It was another quiet New Year's Eve, similar to last year. But this negative covid test for Serafina was a ticket to having Sunny join us for the night.
She joined us for dinner, and there was lots of squealing and giggling. It really changed the tone of the night.
It made everything feel more festive and fun.
They came out of Serafina's room for treats and watching certain things on the TV with us.
This is how much Serafina felt she needed to squat down to take a picture with Sunny. Ha!
We toasted the new year and can only hope that 2022 is brighter and lighter than the past two years.
Sunny ended up going home about 1:30am to sleep in her own bed. After this long pandemic, a full sleep-over is a bit much, but I told her there is always next time.
I met my friend Cara in childbirth class when we were both pregnant with our first kids. Leo was born less than a month before Addison, and Cara and I spent countless blurry-eyed hours of early motherhood together trying just to survive. She is definitely one my nearest and dearest friends. Several years ago they moved up the peninsula and our visits became infrequent, but we always tried to make time for each other. In February 2019, we had a lunch date and she told me they had bought a house in Indiana, close to her in-laws. I was so sad to have her move far away, but I was also happy for her to be moving into her dream home with family close by. At the end of our lunch, we embraced and cried a little and promised to get the kids together before they moved in May. Then the pandemic hit and we never got to say a proper goodbye. We've done a good job of staying in touch, and I was excited when she said they were coming to town in mid-October. It worked out perfectly that my kids have early dismissal on Wednesday, and we were able to meet up for lunch and some park time. In fact, the park was just around the corner from the hospital where we first met while pregnant and touring the labor and delivery floor as part of our class.
Here are all the kids (left to right): Serafina, Leo, Andrew, Paige, Addison and Riley.
Now that Serafina is twelve, she is eligible for a covid vaccine. She didn't want to have to get a shot on her birthday, so we held off one day.
We made the appointment for the evening so she could have time to go to Starbucks with Sunny. We also happen to make it at our local Safeway store, so I was able to pick up some groceries while I was there. Talk about convenient!
She was nervous before getting the shot. She wanted to call Leo to ask him if it hurts, but I told her that her brother would use that opportunity to torture with tales of arms falling off or something similar. She agreed that he wasn't going to be the moral support she needed in that moment.
Nervous face; annoyance at mom's picture taking.
Being brave!
And just like that, she's one step closer to being a whole lot safer. Not only for her self, but for all of our community. She goes to school in-person, and she dances in-person. I feel significantly better about sending her out in the world now. Second shot coming later in September!
It was the first day of school! For both kids! In person! At the same school! It was so exciting and nerve-wracking. Well, they were calm and confident. Me? I was much more anxious. It helped that yesterday they had a full-day orientation at school.
I made them take a picture even though they objected because it was just the orientation day.
The orientation day helped them feel more comfortable starting today. It also gave me a chance to learn the best spot for drop off to avoid the absolute madness of the school parking lot. The orientation was only for new students. There were 14 new 8th graders, and Leo thought that was all that was going to be in the 8th grade this year. I guess coming from a super small school previously made him think this was an acceptable number. Each grade has a max of 100 kids, so there were a lot more people today, but still just a fraction of the population of our local public school. All the sixth graders were there for orientation, and Serafina got to reconnect with girls she met at a summer meet-and-greet, as well as make some new friends. Leo came home with plans to join the Dungeons and Dragons club that meets on Thursdays at lunch run by the English teacher. They also got to meet most of their teachers.
Today was the official first day. Things went smoothly in the morning, and I had no problems at drop off because I knew how to do it.
Required first day pictures.
Serafina was super annoyed that I made them take this picture out front of the school. She was in a hurry to go see her new friends.
They still had more of an introduction day than a real day of school, but they got their schedules and rotated to different classes. I'm optimistic it will be a good year for both of them. I'll certainly enjoy having both kids at the same school for a year. I just have to keep my fingers crossed that this damn pandemic doesn't cause problems and they can go to school in a mostly normal fashion.
No matter where I've lived or what is happening in my life, I've always seen my Aunt Sheila a couple of times a year, at least. But along came a global pandemic and we went way too long without seeing her. That all changed this week when she made the visit up to see us. Yay vaccines! I didn't take nearly enough pictures, but we did a lot of catching up, marveling at the goofiness of Mousse, and of course, planning and eating good food.
We went to Santa Cruz on Friday afternoon.
It was beautiful and windy. We hit our favorite ice cream spot, Marianne's, on the way back home. I had the dog with us at the order window and the cashier asked if they could him a "doggy scoop". Um, yes! This dog loves all food. He gobbled up his scoop in the back of the car.
My mom got to do lots of visiting with Sheila too.
Her visit was exactly what we needed to take our minds off the stress of school starting and the Delta variant rearing its ugly head. We hope to take a trip down to Southern California to visit with Sheila and all my family down there some time this fall. Keeping my fingers crossed things go in the right direction, and we can make that happen.
In the spring, I was optimistic about the direction of the pandemic, and made plans with my best friend Tracy and her daughter to get together in central California for a couple of nights in an Airbnb. But unfortunately, the Delta variant has me worried, and with Serafina unvaccinated, we had to postpone our plans. The girls were beyond disappointed. But luckily, Tracy had a surprise trip planned for her and Maya to come up to the Monterey area. We decide to double down on the surprise and meet up in Monterey during their trip, but not tell the girls. Fortunately, we take trips to the coast at least a handful of times during the summer, so my kids weren't suspicious when we loaded up the car for a day trip. It's a little longer drive than we usually do to Santa Cruz, but take a look at this video and you'll see it was totally worth it.
The girls were shocked and so thrilled.
They played a bit at the park until it was time to go get some lunch.
Waiting for the lunch order...
We ate at a park, but I took no pictures because Mousse was being a total pain. He was pretty high maintenance the whole time, honestly.
After lunch, it was time for ice cream, of course.
Don't be fooled by Mousse's cute face in this picture. He was super annoying.
After all our treats, we headed to some beach dunes. We had to pass under Highway 1.
The beach was warm, beautiful and not crowded at all. And finally (FINALLY) Mousse was happy to run around in the sand and wasn't a total pest for the first time all day.
Leo's masterpiece.
Fun photo shoot for the girls.
We were quite proud of ourselves for pulling off such an awesome surprise.
When it was clear that three out of the four of us would be vaccinated this summer, I agreed to plan a family trip. Tom's brother Mike and his wife Lynz had a baby last August, so of course, we gotta see the baby.
We booked a trip to Colorado over 4th of July. Since we've hosted a pool party just about every 4th of July that we haven't been traveling (or in a pandemic), I knew it would be a little sad this year without the pool, so a trip was a great idea. Except, we are still in a pandemic and Serafina is unvaccinated. It made me deeply nervous to think about her traveling. But we committed to spending time exclusively with vaccinated family members and lots of outdoor activities. I also found an amazing pet sitter, because that was a huge part of making travel for possible for us. It was so hard for us to leave our precious Mousse Goose, but he was in good hands.
Fortunately, the airport was surprisingly mellow on Friday. There was weather in Denver so we had to circle for a while, but we finally got there and it was great to see Mike and Lynz. Baby Theo was already in bed when we got there.
But we got to meet him in the morning. Since we were strangers, we made sure we didn't overwhelm him. Serafina did a great job of letting him come to her.
And he sure did! He is an absolute doll.
They had so much fun playing with the baby and his toys.
Serafina helped out with a feeding on Saturday.
And they did some reading.
Theo might be the first baby that's not afraid of Tom. Guess he knows another Mirrione when he sees him.
It was hot out, but the sun went behind the clouds for a majority of the hike, which made it much more pleasant.
Here's the whole hiking crew: Theo, Mike, Lynz, Carrie, Serafina, me, Tom, Leo and Eric.
Tom's hiking hat goes lots of places.
Theo and Serafina dressed in their patriotic colors. That night we could see fireworks near and far from Mike and Lynz's house.
Monday morning we woke up and visited the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. We came here before when we were in Colorado for Mike and Lynz's wedding, but we went on a very crowded day.
This time there were a lot less people.
Serafina's favorite part was the space exhibit. Here she is with a model Mars rover.
Tom took his turn with a hands-on exhibit.
Both kids tried this out.
Leo liked the gems quite a bit. Here he is with an impressive crystal.
