On Monday, Tracy and Maya flew up to visit us as one last final bit of fun before winter break comes to an end. It was Maya's birthday last week (she turned 13!) and we celebrated with her Monday night. She requested brownies.
On Tuesday, the weather was a bit gloomy so we decided to have some indoor fun at the roller rink.
Tuesday night Leo gave us a private concert. Here he is tuning up (or possibly down) before playing Voodoo Child. Tracy was impressed!
They headed home today and my kids go back to school tomorrow. It feels like this break went by in the blink of an eye!
I can't believe my little baby is 12 today. She is so smart and strong and resilient. She wasn't too thrilled about having to spend the day at school on her birthday, but that's the way it goes sometimes. To make up for it a little, I only made her go to one of her two dance classes this afternoon. Instead of dancing, she opened presents, like this "The Office" version of UNO. We played a round with Nana before dinner.
After dinner we had cake. She wanted a cake from the same bakery that we got my birthday cake. It was a Neapolitan mousse cake, so it had chocolate and vanilla cake inside with chocolate and strawberry mousse. It was very delicious.
Birthday girl.!
With dad.
With Nana.
Twelve candles, plus one to grow on.
She wanted one of the adorable Disney mini backpacks we saw on our trip to Disneyland back in January 2020. Of course, we aren't headed to Disneyland any time soon, but I was able to find a perfect one online. Leo and I had a wacky mall adventure picking it up from the store it was shipped to in a mall a little ways from our house that we almost never visit. It was worth it, because she was really thrilled with the bag and it's super high quality. I kind of want one for myself now.
The other big item on her list was roller skates. She outgrew her old skates a while ago (but they fit me perfectly), so we did some research and found a pair of high quality skate that should work well for her. When we were trying to pick the color, the purple option was perfect. She had just gotten her nails done in pretty much the exact same color. When she opened them, she was thrilled and her manicure was still holding up to match the skates.
They fit really well and she's excited about them. Here she is trying them on while on the phone with her bestie Maya.
She's almost as tall as her dad with the skates on!
Overall, she had a good birthday. She did say that going to school on her birthday was "boring", but that we did a good job making up for it in the afternoon and evening. She'll be celebrating more in the next week or so.
It was crappy weather today, and though we weren't particular interested in the Superbowl, we knew we would probably be lazy in the afternoon with the game on the TV. So we wanted to get out and move around a bit. The perfect answer was the roller rink.
We love this place and we were happy to bring Daddy to check it out too.
It was raining outside and Tom and Grandpa Skip were settling in for an afternoon of football, so the kids and I invited some friends to the roller rink.
Sunny was fresh off an indoor soccer game, but she still wanted to do some skating.
Leo had never been on roller skates and it's been a long time since he ice skated, but he was excited to give it a go.
First he started off with this strange toe push technique.
Then he tried what could best be described as "skate walking".
It didn't take long for him to get the hang of it and figure out how to flow a little smoother.
Don't get me wrong, he was still herky-jerky and flailing about, and he fell more times than I could count, but he loved it. He had a huge smile on his face and never got upset when he bit the dust. When I would roll by him he would shout "I'm having so much fun" or "I love this".
Sunny wasn't having too much fun in the beginning. In fact, she was doing a fair share of crying because she felt so unsteady.
Her mom tried to help her but she was still frustrated.
I was worried she would give up completely, but Serafina stayed with her in the little learning area beside the main rink and she started to get more comfortable.
I was really proud of Serafina for sticking with her friend. Eventually, Sunny felt more comfortable and they made it to the main rink.
Of course, the main rink has it hazards. Mainly, the adults...
Leo was totally fine despite this huge guy knocking him down. The guy was very apologetic and Leo went on to skate a ton more completely unfazed.
Here are the girls taking a break.
The whole skating crew. We had a really good time.
Leo went back to school on Wednesday but Serafina is off until next Tuesday. The last couple of days she's been stuck running errands with me, so today I decided to find some fun for us.
We drove to San Jose to go to a roller rink. Here she is ready to go with her skates.
She was pretty proud of wearing her own skates instead of the ugly brown rental skates.
I wore the rental skates and still had a great time. Apparently roller skating is like riding a bicycle; it comes all right back when you lace up those skates.
She's not quite roller derby ready, but she's getting better and most importantly, she had fun. But I might have had more fun.
Merry Christmas to all three of my blog readers! We had a great Christmas. It was fun and relaxing.
Serafina was really excited to get old school roller skates.
Leo really, REALLY wanted a Virtual Reality (VR) headset to go with his gaming system. He wasn't sure if he was going to get it, so he was extra thrilled to unwrap it this morning.
The skates fit perfectly.
The headgear for skiing fit well too. Those will keep them nice and warm on the mountain.
Serafina made us this adorable homemade ornament with her fingerprints.
I spent almost the entire day in my pajamas. I also spent almost all of yesterday in pajamas as well. And that is the best Christmas present I could ever ask for.
Leo spent most of the day like this.
He didn't care about his surroundings so he ended up sitting on his sister.
The best place to practice is at the cement rink at our local park.
She got better the more she tried and was able to skate without help.
We headed home and had a relaxing rest of the day. I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday. We are heading to Tahoe tomorrow. We've never spent time in Tahoe during this time of year and I'm interested to find out if it will be crowded. Either way, it should be fun and the weather pretty mild.
