Aunty Em, SoCal - NorCal Reunion

Now people throw around the honorific "Aunt So-and-So" and "Uncle Such-and-Whatnot" a lot these days, but here's one that deserves it. This is Emily (Aunty Em) with Daphne. Thanks to Emily, Cortney and I were able to enjoy a night at Chez Panisse with family. This restaurant is so close to us (I could throw a rock once, pick it up, then throw it again and hit the place) but yet so far away, now that we are parents with no spare time and a 529 to fund. Emily volunteered to hang out with Daphne (and teach her how to walk!) in exchange for a glass of wine, a warm meal and a bottle of syrah (she didn't drink the bottle during the night, as far as we know). When we got home, Daphne was sleeping on Emily, who was lying on the couch.
Peter was in town trying to sell some international business machines so he decided to bring the family along to see how we do it in NorCalia. Here's my favorite daughter trying her new Clark Gable smile while cousin Miles rips off 50 push ups.
Cousin Samara (blog up, right) came over. There's Jill in the foreground and Petenice with a crazy expression on the right. It's still sunny out, and we're on bottle #1 (hiding between Sam the Snake plant and Mrs. SoCalAllen). Since it was raining off and on, we dediced to make it an atomic materialist day. (Parenthetical: next time you're bored, think about how the Buddha and Epicurious might have gotten along. Normally, I'm a Plato guy (both-and), but I'm not yet foolish enough to ignor Epicurius. Note that all three of these guys didn't eat animals, which was a great arrangement for animals and the earth.)
Done with our meals, our bottles and our card games, we decided to play spin the baby.