Stitches Out, Christmas Parade!

This morning we drove back up to MCR to get Alex's stitches out. What luck - the very same ER nurse that helped us last weekend was there today! She remembered Alex, and she remembered our tuneless singing.

Alex did amazingly well. He didn't even cry, and the nurse didn't have to wrap him up like a burrito. He just lay there and stuck his lower lip WAAAY out, so we all felt very sorry for him.

When it was all done (about 90 seconds, all told), we walked over to the hospital's cafeteria for an ice cream. Alex likes having stitches taken out!

Later this evening Dana went to a baby shower for our friend Christine, so me and Alex took a walk downtown. We soon realized that today was the day of the Berthoud Christmas Parade. The timing worked out great. We got downtown only 20 minutes before the parade began. It was chilly, so we ducked into the Jumping Bean Cafe to warm up. They were offering free Christmas cookies to all the kids who stopped in -- and there were a lot of kids!

Dana got back to town just in time to meet up with us at the cafe. From there we stepped outside onto Mountain Avenue to watch the parade. We saw the Boy Scouts, the Girl Scouts, the preschool kids, the Berthoud Code Enforcement unit (for some reason, nobody was very cheerful to see them... can't imagine why), 3 great big fire trucks, horses, 3 or 4 other big floats being pulled by trucks or tractors, the school band playing Christmas songs, and a handful of other great participants. For some reason this is the first year we've attended the Christmas parade. Every other year since we moved here we've either been out of town or busy. Alex really likes parades, so I think he got a big kick out of it. The fire trucks were by far his favorite.

Then after the brief parade (only about 15 minutes all told), we walked down to the wine tasting at the liquor store. I tried a pretty good malbec, and a South African white that I liked but forgot to make a note of. I'm sure it'll be there when I go looking for it.

Oh, and Cal beat the snot out of Washington 48-7 in their final regular season game. I listened to most of it while Alex took his afternoon nap. What a trouncing! I feel sorry for the Huskies, especially since it wasn't that long ago (the dark days of 2001) that Cal went 1-10. I don't envy those UW fans. Meanwhile it looks like Cal is going to the Emerald Bowl on 12/27; We will be in Berkeley the night of 12/27, but we're planning to attend the wedding of my good friend Chris. So Chris, if you're reading this, I really hope you have the game on at the reception! Or better yet, why not have the reception on a charter bus heading across the Bay Bridge to AT&T Park to watch the game in a luxury box? Just a thought...