All Star Weekend

 Last weekend was Alaina's rec softball all star tournament.

Since this is probably the last year she and here teammates are going to do rec, it felt important.    

The team, however did not do as well as hoped.

On saturday, they had pool play and played San Rafel first where they blew at 8 run lead in the last inning to lose the game.   After they lost to (worse) Twin Cities team.

At that point, their travel ball coach stepped in to coach their last game, against a strong Novato team.    With his coaching they pulled off a victory.   I found it pretty interesting how much of an impact he made--I mean the players were all the same....but he sure led them in a different direction.

Anyhow, all that resulted a a poor seed for the bracket play on Sunday.  Though Jason missed Saturday as he was out of town, he was bak for sunday--and we were twinning!

  Luckily the travel coach came back to help the team win their first game.  The second game was against the San Rafael team again--and unfotunately, we just could not beat them.   So we went out in the semi finals and they went on to win the tournament.    It was a disappointing end to a somewhat lackluster rec season.   Oh well.

Walk to Cure Arthritis

 Two weeks ago, Ethan was the youth honoree at the San Francisco Walk to Cure Arthritis.  This is the biggest fundraiser of the year for the foundation, and Ethan has been working hard to raise money since last fall.

It was not a smooth or linear journey, but he did work hard to accomplish his fundraising goal.  Impressively, he raised over $40,000, with over 500 individual donations!   He was the top fundraiser in the walk, and one of the top in the country!   

The event was was held on a Saturday morning at the SF Zoo.  Jason's parents and my dad joined to walk with him, as well as a bunch of his friends from school.  He even gave a short speech --which was quite articulate.

 

Afterwards, we had a nice brunch at Jason's parent's favorite place, Westlake Joe's.  

The following week at his school, Ethan gave a school-wide TED talk on invisible diseases that highlighted juvenile arthritis and his personal journey.   It was a great and motivational speech!

 

Finally, prior to the event, Ethan was interviewed by a local reporter about the event for the Marin Independent Journal, which is our county newspaper.    The article just was published today--and we are really proud!  Here is the link!

Mother's Day

 I am a bit behind on my posting but a few weekends ago it was Mother's Day.

To celebrate the the kids made me dinner!

  

They made fresh pasta topped with tomato sauce and stratiatella as a special treat--and Ethan made a focaccia--it was delicious!

 

A mother's day discovery: I am now the shortest in the house!

The kids got me this t-shirt for a gift, which I am not too sure about.    I guess I will consider the dinner my present!

Bat Mitzvah

 This weekend, Alaina's friend and softball teammate Jackie had her Bat Mitzvah.  They invited the whole team to celebrate, and all the parents too!

Jackie did a great job at the ceremony and gave a sweet talk about kindness.

In the evening, the party was at the Spinnaker restaurant in Sausalito.   We had never been there before, but it was a beautiul place on the water, overlooking San Francisco.

We had a fun time getting dressed up and celebrating with all of our friends!

 

Dahlia Graden

 I have always wanted to have a dahlia garden.    Last fall, we replanted some of our yard and so we left a sunny bed vacant with the plan to put in dahlias this spring.

I ordered some tubers from a company in Washington state, and several weeks ago we planted them according to their instructions.   Alaina was eager to help.   She even brought home some worms from her science class worm farm to add to the soil!

 

Fast forward a few weeks, and 5 of the 8 have sprouted!   Let's see if we can keep them alive......

  

Prom

 We have been busy and I have gotten a bit behind on posting--but this weekend was a big weekend: Prom!

Ethan went with his girlfriend, Sophia, who he has been dating for a couple of months.

The prom routine has changed a bit in the last 30 years.   First, the process starts with a "promposal".   This occurs, as best as I can tell, actually after the couple decides to go, to avoid any awkward rejections.   So, the promposals occur in the week or two leading up to prom, and involve (usually) the boy creating a poster with a corny rhyme and finding the girl in the cafeteria to present it to the girl.   Of course, this is all caught on camera and posted all over social media.  🙄  Anyway, here is a pic of Ethan's (which, of note, Alaina made):

Saturday night was the event.  It was held at the Exchange Club, which is apparently a pretty posh place downtown.  Ethan wore one of Jason's suits.   I found this pretty impressive, since probably very few nearly 50 year-old dads can wear the same suit as their 17 year-old sons.  Ethan did complain it was a little "big", but I thought it was a pretty impressive fit.

  Ethan got ready with his friend James and then they met the girls nearby and headed to another girl's house for pictures.   

 

I think that they made a pretty cute couple!

The morning when Ethan woke up, I asked him what he thought about the event.   He told me, it was "fun but a bit overhyped".   Anyway, definitely a milestone.

Spring Break

 This past week we were on spring break.   We headed to New York for an East Coast college trip.  

We started with 3 nights in Manhattan.   The kids have never been to NYC before, so we had fun exploring the city.   Several months ago, I bought tickets to the Statue of Liberty with special access to walk up to the crown.  Unfortunately, the weather was not great--but so it goes.

It was still cool to go up into the crown and see the inside of the statue.   And the rain mostly held off until we left the statue.   After, we saw Ellis Island and then visited the 9/11 museum.   When we were last in New York (May 2012), the museum was under construction, so this was our first visit.  I was really impressed with how it was done.  

 That evening, Alaina and I had tickets to the Broadway show "Six" which is about the 6 wives of Henry the VIII.   The show entertaining and fun.   

Jason and Ethan went to a Jazz club in Soho and had an equally great time.

The next morning, we met up with Alaina's friend Hannah, who was coincidentally also in New York for spring break, at FAO Schwartz.   After, we took a bike ride in Central Park--which was beautiful, as all the trees were budding and blooming.  

 

We headed up to Columbia, and Ethan and I toured the school--he liked it!  Jason and I had a dinner date at Balthazar--a restaurant we went to 13 years ago.   It was still tasty!

 

The next part of our trip involved touring colleges.   We first headed up to Ithaca to see Cornell.  Cornell was about a 4 hour drive from NYC, and definitely quite rural. It was also freezing cold and snowing--spring had not hit Ithaca.  

One cool thing about Cornell is that they have an on-campus dairy factory where they produce all of their own milk, yogurt and ice cream.   The ice cream was especially delicious.   Because the school is well known for its food, we decided to try the campus cafeteria for dinner--and it did not disappoint!   Certainly not like any college cafeteria at Illinois.  It had all you can eat Cornell Creamery ice cream!

The following day, we drove down to Philadelphia and visited Haverford and Swarthmore.   Ethan didn't really like either, but Alaina did.   

We spent the night in Philadelphia where Ethan enjoyed a Philly cheesesteak.  

In the morning, we toured the University of Pennsylvania, which Ethan liked, followed by a tour of Princeton--which was super impressive. 

Friday was our final day of tours--we visited Yale and Wesleyan.   

As expected Yale was amazing, but Wesleyan was not too in line with Ethan's style (too artsy and theater-y).  We also learned on the tour that Lin Manuel Miranda went there, which makes sense.

So, overall, the trip was busy, but informative.  Though these schools are all super competitive and likely Ethan will not get into them, they were still helpful to see and learn about.