Leo the Destroyer

Sunny's Sixth Birthday

Today our friend Sunny celebrated her sixth birthday at Pump-It-Up.  It's a huge play space with bounce houses and a room for eating pizza and cupcakes.  Serafina and Sunny attended a classmate's party there last weekend.  

Here's Serafina and her friend Gianna.  There was a brief period last year when they were the same size.  

 All the kids with the birthday girl in the middle looking pouty.

 Again, the birthday girl doesn't look too thrilled.

 Leo got some hand-me-down roller blades.  He just about killed us both trying them out.  But he was able to stand still in them.

Stopping Swim

My kids have been receiving swim instruction for a long time.  Leo started when he was just a baby and Serafina was waterphobic but we got her in lessons too.  Because we have a pool in the backyard, getting the kids water safe was a priority.  They passed water safe into strong swimmers a while ago and both swim pre-competitive.  Unfortunately, neither one of them really likes it.  In fact, sometimes it's a downright battle to get them to the pool.  I've been proud of their endurance and hard work during the hour-long practices three times a week, but I finally had to accept that everyone was miserable.  It's too much work and money to keep it up when they don't actually like it.  Serafina just wants to dance and Leo is gearing up for a demanding baseball schedule (twice a week, 90 minute practices plus one - two games a week).  So we decided to pull the plug on swimming.  They'll still be able to swim with club through the month of March, though because of baseball we'll only go once a week.  If one of them changes their mind and wants to continue swimming, we can address that but I doubt it.  

Here they are at Friday's practice.  

 Here's Leo on Saturday practicing a little baseball with me at the school.  We have our first team meeting and practice on Monday.

Happy Birthday, Nana!

Now that Nana is local, we were able to celebrate her birthday together.  Most years we have had to just wish her happy birthday from afar, like last year.  In fact, the last time we were together to celebrate her birthday was six years ago.  

After spending the afternoon together, we went to dinner.  

 The restaurant provided wikki stix to keep the kids entertained.

 After dinner we went back to Nana's to enjoy the Nothing Bundt Cake Tom had picked up after work.  I'm not always a fan a bakeries, especially chains, but this one is darn good.

Night out

Serafina got invited to see Disney's Frozen on Ice tonight.  She dressed up in her light-up Elsa dress and sparkly shoes for the night.  

She joined my friend Kristi's girls for the show.  

 Serafina told me it was "amazing".

Since Serafina was having a special night, Tom and I took Leo to see Kung Fu Panda 3.  We all enjoyed it.  

Ski Week

Friday night we headed up to Tahoe for an extra long visit.  I brought a crazy amount of food and managed not to forget anything important this time.  

Early Saturday morning, Tom and Stephan (the other dad) headed out to the mountain before the resort opened to the public and got to ski "Dawn Patrol".  It wasn't quite dawn and they weren't actually patrolling anything; just enjoying an empty mountain.  Here's a photo Tom snapped of the virgin ski run.  They had a great time and still managed to put in a full day with the kids after their two hours of early skiing.  

Maggie arrived Friday night and she was one of the seven people I loaded in my car to head to the mountain to meet up with the dads.  I had seven people, five sets of skis and tons of helmets, gear and bags.  

Here's the crew heading through the parking lot.  

There was a fun chair lift swing at the village and the kids enjoyed it before heading out.  Serafina and Nico. 

Serafina, Nico, Leo and Carlo. 

After a good day of skiing on Saturday, we got to hang out at Squaw Village.  The weather was nice and we had lots of friends around (see Navid hanging out?).  

 Grandma Carrie arrived Saturday night to ski with the kids on Sunday and Monday.

 A whole crew of skiers.

 Ski selfie.

 Carlo and Leo with Lake Tahoe in the background.

 The group skied three days in a row at Squaw.  I was happy with that because I got to practice yoga all three days at the yoga studio located in the resort's village.  Here's the view I had out of the studio's window.  It made me happy.

 Tuesday I delivered Tom and the kids to Alpine Meadows and snapped a few pictures before I headed out.

Celebrating Valentines

Last Friday the kids celebrated Valentine's Day at school.  I helped Serafina and several of her classmates deliver their Valentines to the mailboxes.  

 I had to resist the urge to just grab the Valentines and take care of it super fast since most of the kids were really slow about it.  But all the kids really loved doing it so that would have been pretty mean of me.

 Here's Serafina with Sonja at the class party in their heart hats.

 The whole class in hats.

 Singing songs.

 Happy after the class party.

 Leo was excited about the origami he received from his friend Erea.

 Checking out their loot.

Serafina got a passive aggressive Valentine from one of her classmates.

Superbowl 50

Having the Superbowl just up the road didn't really have an impact on us today.  The traffic was really centralized around the stadium, so I was able to go about my day as normal.  Right before kick-off we headed to my friend Aida's house and saw the Blue Angels fly by from her front yard.  They had just completed their fly-by after the national anthem and were headed back to Moffet Field.  

The weather was beautiful today - in the mid-70s.  The kids weren't very interested in the game.  They spent a little time outside playing Bocce Ball.  

 Leo was wearing Navid's spy glasses for some reason.

Superbowl City

Superbowl 50 is happening just up the road from us this Sunday.  Levi's Stadium is just across the street from the theater where Serafina performed in the Nutcracker.  I get several emails a day about road closures and increased air traffic.  I don't care about the teams playing in the game, but I look forward to aerial shots of Santa Clara and yelling at the TV if they try to lump us in with San Francisco (we aren't in San Francisco).

Today I worked out at Orange Theory Fitness with my friend Aida.  It's a heart-rate based fitness class that is very intense.  At the end of the class, the instructor asked for a group photo since we put up such good numbers with our heart-rate monitors, but I don't think that was his true motive.

Turns out the big guy in the orange sweatshirt is Joe Ellis, president and CEO of the Denver Broncos.  I found this out from this Facebook post that Aida sent me.  He's in town because his team is in the Superbowl.  At the time, I was just annoyed that this dude was sweating all over me.  This photo let me know I had a brush with an important person and that I need to work on my posture.  Though, at this point I was just trying not to fall over from exhaustion.  It's a really hard workout.  

100 days of school and Jaxton

Today was the 100th day of school.  It was also class picture day and Groundhog day.  Here's Serafina in her 100 day crown.  

I'm sure it was a busy day at school, but I didn't go and help because I had a date with Jaxton.   He's my cousin's baby and he's staying in San Jose, which is just down the way from Nana's house.  We had a nice visit with this smiley, sweet boy.