Italy Here We Come!!!!

Exciting news: Laura and I just booked tickets to Italy for next spring. We leave on April 29 and arrive in Paris on the morning of the 30th. We'll spend the day in Paris and then leave on May 1 for the main event -- three days in Rome, four days in Tuscany and the Italian Riviera, a day and half in Venice, and a day in half in the Dolomite range and Lake Como. We leave from Milan on May 11. We can't wait!

Now accepting reservations to babysit Carina and Natalie!

Dancing

Carina and Natalie love to dance in the living room whenever Laura or I play the piano. I snapped this particularly well choreographed, but not staged, shot. Look out Osmond family...

Halloween

Carina and Natalie had a great Halloween. Carina dressed up in her costume from a Mary Poppins dance recital she performed in this past summer; she was a "London girl." Natalie was a frog.

Carina and Natalie came to my office in the afternoon and went trick or treating in the halls (which is a tradition at my firm). Natalie quickly got the hang of trick or treating and decided that two pieces of candy from each person was an appropriate amount.

The girls were a little terrified of some of the Halloween decorations we saw though, especially anything with ghost noises or that moved.

We live in Microsoft country. This is Laura's pumpkin. I guess it would be about the scariest pumpkin out there to most Microsofties.

Whistler, B.C.

Laura and I recently spent a weekend in Whistler, B.C. The drive up was beautiful -- the mountains plunge directly into the Howe Sound north of Vancouver.

Whistler is full of great shops and restaurants and has great biking trails all around. We biked about 20 miles over the weekend, includig rides on the side of Blackcomb mountain and on the valley trails. The valley is dotted with about a dozen lakes.

The highlight of the weekend was a series of five zip lines we went on down Whistler Mountain. (See http://www.ziptrek.com/ - we did the "Eagle tour"). One of the lines was a half mile long and dropped 20 stories; you can go up to 90km per hour if you ball up. Several of the lines cross a gorge between Whistler mountain and Blackcomb mountain. We had a blast!

Vacation Rating - Whistler, B.C.: 5 stars