Merry Christmas 2023

My friend Bonnie, her husband and two kids joined us for Christmas Eve this year.  Bonnie's daughter Sophie went to elementary school with Leo and danced with Serafina  Anyway, it was a super fun evening with delicious food (both Bonnie and Tom are excellent Italian cooks), a fun game and a silly present swap.  We had so much fun, in fact, I took no pictures except of Serafina's impressive napkin folding.  Just like Thanksgiving.

We had my mom over Christmas day for more delicious food.  Again, no pictures except of this incredible yard decoration that I saw on my way home.  Yes, that is a Christmas toaster.  And yes, I want one or some other amazing holiday-theme household appliance lawn inflatable.  

 

Kindness Ambassador

There are many reasons for a person to volunteer. For a high school students in our district, it is a graduation requirement.  It also looks good on a college application. But in the grand scheme of things, it's also really important to give back and to look outside yourself once in a while.

When Leo turned 16, he was eligible to volunteer at a lot more organization and I asked him to chose one that he cared about. Of course it would fulfill the school requirement and be noted on his college applications, but also it was opportunity to be part of something important. He decided he wanted to volunteer at Magical Bridges playgrounds.  Last school year, his P.E. class included kids from the moderate/severe Special Education class on his campus. He spent time with students who were non-verbal and some with significant cognitive differences. He made a point to treat these kids with kindness. Magical Bridges has a Kindness Ambassador program, which is a perfect fit for Leo. Though a lot of the volunteer opportunities happen during the summer, Leo got to participate in their Canine Companion program on Sunday. 

Two very sweet, trained dogs - Gilligan and Garrett - were brought to the park to greet the kids. Leo accompanied the dogs around the part and helped little kids meet them. 

 Leo enjoyed his time volunteering and will participate more with the Kindness Ambassador program. It is so fitting that he is involved with Magical Bridges since we have visited their parks a few times and both kids appeared in a PBS News Hour segment about the park.  That clip is still on the Magical Bridges home pate.  

Thanksgiving 2023

Serafina created these lovely place settings for Thanksgiving.  

 I took a picture of it and that was the only picture I took. Oh well. The meat eaters had Cornish game hens and the vegetarians had lots of other food.  My mom came over and it was a nice time. 

Tahoe for Tom's birthday

We headed up to the lake for Tom's birthday weekend, and brought Sunny along.  

Aren't they cute?

It was one of those typical bumper season weekends, not too crowded, with cold and clear weather.  

We went to town to stroll and shop. I made my kids take a picture in front of the big Christmas tree in town. 

Sunday was Tom's birthday, so we went out to dinner at a pizza place we like.  He got this mug of beer and we all toasted him. 

Monday was the first day of the Thanksgiving break for the kids so no school and no rush to get back to real life. We went down to Donner Lake for exploring and pictures. 

Cuties that I forced to be outdoors but ended up liking the adventure until we all got too cold. 

 

Halloween 2023

We had a low-key Halloween since it fell on a Tuesday. Serafina and her school friend Sydney dressed up like Sully and Mike from Monsters Inc. in these silly onesies.  They hit the neighborhood for trick-or-treating but not before I forced them to take pictures. 

Leo didn't go out but he did have a little photo shoot with this amazing clown outfit and glasses I picked up at the Goodwill last week.  

Mousse is handsome as always in his Halloween bandana. 

Serafina had quite the candy haul! 

 

Fall Tahoe Weekend

We took a quick trip up to Donner Lake to get the cabin ready for the winter.  That mostly just entails getting all our patio furniture into the shed, which left us plenty of time to soak up the sunshine on Saturday.  

I'm glad we got out and enjoyed the weather because it rained all day Sunday while we packed up and made our way home. 

 

Middle School Volleyball Team

Serafina decided to try out for her middle school's volleyball team.  She honestly didn't really have time for another activity because she's so busy with dance, but she has some really sweet friends that play so she decided to give it a shot.  Though she dabbled in a volleyball camp long ago and she played well during the volleyball unit in P.E., I wasn't sure what the outcome would be of the tryouts.  Every morning she went to school during try out week, she would check if her name was still on the roster.  She made it the whole week without getting cut!  Some of her friends did.  In the end, she was offered a spot on the "spirit team".  She would practice with the team and attend games, but she wouldn't be guaranteed playing time since there were girls that have dedicated a lot of time to the sport and they would be the primary players.  This was a great offer for Serafina since she needed to leave early every Tuesday for dance and Tuesdays were one of the game days.  I didn't have to feel bad for stealing her away to get to the dance studio. She still got to spend time with her friends, get plenty of practice time and be part of a team. The season was pretty short and they played against the four other middle schools in the district. 

Here she is with Mayan, Makayla and Dasha. 

Watching a game mid-season at a rival school. 

Here she is giving her school's mascot a high five.  This game took place at her school, Huerta Middle School.  Recognize the blonde in yellow next to her?  Yep, that's Sunny.  She plays on one of the other school's teams.  

Huerta's team made it into the finals.  I haven't watched a lot of volleyball and I don't fully understand all the rules, but it was super exciting to watch them play in the finals and win!  

Here's the championship team with their coach.  

All in all it was a great experience, even though she was absolutely exhausted after spending all day at school, having volleyball practice immediate after and then barely having time to change before heading to the dance studio three days a week. 
 

Leo's Big Birthday Weekend

It is hard to believe that Leo turned 16 on Sunday.  Sixteen!!!  Time flies when you're enjoying an amazing human grow up in front of your eyes.  

Though this wasn't officially part of the birthday celebrations, the Wednesday before his birthday we took in a mid-week movie.  Just the two of us went to a mid-week showing of Stop Making Sense, the Talking Heads concert film.  It was a remastered version to celebrate its 40th anniversary. We wouldn't normal see a movie on a school night, but it was the last night it was playing locally. 

The theater was pretty empty, but before it started, a few more people trickled in.  We both absolutely loved the film so I'm very glad we made the last minute decision to see it. 

On Saturday, we kicked off the official birthday celebrations.  First up was a trip to the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco to see a Takashi Murakami exhibit.  We saw some of his pieces when we visited the street art exhibit in Brooklyn in 2019

The exhibit was pretty amazing.  I'm very glad we went.  We had the added bonus of seeing the Blue Angels from the museum's roof since the air show was happening for fleet week. 

Sunday was his actual birthday and we started the day with a birthday brunch.  

Nana joined us for brunch.  

When discussing his birthday, Leo declared he wanted a seafood tower for dinner.  Well, a upscale seafood restaurant opened near us during Covid and Leo wanted to try it.  They didn't have a seafood tower on the menu, but Leo was okay with that.  

Serafina was cold so she used a napkin as a shawl. 

First course, oysters.  

That was followed by lobster and another fish dish. Look at these guys ready to dig in.  

We followed up dinner with a visit to Salt and Straw for yummy ice cream. 

It was Tom's first time trying it and he was a big fan. 

Both kids had Monday off from school, so Leo celebrated one extra day with his friends at Top Golf.  Top Golf is kind of like if a driving range and a bowling alley had a baby.  

It was a wonderful, celebratory birthday weekend for Leo. 
 

Boys Backpacking Weekend

Tom and Leo headed out on Thursday night for their annual backpacking trip with Tom's friend Rich and his boys.  Usually they head to the mountains, but because of bad weather, they opted to go to the coast instead.  

Here's Leo in my jacket that is a bit too small for him.  He usually borrows this one of mine since it isn't fancy (so it doesn't matter if it gets damaged) but is still warm.  

Here's a selfie of the whole crew: Rich, Jacob, Tom, Eli and Leo

Enjoying some sun and exploring. 

It wasn't quiet as remote as their usual trips, but they had a great time.  I miss them while they're gone and worry about them, of course, but I'm also glad they get a chance to unplug and just spend quality time together.  
 

Arctic Monkeys

When tickets went on sale for the Arctic Monkeys, one of Serafina's favorite bands, I decided to scoop up three tickets.  It was the farthest in advance I've ever bought concert tickets.  On the checkout screen, it said "congratulations! Your show is in 380 days".  Ha!  Over a year in advance!  I figured if she no longer liked the band when the show finally came around, I could sell the tickets.  Tastes change when you're a teenager, after all.  We gifted her the tickets last Christmas with an Arctic Monkeys sweatshirt.  As the date finally approached, she decided to invite her dance friend Karin (who also join us for her birthday dinner).  I wasn't sure if her folks would be okay with me taking her to San Francisco on a school night, but luckily she was allowed to come along.  The show was at the Chase Center where we saw Lizzo last year.  I pretty much repeated all the steps - parked in the same lot, ate pizza at the same restaurant, even stopped at the crazy Restoration Hardware store to take some pictures on the roof. 

 

Here are a couple of those pictures. 

After being sooooo far away at Taylor and Beyoncé, it was a delight to find we had very good seats.  Since I bought the tickets so long ago, I forgot that we were nice and close.  

The girls wandered around and bought t-shirts while I enjoyed the opening band.  Arctic Monkeys put on a great show and the girls learned the important art of moving up as close as you can, even if you don't have tickets for those seats as long as you don't get kicked out by security.  

 

Driving Dad's Bimmer

Tom took my car to the mountains to have a guys weekend with his friends.  We were left no other choice!  Leo had to practice driving after all.  We sent him these pictures and surprisingly, Tom did not have a heart attack.