Teia Graduates from Kindergarten

How can it be that we are now the parents of not one, but two, kindergarten graduates? Another school year in the books. And each year they pass by more quickly. This year was particularly busy with double duty for mama in the volunteering department across two classrooms. I logged my final hours the other day and discovered that I put in 170 hours volunteering at the kids' school. Woah. Time for me to go back to work.

This day when they embarked on their kinder and grade 2 years seems like such a short time ago:

And on the last day they are a lot sillier and a lot taller.

Teia really enjoyed her graduation - playing the part of a dancing warthog in the class performance of Gerald the Giraffe. 

And she was pretty darn adorable accepting her diploma :-)

Her beloved Miss Morgan was out with knee surgery but Miss Veronica was a wonderful substitute teacher and a surprise visit from Miss Morgan after the graduation made all the kinders' day. 

Getting a family photo was more challenging than during Kai's kinder grad, with Kai having his own end of year pot luck at a different end of campus but we did manage to all get together for a few moments. 

And I was able to take a few quick photos of Kai with his two teachers. This is Kai's "smile on demand" face. Very cute in its own way I think. Mr. F is showing the mug Kai painted for him at Paint Your Own Pottery. 

And in this photo we have the more spontaneous Kai, with a mouthful of bagel and all!

It's hard to believe this school chapter is over and the kids are moving onto something new. It'll be Kai's 4th new school and Teia's 3rd (if you include preschool) so hopefully they won't take long to settle into their new school in the fall. For now, I am just relishing not having to make lunches every night! It's the little things!

Birthday Time - EIGHT!!!!!!

I promised myself I would not miss blogging about Kai's birthday. I've managed to capture each kiddo birthday since we started this blog back in 2008, shortly after Kai turned 1. So I don't plan on missing his EIGHTH birthday! He is such a big and grown up boy these days. He almost comes up to my shoulder. I should have taken a photo of that for proof! And it won't be long before we're in the same shoe size. I can still pick him up, just barely. But it looks completely silly b/c his legs practically drag on the ground. And he's almost half my weight.

This year Kai decided against a birthday party. He chose a birthday outing with his best buddy L and with his Mommy, Daddy and Teia. He decided he wanted to take us all on a ride on the Amtrak Surfliner. Teia and I felt very honored b/c riding the Surfliner is an outing usually reserved just for special Daddy and Kai time. We are typically invited on Coaster rides but not the Surfliner. This has worked out just fine so far b/c Surfliner tickets are quite a bit more expensive. But it was his birthday and it probably cost a lot less than throwing a party.

We met L at the Old Town Station and began our day:

Kai was a happy boy. 

Train rides take a bit of logistical planning but we were able to swing it so we could train it to Solana Beach, have lunch, some playground time and take another Surfliner back in time for birthday cake and swimming at our house.

This turned out to be just the beginning of Kai's celebrations. We had our train outing about a week early b/c Kai's class planned a camping trip for the weekend right before his birthday. He had alot of fun running around the campsite with L, Teia and other kids from school.

Here are the boys again. Hard to believe it poured down the night before. Half the group went home early and the troopers stayed to enjoy the novelty of the rain, even when some of them didn't own raincoats. 

We packed up the morning after camping and headed straight to the airport to pick up Granddad. Kai's actual birthday was a school day but it turned out to be pretty special with Granddad around, standing on the table to be sung to, and then cake and presents at home. 

Kai's favorite thing over the past while has been VW vans so he was pretty thrilled to receive a set of 3! He'd been waiting patiently! I'm sure little sis was almost as excited as he was. In fact she woke him up on his birthday morning. She just couldn't wait to see him open his presents. 

He got lots of other cool presents too. He worked with Daddy to put together the newest jet for his collection. 

Here is his birthday celebration at school. Notice the cool VW van t-shirt. Internet shopping is just da best. And in keeping with the VW van theme, we surprised Kai with a very cool cake. I'm not always impressed with Whole Foods but their cake decorators did a great job, working only off a photo I gave them and artificial dye free too! 

Kai had a great birthday tailor made for our unique little man. He indulged his love of trains, planes, vans and chocolate cake and spent time with special people. And he even put his laundry away without being told on his birthday "because I'm eight." Of course the novelty of that wore off pretty quickly but we enjoyed it while it lasted! 

Is this really my SECOND post in 2015???

Well yes, yes it is. This blog is hanging by a thread right now given all that we have going on. But I am determined to keep breathing life into it, every now and then. We may miss alot of stuff b/tw now and the time the dust has settled on our Victoria life but I'll keep trying......

I have lots of wonderful photos and stories from our trip to Victoria in late Feb but I'm afraid those aren't likely going to make it onto this little blog. And there has been other cool stuff to document too, like Kai's first sleep over during spring break with his buddy L, turning 45, beach time, and many small moments. But I am going to post a few photos about our spur of the moment, one night camping trip to J-Tree, where the kids got their rock climbing on!

At the last minute we decided to forego Easter egg hunts in favor of packing up our camping gear and driving 150 miles up to Joshua Tree National Park to join our friends who were already out there. It was quite adventurous of us, particularly as we had lost cell phone contact with our friends and weren't entirely sure if they were really expecting us or not. It was well worth the effort. J-Tree is amazing. And every camping trip with the kids gets a little bit easier. They definitely have a taste for it and they do love s'mores.

That little 3-pronged tree just right of center in the picture is a Joshua tree. They are not much to look at really but forever associated with U2 in my mind and somehow it was weirdly cool to see one (once I learned how to differentiate it from your garden variety Yucca). 

We caught the full moon while we were there and I barely slept. It was like someone left the lights on all night. It was just so bright. When Teia woke me up at 6 am, I seriously thought it was still night b/c that moon gave off just as much light as the rising sun. It really was pretty incredible. I'm not really a desert person but there is something incredibly peaceful about just being in the desert during those quiet, not burning hot middle of the day, moments. 

After plenty of hiking and free climbing/bouldering around the campsite and area, dinner and campfire, and a reasonable night's sleep (the moonlight only seemed to bother me), the kids had a chance to actually rope up and do a top roped climb, with one of the Dads serving as the top anchor and belaying the kids from above. 

I really didn't think they'd be up for it and figured they would just watch their friends but curiosity got the better of both of them and once Kai did it, Teia was game too.

We were so stinkin' proud of them. They just took on the challenge despite their apprehension. So awesome! Teia was so fast that Dave, the belay guy, couldn't believe it was her first time (and Greg nearly didn't get any photos in time!) And Kai - he had nerves of steel the whole way up and down. The boy was all business. When he makes up his mind about something, look out. 

I just love this photo of Kai on the top with Dave, looking down at all of us with the biggest smile on his face!

I wish we'd had a few more days. The kids just couldn't get enough of the incredible boulders. And it was the perfect place to inspire T and her buddy P, to play coyotes all weekend long. Our drive home was exciting as well. A pick up truck went up in flames on the freeway just ahead of us and exploded its tires just as we were driving past and the fire department was arriving. And somehow we managed to take two hours longer than everyone else to get home, despite the fact that Greg was breaking land speed records for most of the trip. We can blame some of it on the traffic caused by the burning truck, some on taking the "scenic" route back, and the rest on picky eaters. 

When we got home we found that the Easter bunny did not forget our house, even though we weren't home but the chocolate eggs were not nearly as big of a highlight as the kids' climbing adventure! 

Is this really my first post in 2015?

We are on a little working vacation. But oxymorons aside, I promised myself I'd do a little blogging with the down time. So I finally pulled up the blog tonight to discover how neglectful I've been. I actually looked to see if I had something in drafts, but no. I haven't blogged at all in 2015 and its nearly March!

Its not that stuff doesn't happen. Stuff is always happening. But I'm just too worn out after the kidlets are in bed to write any of it down. But I need to get better about it. Because I really do think the kids are going to enjoy reading all of this one day.

Our big event for January was Disneyland. We finally went. We had an opportunity to purchase some discounted tickets which meant our family could go for just a few hundred dollars, rather than like an absolutely ridiculous amount. Because, you know, a few hundred dollars to go to a theme park isn't ridiculous. But we bit the bullet and did it. It was both selfish and selfless. Selfless because I actually really didn't want to go, but felt I owed it to the kidlets. Selfish, because now we won't ever have to make a trip back to "do Disneyland." Its not that we wouldn't want to come back to SoCal to visit friends or warm up, but coming just to do Disney, nuh uh.

Overall, the trip was a big success. Traffic was not abhorrent, the kids lasted a full five hours, the rain held off until the parade in the afternoon which we still got to see and we were ready to leave by then anyway. (And you know there is a drought here but it did rain during our one and only day at Disneyland. Go figure!) The kids even went on a few rides and Elsa waved at Teia. Success.

The kids at "hollywood land"

We began our day at California Adventure which is right next to Disney and has Cars land. We had heard that the Radiator Springs Racers were not to be missed so we headed there first. The mythical line ups at RSR weren't so bad that day, thanks to it being a non-holiday Monday, rain in the forecast and measles. In 20 minutes we were strapped into our little carsmobile and headed out for what we thought was a fast rip around a scenic race track. That part was absolutely awesome but it was at the end of the ride and only lasted about 10 seconds. The first part was dark and filled with Cars characters jumping out at you. I'm not sure how Kai and Teia made it through but they did, with vows of NEVER doing THAT again. We did catch sight of the real Lightning McQueen, Mater and Red the Firetruck, which is good b/c we didn't see Mickey anywhere and there weren't too many Disney princesses walking around as we'd expected. But pretty much every character Teia spotted terrified her, even Sully, the big blue monster from Monsters, Inc. of whom she is normally a big fan. We went inside the Frozen palace with hopes of spotting Olaf and we did. Except that he was the size of an adult human instead of a small child as advertised in the movie, so Teia immediately wanted to vacate the premises.

Here is Teia as the RSR ride was getting started. She had no idea she was about to be quite frightened poor little thing.

The ride on RSR didn't completely ruin the kids and they did agree to go on the Finding Nemo submarine once we headed over to Disneyland. So we all climbed into the yellow, claustrophobic sub that goes around a small pool with cheesy fake ocean stuff to look at from the windows. But of course, the scariest parts of the movie just had to be included. Once the ocean outside of our window exploded and that scary fish with the light and big teeth showed up, Teia's hands were over her eyes and Kai was mildly panicked. He held it together nicely and just kept telling me in a worried whisper that he wanted to get the heck out of there. I'm not quite sure why the rides designed for children all had a shock and startle element but if I could give Disney any feedback it would be to have rides for children, be like, for children....

After that, we were able to get them on the monorail, an old red trolley and a horse drawn tram but they were pretty much done with rides.

We did alot of walking and checking things out, but no more rides. The parade was a nice ending to our day, particularly b/c there was Elsa and Anna and a small automated Olaf on a float, waving and making eye contact with all the little girls. Teia was starstruck.

In February news I did another Xterra trail race. This one was a 15K at Mission Trails Regional Park. It was uber hilly, up and over the Fortuna peaks X2 - about 1700 feet of climbing and really technical. It had all the makings of a great trail race, except a forest. There were stairs to climb (known in these parts as the "thousand stairs" even though someone has actually counted them to be more about 300). It was epic and painful but I somehow survived. I would have had a much more interesting race report had I blogged about it less than 23 days post-race. But here is my race photo. I paid money for it so I had to show it off somewhere. 

I did get these super cool Salomon Speedcross trail shoes on sale at REI. I bought them for Victoria b/c they're designed for wet, soft, technical trail but I decided to use them for this race given how technical it was, even if not wet. They are just awesome. I'm calling them my gecko shoes b/c the traction is incredible! I credit them with keeping me upright for 15 K that day! 

We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

Christmas really crept up on us this year with family visiting, our trip and illness. Before we knew it we were behind with the advent calendars, family calendars, Christmas cards, shopping and pretty much every other holiday preparation. So we hit it - Christmas preps 24/7, and we made it and slid into home with pretty much everything ready to go.

It is amazing how my perspective of this magical holiday has changed over the years. As a child I was completely smitten, a star-crossed Christmas kid, soaking up and enjoying every single moment and small detail, to the point where I didn't even sleep on Christmas eve until my 20's. As a younger adult I could still feel the magic, despite a lack of religious affiliation and Santa-stuffed pillow sacks no longer on my bed on Christmas eve. Now, as a parent of young kids, to be honest, it has just become SO MUCH WORK. Greg took out our boxes of decorations this year and I shocked myself when I realized that I had actually said "ugh." I don't think its that Christmas is really that much more work with kids, maybe there is a bit more shopping, but there is just less time to devote to Christmas preparations, just like there is less time for pretty much everything. It becomes about the work, the to do list, the teacher gifts, the racing to meet the Christmas mailing and ordering deadlines, fa la la la la, la la la la....

So I turn to my children, to soak up a bit of their spirit. In their faces I see the anticipation and how they are slightly mystified by this overwhelming and confusingly magical holiday that eclipses all others, even their own birthdays. They welcome Christmas in their own ways. This year they slept with their doors open for the first time; I think they are a bit more comfortable with the idea of the man in the red suit coming into our house while we sleep. Teia writes notes and draws pictures for Santa. Some of them she sets out with Dasher, our "giving deer," to take back to the North Pole each night. This year both kids were brave enough to sit with Santa at Greg's work party and Teia gave him explicit instructions about the doll house she wanted for Christmas. Kai was satisfied with the Lego ambulance he received from Grandma and Poppa Mike at our early Christmas so he was leaving Santa in the dark.

Christmas Eve arrived with the extra excitement of picking up Auntie, Uncle and Baby M at the airport.  A bit of a San Diego tradition has been to watch the sunset on Christmas Eve at the beach. We all miss the snow terribly at Christmastime (even Teia, who doesn't remember her white Christmases but desperately wants one), but we try to embrace the beachie Christmas as best we can. We enjoyed the sunset on the pier. 

No dolphin sightings this time but there was a storm swell so the surf was big and hammering the pier and making it shake. The girls in the family must be the nervous ones b/c after one particular sway of the pier, A, T and I all looked at each other said "Earthquake!" and prepared to run off the pier. If a quake does hit, the dilapidated crystal pier is definitely not where you want to find yourself. The boys thought it was all quite funny but we decided to head back to solid ground anyway. 

After dinner and fondue, we tracked Santa on the Norad website. The kids were pretty riveted. Thanks to Auntie for grabbing this shot. 

So our kids were eager to get the cookies, egg nog and carrots out for Santa and his reindeer and scurry off to bed. When I checked on them sleeping, I swear I could see the sugarplums dancing around Teia's little sleeping head. 

And Santa made his delivery. Despite not quite knowing what to bring for Kai, he did alright. He also remembered to drop off stockings for baby M and his mom and dad. The kids were interested in how the heck did he know to do that?

Once again, we were treated to kids who slept through the night. I guess they have not inherited my can't-sleep-on-Christmas gene. It seems I was the one waking up repeatedly, wondering if they were awake yet. 7 am sharp, Teia was beside our bed announcing "Merry Christmas!" and before I could stop her, waking up her brother to tell him there was a red van in the living room. Quick like a flash, they zipped from his bedroom and directly into the side door of his new VW van tent without noticing anything else under the tree. Santa's last minute inspiration paid off. 

Here they are opening their stockings in the morning light. 

Kai watches with quiet anticipation as Teia sorts through the gifts under the tree. Love his face. And his backwards pajamas (of course). 

Auntie, Uncle and Baby M joined us as our own real live snowman, rudolph and baby elf on Christmas morning! So silly and cute! 

Santa delivered with the dollhouse and Teia didn't even notice that it didn't come with a second bathroom as per her request to Santa, nor an entire family. A miniature human replica has not even stepped foot in that dollhouse yet, nearly a week past Christmas. It has been inhabited exclusively by tiny animals, wooden and/or soft. Its kind of more of a furnished zoo, than a doll house really. 

She was also completely thrilled to receive a booster seat. She has been asking since she was about 3 when she could ride in a booster and sit in the 3rd row of the mini-van and this Christmas, both of those dreams came true. 

Baby M enjoyed exploring his Christmas prezzies and those of his big cousins and generally just charming everyone. 

Here he is all ready for Christmas dinner with Dad. 

And a San Diego Christmas day wouldn't be complete without a little bit more beach time, even if it was a wee bit chilly and a king tide meant that the only dry sand we could find was the big man made piles. Didn't keep Kai out of the water. 

LOVE!!!!

And what Christmas day wouldn't be complete without a picture of exhausted children and decadent desserts????? They finally fell asleep after a wonderful, magical day where they opened presents from morning til bedtime b/c they are so lucky and spoiled by family and friends, and where they got to share in their littlest cousin's first Christmas, something they'll likely never forget - as well as special time with Auntie and Uncle. 

Our post-Christmas hangover has included runny noses, throwing up and clogged drains. Greg has become quite a good amateur plumber thankfully, and I do my best as a mommy-nurse. AND its snowing in the mountains as I write. So Teia may get her snow after all, so long as we can find a pair of snow boots for Kai in a San Diego store tomorrow. Seems we just don't keep stocked up on stuff like that these days....

So after my whining about how much work Christmas is, and the general grumbles about commercialism and people not saying Merry Christmas anymore lest it offend someone, watching a child experience something as magic, a dream come true, and believing in something that they can't see or touch, and feeling the love of a family coming together really does make Christmas a pretty special time of year, no matter what you believe in. Its about celebrating a connectedness that we often don't slow down enough to appreciate the rest of the year. Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!