Today wasn’t much fun (previously on Twitter).

After our family’s philosophical conversations and practical efforts to defeat Proposition 8 last November, it was disappointing to see the California Supreme Court affirm this blatant form of discrimination.

But Enough! Now we’re called to action … beginning with a “Day of Decision” rally that started at Plaza de Cesar Chavez and ended with a march and rally at San Jose City Hall.

So the girls participated in their first protest rally. Actually, to be honest, it was probably the first protest rally for any of us – yeah, shame on us.

The girls were more spectators than participants, but it still remains nearly impossible to explain to them why anyone would vote to prevent a loving couple from getting married, regardless of their genders. They don’t understand, and neither do we.

Of course, we did some walking on our European adventure. And some of it was quite memorable — but perhaps for wrong reasons.

As mentioned before, our jetlag experience in Rome resulted in an early early morning power stroll through Rome. All told, we walked more than 5.7 Km in search of touristy sites and breakfast. That’s 3.6 miles. With children. Demanding rest and/or food. Our course took us through Piazza Navona, to the Pantheon, to the Trevi Fountain, through a number of potentially-famous piazzas, to the Spanish Steps, back to the Trevi Fountain — all the while weaving unpredictably up and down allies in search of an open breakfast place..

Then we walked to the Colosseum, via some other famous stuff. Mercifully, we took the bus back to our apartment. Later, we we took another bus for our visit to the Vatican.

We had similar trouble in Siena, searching for the movie house that was showing the documentary about the famous Palio. We made a circle tour through town — Felicia was certain we’d visited all 14 contratas — swung past the famous Duomo, but then skipped El Centro to go see the movie, where we assumed there would be comfy seats. The seats were fine, and so was the movie. But we weren’t back in our car too long before even driving got a bit dodgy.

And then there was Venice, where our luggage-busting hikes were worthy of their own post.

Unfortunately, we found similar trouble in The Netherlands, venturing to a local Montessori School playground, playing small-sided football (soccer), strolling through the Vondelpark, and then back home before fixing dinner. Then there was the delightful walk through bucolic Giethoorn (Noord), which was painful even though it was cut short before we reached Zuid Giethoorn.

Armed with the knowledge and experience of these previous catastrophic “death marches,” we finally managed to avoided one last debacle by cutting short our walk through Edam and skipping the probably-closed Cheese Market (apparently only open on Wednesdays).

While we certainly didn’t plan to lose any weight while on vacation, it would have been in Venice where it happened. Because that’s where Karen and I nearly killed ourselves hauling children and luggage across the island to our apartment.

We quickly lost track of the stairs we had to climb — and then descend — but let’s just say I would rather have carried Felicia up the 463 steps of the Duomo in Florence than pulled our bags across canals, through narrow allies, around slow-moving tourists, and through flocks of birds. You can imagine our additional joy upon unlocking our apartment door to find our berth was on the third floor. We let the bags settle for a bit, while we peeled off our sweat-soaked clothes.

Of course, that was only the beginning. We had to leave, too.

For our departure, we worked out this elaborate scheme where we would hire a Gondola close to our apartment for a romantic one-way cruise (with luggage) to the Water Taxi Stand near the Rialto Bridge. At least, that was the plan.

Although we did avoid having to carry our bags up and down the bridge, we weren’t close enough to the Taxi to avoid steps entirely. We had a short lunch at the Academy area — preceded by an ill-fated effort to catch a taxi at that bridge — and then lifted our bags over two sets of steps to get to the Taxi.

While we made it, our luggage did not fare so well. Our ten-year-old rolling duffel — which had gallantly served us in previous trips to Turkey, The Philippines, China (twice), Lake Tahoe, Milwaukee, and St. John — blew a tire during the first walk to the apartment, clattering loudly the entire way. It slowly lost additional pieces on our way out of town. And while Felicia was intent on gathering the chunks as a souvenir, the wheel is now beyond repair. Not to be outdone, one of the wheels on the smaller rolling tote split as we were nearing our final destination in the Venetian Airport.

Oh, the horrors! In addition to all of the other fun we had at the Monteriggioni Medieval Faire, we also got to stretch our children on the rack … and they enjoyed it!

Here we see Jocelyn helping Felicia grow a few inches, with the giddy help of her cousins. No one missed their turn, of course, including Uncle Timmy and Kiana’s beloved Stuffy Bear.

Everyone also tried out the head and arm stocks, available in two sizes — complete with Uncle Timmy nearly slicing Felicia’s fingers off — no joke.

Oh, the medieval years … good times …

Alright … I have to admit something. Today wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was a second Friday in a row that I had cobbled together the logistics to support a day snowboarding in Tahoe — and it was the second Friday in a row that my plans fell apart just minutes before departure.

After gushing over my incredible day snowboarding with Jocelyn a few weeks ago, I have to profess …. My day with Felicia today was equally awesome. After I convinced her that we really weren’t going to see Grandee & Grandpa — or the snow as planned — we had a great time playing games and hanging out. We ate bananas on our walk home from school, we made lunch together (Mac & Cheese out of a cardboard box), we joked around with creative word play, and we watched most of the Sharks hockey game in Detroit. It was really great!

And even though she did insist that we play with our pretend snowboard mountain and resort gondola, she did allow me to listen to “Daddy Music” from Sacramento’s KWOD (my new favorite station, thanks largely to internet radio). We even danced to a little Gnarls Barkley.

And to cap it all off, her favorite Sharks player (Devin Setoguchi) scored twice — including the game winner — and was the “First Star” of the game.

I’d have to vote for Felicia as my First Star of the day today!

Thanks to a teacher training day on Friday, our family is enjoying a three-day weekend in honor of St. Patrick’s Day. Well, not really, but we are off for three days. We had at least two different plans for the weekend — both of which fizzled — so we went to the beach at Natural Bridges yesterday.

Since our trip was to be a short one, we might have taken a few shortcuts with the sunscreen. But then we got word that Jocelyn’s ballet lesson had been cancelled, so we decided to stay at the beach for a few more hours.

Today, we’ve all got various degrees of sunburn: David and Jocelyn have bright red feet and lower calves, and Felicia appears to have red socks on, too. Karen’s back is lobster-esque as well. Oops.

Sometimes, it’s the parents who say the silly things …

Felicia celebrates her third birthday on Wednesday this week, and the festivities began on Tuesday with a round of “Happy Birthday to You” at her preschool.

One of Felicia’s classmates really wanted to join her for the traditional blowing-out of the birthday candle (pictured here with Teacher Sharon). Ryan moved in-and-out of the picture frame throughout the proceedings, and may have actually succeeded in extinguishing the flame before Felicia could. Our little Sweetums was completely untroubled by her friend, and didn’t even seem to notice his involvement.

It was a different story for Karen. … So focused was she on the young man’s presence, that when we came to the last verse of the song, she sang “Happy Birthday, Dear Ryan” instead of saying her own daughter’s name.

The Martin-Keller Family holiday tradition of giving Mommy a Christmas Carol continues this year, with a more modern spin on the Holidays: “Let It Snow.” Perhaps you’ve debated whether or not it’s really a Christmas Carol, but the argument is now over. It is.

Written in 1945, “Let It Snow” has been covered by more than 25 different contemporary artists. Now add Jocelyn’s second grade class to the list. She performed the song as part of the seasonal celebration musical put on by the entire Booksin second grade back in November.

As a sub-plot, we are spending this Christmas in Milwaukee, where one can usually expect snow this time of year. While waiting to take a picture of the girls playing in snow seemed like a good idea at the time, Mother Nature had other plans.

We are still waiting for it to snow, but we are having a great Christmas anyway. We love you, Mommy!

I have to say that the house where we stayed was incredible. The pool, however, left a little bit to be desired. It was pretty, but it was tiny. And daily evaporation, along with a substantial tidal wave courtesy of Uncle Timmy, left the water level a little below the infinity wall for most of the week.

And then there were the near-drownings. As if the taxi van wheel-incident wasn’t enough, we also placed our daughters’ lives in jeopardy with some questionable parental supervision on Day One. Moments after Jocelyn lost track of gravity and scared herself under water, Felicia stepped right off the entry steps and took a plunge. She’s a trooper, of course, and it seems as though our toddler swim lessons from last Spring came in handy. She held her breath and didn’t even cry afterwards.