Twelve years on, this experiment in urban living just feels right. For many years we punted on the question of whether we would stay in San Francisco or migrate north to the rolling hills of Marin. As much as we love sunny days, big backyards and ample parking, we won’t take this city for granted. We love that we live a stone’s throw from the Pacific Ocean. That Golden Gate Park is our big backyard. That world-class museums and cultural centers are a short bus ride away. That we hear five different languages being spoken to children at the playground. That when we have an appetite for Vietnamese food, we have a half dozen options in the neighborhood. That our children’s concept of “normal” will never be small. That a short commute means more time at home. That even in a city of 825,000, we always seem to bump into friends around town. That in small spaces, a family can grow with love, support and a sense of place. For so many reasons it became clear that we are a San Francisco family and this city is where we want to grow.

And while we lovely our city dearly, we certainly enjoy getting the hell out of town from time to time. We started the year with our annual pilgrimage to Death Valley and the Owens Valley. We spent two nights in a tiny cabin in the hills above Lone Pine and then found our way back to the Panamint Valley in Death Valley NP, where we camped for two beautiful, still nights. We can’t think of a better way to start the new year. We had some ambitious plans for skiing, but only managed one 3-day trip up to Kirkwood. While Carson stalked the halls of Red Cliffs Day Lodge, Autumn logged another two days of ski school and a few runs with Dad. As the summertime fog enveloped our home, we made plans for a trip north to the Oregon Coast. We spent a week at a vacation home near Florence. We visited the epic sand dunes, the Sea Lion Cavern and many windy beaches. On July Fourth, we cast bedtime aside and took the kids to their first fireworks show. Much smiling and squealing ensued. We also took a day trip to Corvallis to visit the OSU campus, which was a first for the kids and great fun for Jody and me.

Autumn

After a dozen schools tours and countless hours debating our options, we received Autumn’s SFUSD school assignment for her Kindergarten year. With a sigh of resignation we learned that we didn’t receive any of our choice schools. Through three subsequent rounds of placement our luck did not change. Autumn was oblivious to all of this and started her school year in August with a sweet curiosity and mild trepidation. But as the days ticked by and the shuffling of kids settled down, we learned that a spot had opened for us at one of our top schools. In the third week of the year, Autumn moved over to Lafayette Elementary School without missing a beat. She loves her teacher (Ms. Hubbell) and we love the community of families at the school. At snack time, she can often be found discussing the nature of twin prime numbers with her classmates while swinging from the monkey bars.

Autumn continues to practice ballet every Friday with Miss Tilley, and in May she had her first recital. It was the very definition of cute overload as twenty wee ballerinas showed us their very best. Grandma Mary and Grandpa Bill were on hand to show their support. She loves to create, and we keep a steady supply of markers, crayons, paper and glue on hand to support her art habit. Outside the house, she has become a hearty hiker, a capable camper and an expert marshmallow roaster. She logged a few more days skiing at Kirkwood in the spring and she gets more steady on her bike with each outing. Without a doubt, she is a handful. But as Jody and I like to remind ourselves in the most trying of times, “At least she isn’t dull.”

Favorite Books: Tiptoes Lightly, Circus Ship
Favorite Food: Pizza, Hamburgers
Current Career Inclination: Dress Designer or Scientist

Carson

Suddenly, there’s a little dude in our midst. No longer just Autumn’s baby brother, we got to see Carson in a new light this year. He’s goofy and funny. He’s shy and sensitive. He can eat his weight in pasta. And with no urging from his parents, he’s decided that his favorite color is orange, naturally.

Carson (and Autumn) had a blast in the off-season with Sara, our summertime nanny who seemed to possess boundless energy and surplus of warm smiles. They had daily adventures on the town, taking buses to the park, the beach and the library. And after two years of accompanying his big sister to morning drop-off at preschool, it was finally Carson’s turn. He began his first year at Presidio Preschool in August. He loves his teachers (Roxanne and Thui), his friends and the giant train set he gets to play with every day. Carson currently holds the record at Presidio Preschool for most superficial head wounds in a one-month period. We’ve started saving the incident reports as artifacts of his childhood.

In October (the golden days for SF weather), Carson and Autumn went to their first concert just a stone’s throw from our front door: Calexico at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. There was singing, there was dancing, there was Carson accidentally kicking over some dude’s plate of nachos (sorry, brah). Just two months later, a cold snap descended upon San Francisco, threatening to put a chill on Carson’s birthday plans. But the little guy wanted a cable car birthday, so we bundled up and hopped on the California line for a ride over Nob Hill to the Embarcadero where we had a quintessential city birthday party in the shadow of downtown.

Favorite Books: Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site; Steam Train, Dream Train
Favorite Food: Pasta, Pinto Beans
Favorite Toy: Legos, Excavator

Jody

This year marked the two-year anniversary of PritchardPeck Lighting and the company continues to grow. Jody and Kristin brought on more employees, packing them into every corner of their cozy SOMA digs. Their work was published in several trade magazines and in October they were awarded the highest honor from the IESNA for their work on the Velti Headquarters in San Francisco. Earlier in the year, Jody joined a few colleagues for a trip to Italy and Slovenia to tour lighting factories, talk to manufacturers and drink wine (not necessarily in that order).

But all work and no play makes Jody a dull girl. So in 2013, she found a way to sneak in a little time for herself. Once a week, Jody gets some ice time at Yerba Buena Center. She takes ice skating lessons every week – a little dream come true from her childhood. Though because I stay home with the kids on those nights, I’ve never actually seen her skate. So it’s entirely possible that she drives downtown with her skates, finds a warm place to relax and tucks into a Hot Toddy for a little mommy quiet time.

Best Meal: State Bird Provisions with Kristin and Simon
Most Fabulous Moment: Riding a private Chris Craft to Murano
Biggest Indulgence: SP-Terri Ice Skates

Matt

I spent a lot of time this year counting miles. In 2012, I started commuting to my office by bike and doing some longer rides on the weekends, eventually posting 1,500 all-purpose miles. It felt great to get back into cycling and the commute offered a great way for me to put in a lot of non-negotiable miles every week (not to mention, a good excuse to avoid MUNI). In January of 2013, I set a solid but achievable goal of 2,000 miles for the year. So, I hit that goal in June and kept on cranking. By the time the year was out, I had knocked off 4,000+ miles and completed two century rides: the Marin Century and the Tahoe Sierra Century. Most of those miles come as part of my commute, and I remain in awe that I get to have such a beautiful ride to and from work every day. I even got to sneak in a mid-week bikepacking trip. I ventured across the bridge and into the Marin Headlands after work one day for a night of solo camping followed by blueberry pancakes at the Dipsea Cafe on my way into work the next morning. Every other Tuesday, Jody teaches art class at Autumn’s school and Carson gets to ride to work on the back of Dad’s bike. All in all, he seems pretty chill about the whole thing and falls asleep more often than not.

In other news, the long-neglected Yummy Lovin’ website got a reboot and some new content. It contains recipes that have become Pritchard Family staples. SierraSoul remains on indefinite hiatus, though I would like to finish up our New Zealand trip report before ten years passes – it’s almost ready.

Favorite Book of 2013: Ender’s Game, Orson Scott Card
Favorite Ride of 2013: SF to Novato via Marshall on June 22
Favorite Show of 2013: The xx at the Fox Theater on May 30

We hope this message finds you well. And we hope you have a safe and happy holiday with the ones you love most.

Matt, Jody, Autumn and Carson
San Francisco, CA

P.S. If you’d like to see more of our family portraits, they’re posted on Flickr.

As we parted ways with 2012 and started a new year, I thought briefly about just letting our year-end review slide this time. I had a lot on my plate, and who wants to read last year’s news when a fresh calendar awaits? But as much as I appreciate the friends and family who stay up-to-date with our little brood from this website, in many ways, we are the intended audience. This site lets us walk back through the brief history of our family, laugh at the naïveté of our early years and give Autumn and Carson a record of their childhood. So to our two children, I say this: if you’re reading this, years from now, give your old man a hug. Because I just as well could have sat on the sofa with a bowl of cereal and watched reruns of The Simpsons tonight. But I did this instead. Now THAT is love.

Carson

This young man crawled his way into 2012 and ran his way out of it. Carson is a bona fide K-I-D. Our expectation (read: hope) that Carson would be the mellow Yin to complement Autumn’s high-speed Yang did not really materialize. This came into focus as Carson practiced his favorite hobby of climbing up and jumping off everything in sight. He’s retained his sweet smile and all of his teeth, which is more than we can say for his sister at this age.

Carson found his sea legs early in the year and hasn’t slowed down since. He loves kicking the soccer ball around the park, which he visits often with our wonderful nanny Ahna and his buddy Naomi. One of his first words (after Dad), was “light” which no doubt brought a wee tear to his mother’s eye. He loves to help in the kitchen and comes running anytime he hears the mixer or suspects any cookery is taking place. He reaches in the air and pleads, “tall, tall, tall” – his way of asking to sit on the counter so he can check out all the action. His love of food extends to the dining table where has been known to eat platefuls of pasta, bowls of beans and more bananas than a troop of monkeys. We have a video from early in the year where you can see for yourself.

Autumn

The little lady of the house is not so little any more. Autumn grew up in so many ways this year, we find ourselves both delighted and terrified at where this thing is going. Autumn is in her second year at Presidio Preschool, steeling herself for the jump to kindergarten. After touring eight schools and attending several enrollment faires and classes this fall, Mom and Dad look forward to enrolling Autumn in one of the Richmond District elementary schools in August. She loves art and books and delights in the nature walks her class takes in the Presidio every Friday. Her favorite books include: If I Built a House, Peter Rabbit, The Story of Sleepy Sam and anything from Dostoevsky’s oeuvre. If anyone knows how we can obtain a personal sponsorship from Crayola or Flax Art & Design, please let us know.

Autumn’s boundless energy found many outlets this year, as we sought to direct her perpetual motion outside the home. In April, she stepped into her bindings and pointed her tiny skis downhill at Kirkwood. A few preliminary runs with Dad were followed by a lesson in Kirkwood’s Little Rippers program…a routine we plan to continue in 2013. She continues to take weekly swim lessons at the JCC and loves to show off her skilz when we visit the pool at Grandma and Granddad’s house. At Grandpa’s house in Twain Harte, it’s hard to say what’s the bigger draw: splashing around in the lake with her sand toys or reminding Grandpa that they have ice cream at the Snack Shack. In September, she began ballet classes with Miss Tilly, whose neighborhood studio is something of an institution in San Francisco. Later that month, she got her first pedal bike and proceeded to punish the pavement in Golden Gate Park.

Jody

For Jody, 2012 was a balancing act, with a growing family on one side and a growing business on the other. Jody and her partner, Kristin, poured their energy into growing the company they founded in 2011, PritchardPeck Lighting. What started a year earlier with two laptops and a short list of clients has grown into a thriving business. In 2012, they brought on staff and moved into an office space in the SOMA area of SF. As their reputation and client list grows, they’re trying to find moments to take a deep breath and enjoy their success.

To that end, Jody was the champion of travel this year, instigating a number of trips that found us loading up the car and chasing the horizon. In March, Jody and Autumn traveled north to Portland to celebrate Grandma Eileen’s graduation from her Master’s program and hang out with cousin Bodhi. We kicked off the summer with a long weekend trip to Santa Cruz and kept the momentum going with weekly trips to beaches north, south and right here in the city. A bag full of sand toys and cooler full of sandwiches is as close as we can get to hitting the Easy Button these days. In early July, we visited Grandpa in Twain Harte and had two nights of camping in the Sierra. Speaking of camping, in September, we repeated our trip to Kirby Cove and had the company of cousins Marley and Ashtyn. The stars aligned and we had another fog free night, which is key when you’re sleeping at the confluence of five very large foghorns. After Christmas, we took another Griswold Pritchard Family roadtrip to the Eastern Sierra and points south. We had two nights at a rustic cabin near the Alabama Hills before heading into Death Valley National Park for a few nights of camping in the remote Panamint Valley, site of last year’s camp and a spot that is quickly becoming one of our favorite DV destinations.

Matt

Matt is about one-thousand words into this post and finding it rather difficult to switch to the first-person view. So, in honor of Ricky Henderson…

In 2012, Matt received a promotion at Williams-Sonoma, Inc. and now manages a product team within the eCommerce Technology group. Among other accomplishments, Matt ensured that the system that randomly generates millions of promotion codes for WSI will never produce one with a swear word. Sometimes, it’s the little things that matter. Speaking of work, after twelve years commuting on MUNI buses, Matt had a moment of clarity. One day in April, he tried riding his bike to work. One day led to two, and he found that he could cut a full hour from his commute by riding his bike, not to mention the vast improvement in scenery and fitness. By year’s end, he had racked up 116 days commuting by bike for a total of 1,568 miles.

In the evenings, Matt continues to fight against the life-sucking vortex that is our living room sofa. When he wins a bout, he usually ends up at TechShop, where he dons a pair of safety glasses and slips into geek mode. With access to more machines and fabrication tools that he can possibly hope to master, he’s been having a hell of a good time designing and building a number of projects this year. When Autumn hears mention of TechShop, she usually inquires, “Daddy, are you working with the saws or the lasers tonight?” If we play our cards right, she will never know what a bizarre question that is.

So that’s a peek at 2012 in the life of our family. So memorable in some ways, and a total blur in others. We’re healthy and pretty damn happy (most days) and for that we feel blessed. Thanks for checking in on us. Wishing you and yours a year of good cheer in 2013.

God Bless.