Mother's Day and Softball

 Last weekend was Mother's Day.  Alaina's team won the rec softball championship in a nail-biter with extra innings and an international tiebreaker game on Sunday afternoon.  It was actually a lot of fun and such a treat after her 2nd place finish last year.

This has been a great softball season for Alaina--she has really developed incredibly as a player in the past year.   She set the goal of being the starting first baseman (woman?) last summer and has been working really hard to improve her play with weekly lessons and practices.

A few weekends ago, her travel team had their first tournament of the season, and not only was she the starting first baseman, but she also had some of the best hitting on the team.   As a parent, it has been amazing to watch how much skill and confidence she has developed.   And it certainly makes the games much more interesting when your kid is actually playing in the infield!

This weekend, Alaina competed in the Marin All-Star Tournament--each town in Marin County fielded a team with their best rec players.   This was her second year doing the 10U all-stars--last year, again, they had a second-place finish.

On Saturday, her teams easily won their 3 games and landed as the number 1 seed for Sunday.   Alaina even had a home run--her third in rec ball!

Turns out the all-star championship game on Sunday was a much easier win than the team championship, with our girls winning 9-3 pretty easily.   

I am proud of her and all of the work she has put into the sport.

David Sedaris

 On Tuesday this week, Jason and I went to see the author David Sedaris.   David Sedaris has long been one of my favorite authors--his essays are so witty and poignant.  He can make simple stories fascinating and has strong opinions, which in my opinion, are often spot on.   

Jason bought me tickets to the show, which was in Santa Rosa for Valentine's day.   We stopped for a quick dinner at a recommended Mexican restaurant right near the show, which was great.   

The show itself did not disappoint, with David wearing some of his signature culottes.   He read several new essays.   The first focused on his dislike of dogs and their recent entitlement in society--a perfect piece for me!  The others were equally wonderful.   I wish I could write like he can!   So impressive.

Belated Passover Dinner

 This weekend, we had a belated Passover dinner.   We were super busy with a softball tournament last weekend, so we couldn't quite make it happen DURING Passover.   But better late than never, I suppose.

We made some of the traditional dishes including a fantastic Matzoh ball soup, which we had to make the traditional way after a small incident with our instapot.  

I also make some charotzet and matzoh meal muffins.   For the main course we had some chicken, which we tried to make on the grill, but due to a very late-season rain storm, we transitioned it to the oven instead.

  

Marcy and Alexandra joined, along with my Dad and Marilynn, and it was nice to share a meal.   It had been since September since Marcy had seen Ethan, so she hardly recognized him, with as much as he had grown.

Ethan the Lifeguard

We have been nagging Ethan for a while that he needs to find a summer job.  He mostly ignored us, but finally with some extra nudging he decided he was interested in following in Jason's footsteps looked into becoming a lifeguard.   

A local pool had an ad out on Craig's List which he responded to, and he signed up for a lifeguarding class that was all day Saturday and Sunday last weekend.

Apparently, there is a very strong need for lifeguards, because the pool hired him, sight unseen without his certification even complete!

Luckily, he passed the class easily and is now a Red Cross certified lifeguard.

His first shift at the pool will be May 11.

I am proud of him, and happy that he will stay busy this summer, and earn some money for his upcoming car insurance payments (!).

Hope he likes his new gig!

Marla's new job

 I am not really one to brag or even talk much about myself, but I did want to share that I recently got a big promotion at work--I am now our Division Chief for Pediatric Anesthesia.  This has been a goal of mine for many years, so I am really excited, though of course a bit intimidated and overwhelmed.   

I have clipped the announcement below to share.

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Marla Ferschl, MD, Appointed Executive Vice Chair for Pediatric Anesthesia

We are delighted to announce that Marla Ferschl, MD, has assumed the role of executive vice chair for Pediatric Anesthesiology and division chief of Pediatric Anesthesiology at Benioff Children’s Hospital, San Francisco. Ferschl obtained her medical degree and completed her internal medicine internship at the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine. Following her graduation from the anesthesiology residency program in the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care at UCSF, she pursued a pediatric anesthesiology fellowship at Boston Children’s Hospital. In 2010, Ferschl returned to UCSF as a faculty member in the Division of Pediatric Anesthesia. She has served as Interim Chief since June 2023. 

Ferschl will be responsible for providing strategic direction, leadership, and coordination of all pediatric anesthesiology services within the department. This includes overseeing the division’s faculty, staff, and resources, and ensuring efficient and effective operations. She will work collaboratively with Dr. Taran Sangari, Division Chief of Pediatric Anesthesiology at BCH Oakland and Dr. Anshuman Sharma, Chief of Pediatric Cardiac Anesthesiology. 

As Executive Vice Chair for Pediatric Anesthesiology and Division Chief of Pediatric Anesthesiology at BCHSF, Ferschl will promote and maintain academic excellence within the division. She will foster a culture of research, scholarship, and innovation, supporting faculty in their academic pursuits, and ensuring the division’s contribution to the overall academic mission of the medical department. 

Ferschl is well-suited to take on this new role. Throughout her career, Ferschl has demonstrated a strong commitment to medical education. She received an excellence in teaching award from the UCSF Haile T. Debas Academy of Medical Educators in 2012 and was appointed as a member of the Academy of Medical Educators in 2019. Her past leadership roles have included serving as the program director for the ACGME accredited Pediatric Anesthesia Fellowship Program, and the director of fellowship education in the Department of Anesthesia and Perioperative Care. 

Ferschl’s research interests span anesthesia for fetal surgery, operating room efficiency, and adverse respiratory outcomes in pediatric anesthesia. Notably, she has played a pivotal role in developing and implementing the Visiting Scholars in Pediatric Anesthesia Program (ViSiPAP), a national speaker exchange program tailored for junior faculty in pediatric anesthesia. 

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Girls Trip to Southern California

 This week was Alaina's spring break, and she and I took a trip together to Southern California.

We left on Tuesday and flew in to Orange County airport, where we rented a car and headed to San Diego.   The rental car guy gave us a two-door mini Cooper convertible, which was cute, but completely impractical.   We nicknamed it the clown car, because it was impossible to get in and out of and we had to stuff all of all things in the slot trunk and mini backseat.

Once in San Diego we settled into our hotel and headed out to visit Rebeka and Alex who live in Oceanside.  Back in February, they had a baby--Bianca--so we were extra excited to visit!   Bianca was super cute, though a bit cranky.   We brought pizza and had a good time catching up.

On Wednesday, we headed to the San Diego Zoo.  I told Alaina she could pick one place to visit during our time together and she chose the zoo.   We had perfect weather and saw almost all of the animals.   Interestingly, they no longer have pandas, as they were apparently "recalled" by China several years ago.  Alaina's favorite animals were the prairie dogs.

 

Thursday am, we headed to Torrey Pines State Park and took some short hikes along the coast.   It was really beautiful, though a bit foggy.   We did have 2 rattle snake sightings!   Yikes. 

 

After our hike we had a picnic on the beach before leaving San Diego and heading to Anaheim, where I had a pediatric anesthesia conference from Friday-Sunday.  Thursday night for dinner we headed to Knott's Berry farm for our favorite fried chicken--and it did not disappoint!

Because I was super busy at my conference, I arranged for Alaina to spend some time with her Uncle Jeremy.   I dropped her off at his place on Friday, and best as I can tell she ate non-stop until she returned on Saturday evening!    

They had a great time together.   Alaina got to check out Jeremy's workplace and one of his fancy real estate listings.   They also visited his cousin Rhianna--who gave her a cool necklace.   Alaina's personal highlight was that they got to go to the UCLA-Cal softball game on friday night.  

 

 On Saturday, they hung out in the morning, and then Jeremy found a "bunny museum" to take her to in the afternoon.   Turns out the museum was a bit like a hoarder's house with shelves of dusty bunny figurines, stuffed animas, etc--both deemed it "gross".  But an impressive find nonetheless.

Meanwhile, I had a nice time at the conference with my colleagues--we had a group dinner on Friday, and I got to catch up with old friends and colleagues.  

So, it has been a good break....now back to the real world!

Spring Break in Hawaii

 This past week was Ethan's spring break.   Next week is Alaina's break.    We still wanted to get away for a bit, so we pulled Alaina out of school from Wednesday-Friday and headed to Maui.

When the kids were little we went to Hawaii quite a bit--there are frequent, direct flights, and it is such an easy destination with young kids.  

Funny enough neither kid really remembered going at all.   So it was all new to them!   They loved the shave ice!

We used our credit card points for Hyatt hotels and split our time between the Hyatt Residence Club in Kanapali and the Andaz in Wailea.   The first hotel was nice because it was more like an apartment with 2 bedrooms and a full kitchen.   The beach is not so great in Kanapali though, and it is windier there.  The Andaz was more fancy, but we were all smooshed into one hotel room.   But a better beach and more tranquil pool, for sure.

During our trip we did very little besides relax.   Jason "worked" on Wednesday.   We did go snorkeling at Black Rock one day and took a short kayak trip on another.   But mostly just beach and pool time.   Funnily enough, our friends the Diesner's were also in Maui at the same time, so we hung out with them one afternoon, which was fun!

 

Jason left separately because he has to be in Ohio all week for work.   For Ethan it is back to school; I will be back to work tomorrow but then heading to Southern California with Alaina for a few days as well as to a work conference.   So a little more break for us!