May 2018

All-Around Annika
—The 4th/5th grade music performance: Annika’s class and the 5th grade had their spring performance together on the blacktop, six or eight songs with Mr. V’s usual patter (like, to the word), and although she was kind of embarrassed, she looked lovely and the show was fun as usual. :-)
—School talent show: This year’s talent show saw a reunion from two years ago: Annika and Raina back together again! They performed “Happy,” in emoji shirts and yellow sparkly tutus, a dance of their own creation — and it was so good! They looked thrilled to be up there — fun for all of us to watch.
—Annika’s Skip Day: Undoubtedly the highlight of her month was the day she used her Skip School Day (part of her birthday present). She chose a Friday, and had a whole agenda planned: Boulevard for breakfast, Fish Market for lunch, Old Navy and Target in the morning, and a few other things. We had a great time together, just wandering around and not bein’ at school. Best birthday present ever! 

Lukas Life
—Gymnastics: The kid is driving us nuts with the in-home parkour and whatnot, so I got him into a free trial at ATA Gymnastics (where his classmate Samantha had her birthday party). He. LOVED. iT. He’s the only boy in a group of five or six kids, and he still is the most energetic person in the place — I hope they can get him to listen and learn, but in the meantime, his hourlong lessons are the best part of his week.
—Screen free week(s): So. He broke the iPad mini, basically trying to parkour with it and record himself doing so, and then he lied about it (said he didn’t know when or how it happened), so he got a screen-free week. And then we had a bad bad terrible couple of days (the culmination of several weeks of bad behavior, while R. was at the condo 14 hours a day painting it every weekend), and he lost screens for another week … and I gotta say, it wasn’t the worst thing. It was expensive (we bought a lot of Legos, went to Color Me Mine, etc.), but his behavior really improved, and he did so much creative stuff (drawing, play-doh, etc.) — I wouldn't mind a few more screen-free weeks, actually!
—Kinder open house: They split the grades up, which is nice for us, and we went to the Kinder open house as a family. Lukas was so proud to show us all his work, it was so sweet. :-)
—May the Fourth, aka Star Wars Day: On May 4, the school had a special free dress day, where the kids (and teachers) could wear Star Wars merch/costumes. Annika, of course, was Uninterested, but Lukas wore his favorite T-shirt and had to be persuaded not to bring one of his lightsabers, lol. 

Family Fun
—Visit to Lendlers: It was our turn to make the trek up north, since we hadn’t seen our Marin friends in awhile. Kusum made my faaaaaaavrit dinner, and we hung around on their back patio, drinking champagne and letting the kids do whatever — a good day for all of us!
—Mother’s Day: The next day was Mother’s Day, and it was another epic one for me! The kids and R. let me sleep in, then read the entire New York Times, and brought me flowers and breakfast in bed (homemade waffles! yeah! and coffee). The rest of the day was fun too — Annika and I planted a bunch of wildflowers, R. made dinner — just a great, chill, family hang. Perfect!
—Epic weekend: We don’t like to … do stuff on weekends. Like, maybe we’ll do one Thing. But the weekend of the 18 - 12 was packed full: The talent show on Friday night, then at 6:30 the next morning, Annika’s (and my) Girls on the Run 5k in Vasona Park. Then at 10:00 a.m., the world premiere of Kevin Carney’s movie that he and his brother and friends shot in high school, at a theater in Redwood City. That evening, R. and I went to dinner at Plumed Horse for his birthday. The next morning at 6:00 a.m. (hooooooooooo boy), I took Annika to school to meet up with her Girl Scout troop for their special trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium, where they got a behind the scenes tour and fed a bunch of the fish. By late that afternoon, we were all DONE … but yeah, it was all fun.
—Art Vista Show: This year’s Art Vista show was a loud, wild cluster as usual, but the kids had some great pieces in it and they were really proud of their work.
—Mike’s 50th Birthday Sauce: No rest in May, we Sauce again! This time we did a two-nighter because that’s how Sauce rolls on milestone birthdays. We couldn’t think of any good gifts, until the last couple of days — when I got the idea to get T-shirts made with an old pic of Mike on them and the word “MAALGAARD” underneath, plus a set of whiskey glasses etched with MAALGAARD and some wooden coasters wood burned with the “little man” image that was a Sauce joke nearly a decade ago (coasters and glasses courtesy of my friend Fiona). He loved, loved, LOVED it — RAWK!
—R.’s bday: A milestone, but not a big one — 45! We had caaaaake (the kids and I picked one up, since with all the Things we’ve been doing, there wasn’t time to bake!), and Indian food delivered, and lots of awesome presents (mostly practical / band-related this time, plus of course booze). 

Memorial Day weekend
This was an unusual one — normally, it’s the first pool weekend of the year, but the weather was mighty uncooperative (cool and overcast Saturday and Sunday, until finally heating up and making it worth summarizing the deck and pool on Monday). Aunt Amy and Uncle Paul went away for the weekend, so the cousins “visited”, from Friday afternoon to about 1:30 a.m. Sunday. Monday night, we watched what Lukas called “crimson dynamite” — actually Napoleon Dynamite, lol. So a weird but good MDW after all!

Quotable:
—Lukas “presentation” of Hand Hand Fingers Thumb: “anchor chips” (handkerchief), “snake hand, snake hand, snake snake snake”
—Lukas, discussing single-player vs. multi-player modes in MarioKart w/his teen cousins: “So, you’re versing the computer?”