January 2023

New Year’s week
The new year got off to a lovely rainy start, conducive to hanging around the house, but we did get out some. Annika was invited to dinner at the twins’ house; the kids and I went to Color Me Mine for the first time since covid shutdowns to do a little ceramics painting, and out to breakfast in a rainstorm the morning Petra came to clean. We had all the blade team boys over for a D&D session one afternoon, and another day we went bouldering (climbing artificial rock walls) at a place downtown with Ami, Manir and Amira — that was so much fun! We all agreed it was a little scary to start, but picked it up quickly and ended up climbing till we couldn’t anymore, and then found a place for lunch nearby before calling it a day. R. and the kids had a blast doing SplatFest for an entire weekend, often joined online by Kent and Skyler. 

Potpourri/Back to School
Of course there were less-fun things going on, as it always is with January: school starting back up in the second week of the month, taking down all the Christmas decorations, Lukas being out sick for a few days after four kids in his class got covid (but he never tested positive, so who knows), and a bit of (scary) excitement when a 30’ palm tree across the street fell smack down in a wind storm, perfectly aligned along the sidewalk and missing several cars and fences (our other across-the-street neighbor, luckily, had a chainsaw, and came out in the start of another rainy spell to cut it apart … in board shorts and flip-flops, omg). We had a rainy Blade Team meetup that eventually had to be abandoned when the rain got serious, but it continued in the form of an online D&D session, so all was not lost. On a more fun note, Annika (and Elise) spent more time over at Sydney’s; she and I went to see the movie M3GAN (all the rage among the teens, apparently); and she started a pre-comp swim class Sunday mornings at AVAC to prep for swim tryouts at school, while Lukas started drum lessons at Guitar Center. 

Seattle Strategy
Having decided we’re going to Seattle with the Patels, we of course needed several evenings’ worth of dinner and drinks to plan our itinerary and figure out our housing for the trip; we eventually chose a house that looked like the best fit for all eight of us, and found a vehicle to rent that would take us all — I love it when a plan comes together!