November 2022

Social butterflies
Once you get to Halloween, it’s pretty non-stop till January, and this November — the first fully post-lockdown holiday season — was absolutely roaring. Manir had a pool party for his birthday (with like 20 kids from all his various overlapping enthusiasms; Lukas and Owen sat it out and played masked-up D&D in the house). Sam had a game night for his birthday, which sounded like a few hours of more or less total chaotic fun. I took Annika to the Mother Mother show in San Francisco on a rainy night in early November; she was super-psyched and loved every minute. (It was on the drive home in the rainy dark that I realized I needed glasses for distance viewing — the highway signs didn’t reveal themselves quite as soon as I needed them to!). The Los Alamitos crowd had an early-out week for PT conferences (ours went well, we thought, but R. and I both had a little bit of side-eye for some of what the teacher said — more about that later — and we gave her the part of the ADHD diagnostic packet for teachers), so we met up with his friends a lot — a hangout with Manir, D&D for the blade team at Ben’s, etc.). And there was the first annual Dandy Black & White Ball, an evening fundraiser for the school with a silent auction and dancing, the whole bit; we made up a table with Ami & Ritesh, Brandi and Alastair, and some other friends. It was a great time, even if it did make it a little difficult to get up for blade team the next day. ;-)  

Home and Away
Rain finally came after so many, many dry months — it was heavenly to have what other places think of as fall weather around here! The kids were off of school on Veterans Day, so the kids and I went out to breakfast on a weekday. And finally, the big week: Science Camp for the fifth graders! Lukas was excited, but pretty nervous going in, though he didn’t want to show it on the morning of (and didn’t want me takin’ pics as they loaded onto the bus, lol). We all three wrote him letters, and we got a few posts from teacher-chaperones on a blog that had pics (some of which he was in). But we missed him so much! It was so very odd not having his energy around the house. We made the best of it; the three of us at home watched a bunch of Stranger Things episodes together — getting close to caught up! When he got home, he was ragged-out tired, and gave the whole experience a 4 out of 10 (Manir gave it a 3!); he hadn’t really enjoyed being away from home, and didn’t have a lot good to say with the exception of a few small moments. But I think he’ll look more fondly on it later, and at the very least, he certainly did have an experience. 

Lukas's birthday!
This little guy is ELEVEN! Wild and crazy … like him. :-) Given Science Camp coming up and then the Thanksgiving holiday, we decided to have his birthday party the weekend before. We invited the Blade Team plus siblings and a couple of other people; the party largely consisted of splitting the kids into groups and sending them into the park with walkie-talkies to do “missions” (or was it quests?) — something they made up and I don’t understand, but it looked super fun. Of course there was cake, and presents, and horsing around at our house as well — another great, no-frills adventure for the little band of merry goofballs. He got home from Science Camp on his actual birthday — Ami and I took HAPPY BIRTHDAY LUKAS!!! signs with us to welcome the buses home, and she had a present (selected beforehand by Manir) for him to unwrap (I had sent him a tiny little something in his luggage, even though we were told by the teachers not to do that! heh). He hadn’t been there to eat breakfast at his specially-decorated place, but it was waiting for him in the afternoon nonetheless. That night we had the family favorite chocolate-raspberry cake and presents, tending heavily toward band T-shirts, secreted-away Disney stuff, and gamer dude paraphernalia. Grandma & Grandpa came to visit the birthday boy, bearing gifts (Robux chief among them). He is such a huggable muggable, the neatest of the meatest and the munsterest of buns! Happy birthday, Danger Tween — love you so so so much!!!

Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving week started off a little dicey — Sunday night, the weekend after his birthday and return from camp, Lukas had a sore throat and fever and missed all three days of school; it wasn’t covid, but we were still worried about having the grandparents over, under the circumstances. He rallied, though, and we put on a good feast once again: the Macy Day Parade, the dog show, the grandparents’ arrival (and R. and I out of the Very Nice Room to our own bed in the nick of time, so they could stay over!), and a heaving table full of turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, pie, etc. We spent the weekend watching movies, eating leftovers, laying around, and putting up the outdoor Christmas lights — rain was in the forecast, and R. wanted that bit done at least. And now — let the Christmas season begin!

October 2022

Disneyland
Saturday evening, October 1, was the season’s first viewing of The Nightmare Before Christmas, and on Sunday, we were off to Disneyland! This trip was much better than the last: Early entry was back (although, frustratingly, it’s only 30 minutes instead of an hour), and we moved rooms from a crummy, far-away one to one that turned out to have much easier access to the lineup courtyard and a no-bags security screening line that R. and Lukas split off to, so we were first through the turnstile every single day. We started at DCA 3x and DL2x, but agreed based on Oogie Boogie Bash dates and what rides are open during early entry that we’ll change that next time. Lukas rode the Incredicoaster for the first time, and LOVED it. We did animation academy twice, drawing Baby Groot and Oogie Boogie, and ate at Carthay Circle’s Alfresco Terrace, fortuitously getting to see the start of the OBB; finally got to eat at a refreshed Blue Bayou (wine with my steak, wooo!) and the Fantasmic! show; enjoyed the refurbed Snow White and Nemo rides, which partly made up for no Matterhorn (which was closed for refurb). The Patels were on the Big Island doing all of our usual stuff (and some things we never bother with, lol) with the grandparents; we all kept sending each other wish-you-were-here pictures and agreeing it was weird to not be traveling together, but both happy to be where we were. 

Annika's 15th birthday
Our girl turned 15 this month, yaaaaay! On her actual birthday, which was Sunday (the day after we got back from the Mouse’s House), we had bagels for breakfast, the grandparents came to visit in the afternoon, and then we had dinner and cake; her presents this year included a lot of cool socks (kind of her thing these days), Nightmare Before Christmas stuff, a few things bought secretly from Disneyland, and tickets to see Mother Mother, a band she’s super into, in SF in November — a big surprise! She hadn’t even known they were touring. Damn, I’m good! Her birthday party with friends featured dinner out at the Cheesecake Factory, wherein she and her guests (Niamh, Raina, and Alana) sat in a booth and I stayed at the bar (my idea, again — I’m good, lol), followed by night swimming, a movie (Nightmare Before Christmas, duh!) and desserts + hot chocolate made by me.

Halloween and other Octoberness
We spent the usual amount of time at the Patels’ — dinner at their house, shared home base tent at the boys’ last Dandy Day, Manir’s birthday party. We celebrated Grandma’s 85th birthday on October 27. And this year saw the glorious return of the Los Alamitos costume parade, which had been canceled two years running because of covid, and kids-only/spectator-free last year for the same reason. It was as delightful as ever — so good to have it back! Annika was invited to the twins’ Halloween party (Lukas, R. and I stayed home and watched something she wouldn’t care for). And finally, Halloween itself was a new chapter: Instead of going to the Marshalls’, we pivoted to a Blade-Team-centric experience starting out at the Grants’ house (partly because there was Covid and other health drama at the Marshalls’, but it was time for the pivot to happen, imo). Annika went as (the world’s cutest) Howl (from Howl’s Moving Castle), and Lukas was resplendent as Alfredo Linguini Gusteau from Ratatouille (in chef’s togs, with a magnet-base stuffed Remy on his shoulder and a movie-prop frying pan in one hand). R. went as Peter B. Parker from Into the Spider-verse (one shoe and one boot, too-small Spidey costume, utility jacket, beard stubble), and I went as a roadie for Löded Diper (Axl wig & bandanna, lanyard, leather jacket, band T-shirt). There were wagonloads of beer, lots of hilarity, and pillowcases full of candy — a thrilling spooky successful night all around. 

September 2022

 School Stuff

Both of the kids’ schools had a Back to School night, where the parents go through the kids’ schedules, meeting their teachers and hearing about the plans for the year ahead. Lukas’s was, of course, only the one teacher — Mrs. Ananmalay — who emphasized reading at home and at school, and math, which is kind of her Special Interest. Annika’s, though, was six different teachers, all of whom seemed good and a few of whom were standouts (sculpture and Algebra II especially). They all seemed to have a similar philosophy about homework (not giving it deliberately, just if the kid doesn’t finish work in class) and and a generous view of makeup work/quizzes, so that put our minds at ease. It’s just really good to have a mental picture of what the teachers and their classrooms are like, and to see who else is in there with your kid. As for other school news, Lukas did another session of weekly after-school skateboarding with Manir, Amira, and Sam & James — some days it was so blasted hot I wasn’t sure how they were doing it, but they loved it!

Labor Day weekend
The weather turned Maximal Summer for awhile; it was 106 in the shade, several days, and we did some very fun night swimming just to cool off. Over Labor Day weekend, we were mostly at home playing Splatoon 3! or swimming, though one day we spent the day with the Patels at our pool and then all went over to a get-together at the Grants’. The only bummer was R. having to go back to work three days a week in the office after the long weekend — and that really did suck, especially because of how f’ing pointless the exercise was and is. The first week was the hardest, but it’s never gonna be a good time. 

Family & Friends Miscellany
Even in the heat, we had a D&D session outside on the picnic table at our house (that ended with everyone jumping in the pool, naturally). Owen’s birthday was a D&D party in their garage, on the one overcast, misty, cooler day we had in the whole month. We went over to Grandma & Grandpa’s to celebrate his 87th birthday with an ice cream cake; we all got our covid boosters and flu shots (as you do), and a truly momentous event for R. and I: we got our bedroom furniture! Ordered weeks ago from Restoration Hardware, the bed, dresser, and night tables, plus a new mattress, all arrived and were set up — magnificent! Although they’re so big and heavy, if we ever sell the house, they’re gonna have to stay. Heh. 

August 2022

 Family Fun

—Jake & Jill visit: In the first weekend of the month, Uncle Jake and Aunt Jill came out from Texas to visit us for the first time since Lukas was a baby (and the first time seeing them in person, period, since 2017). They were also here in a semi-official capacity with the Crunchyroll Expo, another convention that Annika and her friends wanted to go to — so we got free passes, which made it all the nicer. We adults hung out at the pool, mostly, and we all had dinners together. It was awesome to see them; the days of traveling to Texas for Christmas and Thanksgiving have passed, so we go longer between intervals than we’d like.
—Summer Games, cont’d: August is an excellent month for bowling (it’s air-conditioned in there), and we went a lot: the whole-ass Blade Team (some with their own passes, some with borrowed ones, lol); the kids and I with Ami, Manir & Amira; the whole fam together (getting into the pool when we get home); everybody with the Patels, followed by dinner at their house.
—San Francisco field trip: Before school started in mid-August, I had the idea to take the kids up to the city on the train and muck around for the day, but they didn’t want to go it alone, so we teamed up with Ami and the kids — the six of us had a blast, riding Caltrain up, walking along the Embarcadero, eating dozens of little fried donuts, barking at the sea lions, strolling into North Beach for brunch at Mama’s, trying and failing to catch a cable car and ending up walking to Ghirardelli Square for ice cream, and finally ending the day at the Hog Island Oyster Co. in the Ferry Building before taking the train home. A great way to close out the summer with some exploring!
—Screen time: We ate a lot of dinners outside at the bar, on account of how hot it was indoors, so R. and I decided it was time to get the kids into Survivor — which we’ve never missed an episode of — starting with Season One. It was a hit, although much slower-paced and more survival-based (as opposed to game- and strategy-based) than current seasons. And we finally let Annika start watching Stranger Things, with me, whenever Lukas wasn’t in the house; we could’ve let her do it sooner, but I really wanted to re-watch it and I thought it really might be too dark — but she loved it, and we powered through episode after episode, as fast as we could.

Kids & Friends
Dungeons and Dragons was a big part of the summer, with sessions at our house, Sam’s, Ben’s, Reid’s — even Annika got into it a little bit. We went biking and swimming a lot with Manir and Amira — sometimes at our house, sometimes at theirs. And as always, there was Emmett’s birthday party at the swim club — steaming-hot but a lot of fun for the kids (and for me, hanging out with my friends, lol).

First Day of HS, Last First Day of Elementary
—The school year’s first event was Freshman Orientation at Pioneer HS. I took Annika to the home of some of the Marshalls’ friends who live near the campus to meet up with Niamh, Raina, Aino, and Alana. The five girls walked over (with some of us moms trailing a block behind) and joined the throng, finding their assigned orientation groups, getting their schedules, etc. All went well, and when I went to pick Annika up at the end, she wanted to run through her schedule a few times until she felt she had it down; they don’t have lockers, so that wasn’t a factor, but her classes are all over the place, so she will have to criss-cross the campus a lot. She’s got Spanish I, Sculpture, P.E., Language Arts (aka English), Physics (aka Physical Science, not the advanced math/science class), and Honors Algebra II. She has at least one or two friendly faces in each one, which is a relief.
—BTS Tradition: We had one last swim afternoon at the Patels’ on the Tuesday before School started (Wednesday), per tradition, to have some fun and relieve anxiety, hopefully making for a better night’s sleep.
—First Day of Fifth and Ninth Grades: The time between drop-offs was shorter this year, so we had to quickly take the usual photos at Emmett’s house (practically in throwing distance from the elementary school) before sending the TK Crew (plus Amira, and Emmett’s younger brothers) off to the first day of their last year at Los Alamitos. I was not surprised by the mixed emotions — very proud of those boys, but so sorry to see the end of the LA years coming to a close. Then, we rushed to get Annika to the rendezvous point with Alana on a side street near the HS; the girls declined a photo op (lol), and walked down the block and out of sight. At pick-up, I had been braced for the worst — but each kid was in good spirits, Annika even more than Lukas; she liked her teachers, thought her classes might be interesting … it was a welcome difference from what I’d expected/worried about, for sure. 

July 2022

Family Fun

July is a long month, and usually the most unscheduled. After our time away, and a lot of other social gatherings at other people’s houses, July had the return of movie night proper — good to see things back up on the big screen, not to mention the slightly-smaller screen (we all got really into both Kenobi and Ms. Marvel) and the really big screen: We saw the new Thor movie, Love and Thunder, actually in the movie theater (at 9:30 a.m. on a Sunday, to minimize the number of other people in the theater with us!). Our 4th of July weekend was chill as usual, with the Patels coming over in the afternoon and all of us walking over to see the fireworks at the lake park. Our friends the Lendlers visited, for an afternoon of swimmin’ and drinkin’, and when we weren’t doing any of that, you could usually find the kids and I playing Pokemon GO! like it was 2016. 

Summer Sauceage
The Smittys made their annual pilgrimage out west, so we got to have a summer sauce with the whole gang. This time, it included Lukas on the drums, and an epic day at the Boardwalk with the Smitty family. 

Happenings in Kiddom
Lukas was fairly busy this month; he went to Ben’s birthday party, did two weeks of skate camp (~3 hrs/day) with Ben, James, and Sam, went to School of Rock for a week and ended the session with a performance at the Brittannia Arms — so exciting to see the little guy up on stage! Annika spent most of her days on her own, but she did take a babysitting training class with her friend Alana; now they can earn some coin if they want to. 

June 2022

Wrapping up the school year
This week-plus was chock full of happenings:
—Castillero honors night: Annika was one of the couple dozen or so kids (in her class of ~400) to receive an award for maintaining all A’s all through middle school; we are so proud of her!
—8th grade promotion ceremony: Annika wore the suit she’d worn to the school dance, and looked adorable even though the afternoon was hot as balls. She got a lei and a pukka shell necklace in Castillero colors for souvenirs.
—Field day at Los Alamitos: The kind of event that couldn’t be held during the worst of the pandemic, it was an all-day thing for the kids (with a lot of adult volunteers); Lukas had a great time, despite the heat (a recurring theme here!).
—Covid all around: R., to his great surprise, tested positive for covid — he, in his own words, “literally never goes anywhere!”, had no symptoms, and only tested because he was required to before he went into work one day to pick up something he needed for WFH, but still — you get a positive test, you have to do the plague protocols. (The rest of us declined to test, so we will forever not know whether we had it too. That’s how it is, two damn years into this.) Manir tested positive and missed the last day of school; he was so bummed, but Lukas edited him a funny video to cheer him up, which video is incomprehensible to adults but Manir loved it.
—End-of-the-year party at the Thomases’: Annika and the twins planned and co-hosted a party at their house, for which I did decorations and their parents did the food. They had a good group of attendees (no Raina, no Niamh, no Grace, but Mackenzie, Sydney, and a few new faces), and Ben was there so Lukas was able to swim and have fun (without a mask!!!!) while the teens had a chill good time. Lukas and I closed out the evening with The Princess Bride on the couch.
—Alyna’s high school graduation: We were in attendance with the grandparents and the Sunnyvale household as our favorite niece, in a dapper suit w/wingtips and vest, graduated with her Waldorf class of 12 students; the ceremony included the class performing an original tune that she wrote and played the flute in. 

Potpourri
Sam’s younger brother James passed out at blade team, and it was a whole thing — a fire truck came to his aid! Their mom is a nurse, so she had it handled (and he revived after about 30 seconds), but it was wild, and all anybody could talk about for awhile. The weekends were too cool for the pool (again), plus we spent the time moving out of our closet, preparatory to more renovation work to be done while we were in Hawaii. Speaking of which … 

Hawaii at Last!
After two years confined to home, more or less, we were off to Hawaii early the morning after Alyna’s graduation! The first day was just about getting back to the place; Monday, we went to our beloved beach club: We started off snorkeling (had clear and excellent conditions), had lunch at Napua (and saw the start of the smoothie unavailability crisis of 2022). Tuesday we did the beach club again, Wednesday we ventured up to Hapuna (again with the great conditions, and we saw a turtle swimming along right near us). The rest of the trip was just alternating between the beach club (snorkeling every time; once after Lukas and I had gone back to the cabanas, R and Annika saw an eel fight and a SHARK!) and Hapuna. Lukas was a stronger and less fearful swimmer/snorkeler this year; we built an epic sandcastle, went to Pu’eo’s Osteria, made much of dad’s Expensive Designer Sunglasses (lol - they were $13 from Amazon), ate on the lanai whenever possible, saw tiny lizards, finally had SmoothieQuest 5000 pay off, got rained out AGAIN at Hale Kai, hung out with the Grants during their 3-day overlap with our trip, had our last day lunch at Napua, and — regretfully — flew home. We finished the month with a lot of bowling and pool days with the Patels, finished the Kenobi series, and chilled on screens while construction rattled along in the background.