sy brought his turntables so we got to rock out a bit, so to speak. Our age showed in the end when the crowd went wild to some 80's hits...

Beautiful Count Babe and Darth Lucas

Daddy gets to DJ

Boo!

Scary Beautiful...

Our first time meeting little Liam Kennedy!

The second party was hosted by our friends Bryan and Mary and it was amazing. They and their friends decorated that house to the hilt. They should have charged a cover it was so well done. Matter of fact, Lucas walked in, looked around at the terror surrounding him, and immediately lost it! I picked him up and tried to walk to a different room to calm him down but each room turned out scarier that the last and he just cried harder and harder. We finally found a relatively safe haven in the garage where the music was pumping, the lasers - yes lasers - were flashing the they had a bubble machine that blew smoke filled bubbles. Lasers threw you for a loop - SMOKE FILLED BUBBLES! Haha, Lucas loved it and we hung out there for the rest of the evening. It was a great party and Todd got to hang with a few good old friends that he doesn't get to see too often. Here's a few of the highlights.

Lasers make everything look cool

No one was harmed in the making of this graveyard

I don't believe all the guests that arrived, left

Lucas meltdown #13

The goulish hosts: Mary and Bryan

Pretty sure he was alive at last year's party

Thanksgiving at Nana's and Hedda and Leonard's
amidst all the new found chatter, we have been busy. first up: thanksgiving at nana's place. thankgiving is typically a large, chock-full-o-family holiday for the berliner's in the bay area. life is different now though, family has grown, kids like todd's cousin mckenzie, are off at college. life had marched on and in the end, this thankgiving saw us down at nana's house with hugh, bella and max. Lucas is fascinated with his older cousins and had a blast running around after them in nana's back yard.

Thanks for the ice cream Max!

Left to right: Max, Hugh, Bella, Nana, Lucas and Babe

Nana and her grandkids!

Not only was it great to see and be thankful with family, but nana made literally the best turkey we've ever had. free range, of course, brined, and cooked to perfection with a "meat stuffing" that included sausage!

We also got to celebrate with our "other family" of friends up at Hedda and Leonard's place in San Francisco. It was a pot luck and a ton of fun as usual. It was really cool to remember that only a year ago, Hedda and Leonard had just announced their pregnancy at the Christmas pot luck at their house. Lucas ran around the middle of living room while the rest of ate, drank and enjoyed the company. needless to say, we didn't get to eat as much as we like because the little monster never stops running! everyone's food was really good and there was a cool range of classics like cranberry sauce through some pan fried noodles with tuna tartare. There was some bad news in all of this: I managed to make a dish that almost ended our marriage (kidding in case that's not obvious)! I was making a carmelized onion tart with duck confit, asian pears and gruyere  cheese. the onions wreaked havoc at the berliner's house. i carmelized about 50 pounds of onions over the course of a couple of hours and the smell was brutal. our friend Diana was visiting and she had to leave it was so bad. she and alisa both woke up with headaches the next day and all of us smelled like onions for a week. there's now an absolute zero onion policy in our kitchen. in the end the dish was good our our marriage did survive.

Well that's about it for the fall. Summer was too short and now fall has blown by like a twirling leaf. I guess time flies when you're having fun and we're having so much fun that I swear time's going so fast I feel like a time traveler.