Spring Celebrations

We celebrated 2 holidays this weekend: Passover and Easter.


On Friday, Ethan went to a flashlight egg hunt, which he deemed a "total bust", after only collecting 3 eggs.   Alaina had better luck at an egg hunt on Saturday.  

We also enjoyed coloring easter eggs.




Saturday night we did Passover-Eileen prepared most of the food, although Jason smoked a brisket which turned out delicious.

 

Today, the kids found their Easter baskets (after we briefly played an April fools joke on Ethan, suggesting he didn't get one this year).

 

 We had our neighbors over for an Easter brunch and another egg hunt.  The weather was beautiful and we were able to eat outside.   Afterwards we took a nice hike, and saw lots of blooming wildflowers.   A beautiful day!

 

March Madness

I have had a very busy two weeks, and have neglected this blog.  Here is what we have been up to:

I flew to Washington DC for a week last week for a work conference.   The conference was great, but it was a long time away.  My flight to SF was delayed and I got in early Saturday AM.  That weekend, we had plans to visit our friends Sue and Ben and their kids.  We met at a local aviation museum--here is a pic of pilots Cruz and Ethan in a 747:

We spent the night at their home.   The adults had a great dinner out and the kids enjoyed their sleepover too.

The next week, I headed to Phoenix for another work conference.  Yes, Jason has been towing his weight as a dad recently.  My return flight from this conference was also delayed, almost 4 hours, and I got home early Sunday AM.

Then today, Ethan had a piano recital.  Ethan did a nice job at his recital, but it was the first receipt that he verbalized his nervousness to me, and I could tell that the "stress" made his performance more challenging.   It is interesting to see how that has developed.

Anyhow,  I am tired!   And glad to be home for awhile.

Boys Weekend/Girls Weekend

We have wanted to get Ethan out skiing one more time this season, and this weekend seems to be best for our march schedule.   However, Jason was on call until Saturday am, so we could not leave until early Saturday....A six am departure, followed by a day of skiing followed by the loss of an hour of sleep did not seem like a good plan for Alaina....so we decided to split the weekend.   Jason took Ethan to Tahoe and I stayed home with Alaina.  

Almost every single hotel/air bnb was sold out on the north side of the lake (It has finally started snowing, in March....), so they headed South, to Sierra at Tahoe.   Apparently, Ethan improved a lot over the two days of skiing, and they even got a coating of fresh snow on Saturday.

Meanwhile, at home, the girls also had fun.   I asked Alaina to pick a special activity, and she chose a trip to the zoo.   We brought her friend Keegan, and they had a blast.   Most importantly, she kept her sleep schedule and didn't turn into a crazed cranky girl.   She didn't even seem too upset to not ski.   A win-win.

Fan Mail

Recently at Alaina's preschool, her class did a unit on mail.   They learned about letters, and mailboxes, and stamps, etc.   For the culmination of the project, they each chose one person to send an actual letter to via the mail.   They each composed "letters" and addressed envelopes to their pen pal.  Alaina chose Ethan.   Now, I have to say, when I heard about this, I was highly doubtful that anything that she addressed would actually make it to our house.   But sure enough, several days later, it arrived:

And inside:

 

I have to say, so cute.   I am going to miss this age for sure.

Back to the Big Island

Last week we took a trip to Hawaii.   Jason was unable to get our usual February break off (he got a bad vacation lottery number this year, more on that in the weeks to come....).   But we wanted to get away for a bit, so we pulled Ethan out of school the week before break for 4 days and headed to Hawaii.

We started our trip on the Hilo side, heading back to Volcanoes National Park.   We really enjoyed our time there 5 years ago, pre-Alaina.   Unfortunately this time, the weather did not cooperate, and it was mostly pouring for the two days we were there.   We were not able to hike.   The clouds cleared briefly to see the caldera for a few seconds both by day at and night, but mostly it was a pretty unenjoyable experience.   Why do you do in the pouring rain?  Well, we found a bowling alley that provided some indoor entertainment.

Alaina, our less anxious child, was nervous about going to the volcano.   Before we left, she drew a picture of a volcano erupting onto 2 houses.   When we headed to see the volcano glow at night she completely freaked out and did not want to get out of the car!

  

After visiting the volcanoes, we crossed the island on the saddle road that separates the two sides of the island, and traveled between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa.   Both of these volcanoes are over 13,000 feet in elevation, and the road goes from sea level to over 6000 feet in between the mountains.  A neat drive, for sure.

The reminder of the vacation was spent on the beach.   We taught Ethan how to body board and he had a blast in the waves.   Weather was much better on the other side of the island, though we still had one rainy day.   But we got to enjoy three beautiful Hawaiian sunsets and definitely felt relaxed.   On our last night, it rained again and we woke up to a snow covered Mauna Kea, as well as a snow covered Haleakala in the distance on Maui.   Pretty cool to see.

     

This was one of the first trips where we noticed that the kids are getting a bit more self sufficient--now that Alaina can swim we didn't have to be in the pool with her every second, which was pretty nice!  They are growing up.

Ethan's Party and some observations by Alaina

We had Ethan's birthday party this weekend.....a bit delayed due to our call schedules, but so it goes.   He had really wanted to have it at a place called "Rebounderz" which is a trampoline place about 25 miles from our house.  We told him to pick 7 friends, and planned to drive 3 cars up (Jason, Pri and I each being drivers).   He was thrilled.

About 30 minutes prior to our scheduled departure time, Pri went to the gas station to fill up.   As she was leaving her car wouldn't start!   Jason raced over there, only to find that her starter broke.  Ugh.  Luckily, our neighbor saved the day and loaned us their car.   Crisis averted.


The kids had a blast at the party.  Ethan requested a "candy" cake--we had seem one at Safeway.  I made one at home for about half the price and it turned out pretty good:

So now we are done with birthdays, parties etc for a while.   whew.


In other news, Alaina has said some funny things recently that are worth a mention.
Today, we were doing her class valentines.   She said, "Mom, do you know why hearts are red?"  "Because the is the color of lips, and lips are used for kissing and stuff."

A few days ago, I am eating breakfast, and she sees the OJ bottle:

Her question for me "Mom, do oranges bleed? Does that straw make them bleed?".
Hmmmm.

Happy 9th Birthday Ethan!

Today Ethan celebrated his 9th birthday.   In a year he will be a decade.   He had a nice day at school, and apparently sold a piece of the candy bar I sent with him as a birthday treat for a quarter.
Jason and I both made it home early, and had a nice birthday dinner with him.
Our tradition of letting the birthday celebrant choose a birthday meal is getting more labor intensive.  Ethan chose homemade pasta and meatballs.  I basically spent all day on sunday preparing the meal, which got thawed tonight.   It was pretty delicious.  Again no cake this year--ice cream sundaes.   So that part was easy at least.

For his birthday, Jason and I gave him a desk.   He has needed one for a long time, especially now that he has more and more homework.   He also asked for a microscope, which one can conveniently get quite cheaply on amazon.   Not sure how it will work, but glad that he is excited about it.

Our au pair, Pri, gave him the game "Life".   I remember loving that game at his age.  Kinda cool.

Happy birthday to our kind, gregarious little boy who is really not so little anymore.