October 2023

Back to the Mouse’s House

For the fall break, we were once again Disney-bound — five days in the parks, during which we walked 10+ miles every day, Lukas regained his love for the Guardians of the Galaxy ride, “extra magic HALF hour” returned (allowing us to up our ride count, but not as much as in the Before Times), we very nearly closed the parks on Friday night, and finished off with our first visit to Goofy’s Kitchen for a breakfast buffet and Chip ’n Dale character meet & greet that last Saturday morning. 

Annika turns 16!
A big milestone birthday, to be sure — and we were still living in the garage, so the place I decorated for her breakfast that day was the old grad-school Target table, and instead of the family traditional raspberry-chocolate cake, she blew out her candles on a (very delicious) cake from SusieCakes in Willow Glen. Grandma & Grandpa came over that afternoon to give her presents and wish her a happy birthday. That evening, her gifts included a bunch of cool shirts, a gaming mouse, weird scented candles, and a bass guitar! (Not the actual instrument — she’ll have to pick that out herself.) Then for her party, since we were unable to host due to the remodel, she invited friends to a 30th anniversary screening of The Nightmare Before Christmas at the theater in the mall, preceded by dinner at the Cheesecake Factory. 

Things, life, whatnot
—Another small but significant milestone: R. and I went out for the evening on a school night (to see Chad and JT, these goofball podcasters/comedians we like, at a theater in downtown SJ) and left the kids in charge of themselves. They’re pros at this kind of thing by now.
—Lukas had his first handball game — he got possession of the ball one time, and scored!
—There was a partial eclipse one Saturday morning, and we went across the street to watch it with the neighbors, sharing some eclipse glasses they had. It kind of turned into a little party, with Lukas and the neighbor kids riding razor scooters, other neighbors and the mailman stopping by to chat, etc.
—Times being what they are, we all went to get our flu and covid shots at the same time; nobody had a bad reaction this time, yay!
—Maximum Saturday: We aren’t the type to do multiple things on a weekend day if we can help it, but every once in a while we kind of have to — Lukas had two handball games, Annika and Alana put in some volunteer hours working the face-painting booth at Dandy Day, and we all ended the evening at a showing of Back to the Future in the theater (it was the date that Marty traveled back to in 1985, thus the theatrical rerelease).
—More Movies: I guess we’re making up for the complete lack of big screen time in the covid years; Annika and I went to see Five Nights at Freddy’s with Lukas and a couple of his friends (the kids sat together in one row, and she and I sat together in another), and Lukas, Annika and I saw Spirited Away, which was part of the theater’s Ghibli Fest.
—Annika has started to get busier these days, as college now seems not that far away; she’s putting in lots of time volunteering at Town Cats on Sundays (part of the Sophomore Project, but also because she wants to earn a Service Award from school). She also took the PSAT, along with the rest of the sophomore class, and will hear the results in 4-6 weeks. 

This is Halloween
Another weeknight Halloween, but we did it up right! Both kids dressed up for school (that’s really a thing here, probably 75% of the students in middle and high school do it). Annika went as a scarecrow, Lukas went as Batman/Bruce Wayne (slicked back hair, wearing a suit, unbuttoned and tie askew, to show the Batman t-shirt underneath and a utility belt in place of a regular one, with the Batman mask hanging out of his waistband as if he’d been off doing Batman stuff but had to go to a gala or something). We went to the Grants’ to pregame and then out into their neighborhood with a couple dozen people to trick or treat. (I went as No Face, and R. went as Doc Brown, both inspired by recent moviegoing.) And like last year, Annika and Alana went off with their friends while we stayed with the younger set of kids.