The 2010 Los Altos Art and Wine Festival includes the work of hundreds of artists , three stages of music, street performers, a KIDZONE with TV entertainers and storybook characters, foods from around the world, great beer and wines from several Santa Cruz Mountain wineries.  Attendance is expected to surpass 100,000 people for the weekend. 

This year I am pouring wine for Kings Mountain Vineyards from 3:00 pm - 6:00 pm on Saturday.  The booth is located at the corner of Main and Third.  Click 2010 Los Altos Art and Wine festival map to find the Kings Mountain Vineyards location.

Naumann Vineyards (State and Second), Roudon-Smith Winery (Main and Second), Page Mill Winery (Main and Second), Thomas Fogarty Winery (Main and Third) and Fernwood Cellars (State and Fourth) will also have representatives pouring wines this weekend.

You must have a wrist band to partake in any of the refreshing adult beverages.  No wristband, no beer or wine.  When you purchase a wristband, you receive a commemorative wine glass or beer mug.  Once you have the glass (wristband) you can visit any of the wine or beer booths and purchase a “pour” of your favorite beverage.  The cost of each “pour” ranges from approximately $4.00 – $7.00. 

Note: If you don’t have a wristband, you won’t be served.  In prior years, patrons would bring old art and wine glasses in an attempt to buy a drink without paying for the glass (wristband).  Patrons can bring old glasses, but unless they have purchased a wristband, they won’t be served.

Lastly, I can get pretty hot at the festival, so please leave your pets at home.

To all my past and current clients, please stop by the Kings Mountain Vineyards booth (Saturday between 3:00 – 6:00) and say hi.  I’d love to see you and buy you a glass of wine to thank you for your continued support.

Los Altos Creamery Opens in Time For March Madness

Originally uploaded by David Blockhus

Los Altos Creamery has opened its doors in the Rancho Shopping Center,
just in time for the NCAA basketball tourney.

You may ask “What does eating ice cream have to do with college
basketball?”. The owners of Los Altos Creamery are huge hoops fans
and have installed a large screen T.V. in the store to catch all the
hoops action.

Attention husbands. Want to give your wife a nice quiet afternoon at
home sans kids? Take them to get ice cream. It’s a win-win. You get
quality bonding time with the kids. You get to eat great ice cream
AND you get to watch the game. All this while your wife gets some
needed down time. It doesn’t get any better baby!

The Los Altos Creamery serves Mariannes ice cream, Straus organic
yogurt and has a small selection of candies.

The hoops action will begin today with selection Sunday. Why not
enjoy an ice cream sundae on selection Sunday.

I’m hoping my Golden Bears make the sweet sixteen. Roll on you Bears!

Enjoy!

All of our local schools do some sort of fund raising during the year.  At Springer, the Auction and the Walk-a-thon are the largest fundraising activities.  Monies raised are used by the Springer PTA to achieve its goals which include offsetting reductions in funding to LASD from the State budget.  Without these fundraising efforts, many of the programs that Springer offers would be reduced or cut altogether.

A huge thank you goes to the Auction Chair, Brooke Schiller as well as all the volunteers who helped put the event on.

I arrived around 5:00 p.m. to take some pictures.  I also wanted to see how parade enthusiasts creatively “reserved” their viewing spots. 

In the past, families would show up a day (or so) early and place chairs out on the sidewalk to “reserve” their favorite spot.  Since the chairs, duct tape, tarps etc. clogged up the sidewalks , viewing guidelines were created.  FYI, I don’t think the guidelines are being followed all that closely and that’s O.K.

This year the parade started at 6:00 p.m., which is an hour earlier than in prior years.  I like the 6:00p.m. start because it allows younger families to stay through the entire parade before the young kids crash/get cranky. ( Note: the parade lasts about an hour.)  It also helps the downtown restaurants and merchants.

Outside of a few large gaps between exhibits, the parade was excellent.  It also appeared that attendance was up as well.  See below for a few pictures from the evening.

While strolling through the downtown, take in the window art.  The window art was created by some of our local 4th through 8th grade students for the 46th annual Halloween Window Painting contest. Click here to see some art from Halloween’s past.

From 6:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m., First Baptist Church of Los Altos will be having its annual Family Fun Night. All ages are welcome and the event will have bounce houses, game booths, pumpkin carving, trick-car-treating, nachos, popcorn and more. The church requests that those attending refraim from wearing gruesome masks or scary costumes.

On Saturday the 31st from 11:30 – 2:30 p.m. at Rancho Shopping Center there will be a trick or treat event and a display of Halloween art created by local Kindergarten -3rd graders.

As always, friends and clients are invited to stop by our home and enjoy some hot cocoa, cider or wine.  The fire pit will be going and there will be plenty for all. 

Enjoy a fun and safe Halloween!

If you have a favorite “off street” location that you think is worth exploring, you can make submissions here. 

I submitted a recommendation for the Street Views trike to visit Rancho San Antonio.  Can you see Google’s cyclist climbing up the PG&E trail?  On the other-hand maybe walking the trike will work as well.

Habitat for Humanity’s Neighborhood Revitalization Program is a partnership with the city of Menlo Park where bank-owned homes are acquired, rehabilitated and sold to Habitat’s partner families.  Click here for an overview of the program (PDF).  It appears to be a great program that addresses a multiple of issues; creating affordable housing, reducing the glut of foreclosure properties in East Menlo Park, and revitalizing blighted neighborhoods destabilized by the foreclosure crisis.

Our Menlo Park Build

There were 11 of us from the Coldwell Banker – Los Altos office that participated in working at three different home sites.  At one house, 4 of us disposed of the remnants of two structures and put the debris in a 40 foot dumpster.  The last 2 hours, we built a fence.  At the other two homes, installation of interior sheet rock (tape and texture) was done as well as one home’s exterior was painted.  As an office we put in about 40 man hours and had a blast doing it.

At break it was nice to talk with the “regulars” (retired folks who volunteer for a living).  I also had a good conversation with a fellow agent who had not volunteered before.  She really had a good time and assures me that she’ll do another. 

If you haven’t done a Habitat build, I highly recommend it.  It’s actually fun, you meet great people and you learn a little about construction as well.  Also, if you want to get more information, Habitat Silicon Valley is celebrating it’s 50th home built with a dedication on October 3rd.  Click here for details.

I’ve posted a couple photos form the day below.  Enjoy!

Our Habitat for Humanity build site.

Even I can build a fence.

Our office (well, most of them) volunteers.

Sweet Shop in Los Altos is now open, originally uploaded by David Blockhus.

The Sweet Shop, located at 994 Los Altos Avenue, has opened.  I stopped by this morning while on the Friday real estate broker’s tour to check out the place.   It looks like a nice north Los Altos neighborhood handout and a great kid friendly place.

An interesting tidbit on this store is that all proceeds go to benefit the Los Altos public school system.  Their web site is not quite ready for prime time, but they do have a blog.  Check them out for coffee, smoothies and sweet treats.  I’m partial to anything “gummy.”  Can you say Swedish Berries or Cinnamon Bears?

Los Altos to Lake Tahoe, a great reward, originally uploaded by Los Altos Dave.

One of the benefits of living in Los Altos is we are near great
vacation spots like Lake Tahoe. This is the view from our back deck.