Jeremy comes for a visit

 This weekend, Jason's brother Jeremy came into town.  One of his best friends has a 50th birthday party in San Francisco, and so he made a long weekend out of it.

He was also not too sad to get away from LA, since it has been very smokey.   Luckily, his house and neigborhood are ok, though he was evacuated during the major fires, as there was a fire in a canyon near his home.

The kids enjoyed spending some time with their uncle, especially since he spoils them!   Ethan was originally supposed to spend the weekend skiing with a friend, but the friend came down with the flu--so more time with Jeremy!

Alaina is 12!

 On Saturday, Alaina turned 12.   Her preteen years are almost over....soon we will have 2 teenagers in the house!

We started the celebrations early by having her birthday party last weekend.   3 girls came over for a sleepover--she had a taco bar and cupcakes, went to see the movie Mufasa, and (back by popular demand) did some minute to win it games (another big hit!). They slept a little, and in the moring I made them waffles and bacon.   

 

On the day of her actual birthday, we all got up before 5 am, as Alaina had 3 softball games in Manteca (90 miles away), with a 6:45am arrival time.   Her team was pretty rusty, but is going to be playing in several tournaments this winter, so this was a "warm-up".   Not exactly how I would have picked to spend my birhday, so I guess it is good she likes softball!   When the games were over, we brought pizza and cupckaes for the team and had birthday celebration #2.

  

We drove home and then put together her actual birthday dinner (celebration #3).   She picked salisbury steak and mashed potatoes for her dinner, and a funfetti cake for dessert.  I told her that someday, when she has a 12 year old daughter, she would appreciate the fact that after working a whole week, her mom got up at 4:30am, drove her 3 hours round trip for 3 softball games, and then came home, made a meal from scrath and baked and decorated a cake.   IF that's not love, I dont know what is!  

 After dinner, Alaina opened presents--her big gift this year was a bike, which she really needed, as the hand me down she was riding had brakes that kept failing!  The new one is much better--and the right size too!

So overall a pretty lucky girl!

2024 Holidays

 This Christmas, we spent 10 days in the cabin in Tahoe.  

Before leaving, we celebrated Christmas at home--big gifts this year included an apple watch for Alaina and new airpods for Ethan.

 

Jason was still having a lot of back pain, but really wanted to go up--so he made it to the cabin by laying down in the back seat, as he still was unable to sit when we left.  Because of the pain, he was also not able to ski--so this year for the first time, we sent the kids to the slopes alone.   I went kiing with them for a few days, but thye are much better skiiers than me now, so that meant I skiied alone, which is no fun--so mostly we just dropped them off and picked them up.

We had mixed weather in Tahoe--a few days with fresh snow, but also a few days with rain.  We had a good base layer of snow going into the holidays--so even with the rain there was still plenty of snow to ski.  Soem family friends were in Tahoe at the same time and their kids--who are similar in age to ours--also had 2 ski days together.

My dad and Marilynn came up for 3 nights over Christmas.   For Chritmas Eve, we made a Turkey--since we didnt get much of a Thanksgiving on the cruise--and it was delicious.   

On Chritams day, we did our usual prime rib, whcih was also quite tasty.   

We also woke up to a winter wonderland on Christmas morning--it has snowed much of the day and night before.   So a white Chritmas for sure!

Dad, Marilynn and I did a litte XC skiing in the fresh snow on Christmas Eve.  

 

Also, Christmas day marked the first night of Hannukkah, so we enjoyed lighting our Tahoe menorah!

On New Year's Eve, we hung out with our friends the Kaufman's--we enjoyed a potluck dinner and then went to an event at the Royal Gorge Ski Lodge--which we did not particulary enjoy, but it was festively decorated.

 

We headed back to Marin on New Year's day, as I had to work on the 2nd. But we had plenty of relaxing time, so that was great.

"Surprise" trip to Denver

 This week was a bit of a rough week.   While traveling, Jason injured his back and became unable to walk or sit without severe pain.   This injury was probably a re-herination of his L5-S1 disc, which had partially herniated during our hiking trip this summer.   He said this time it was much worse however, and desperately needed help to get home.

So, I headed to Denver from work on Thursday and began the process of planning how to extract him from the airport hotel he was staying at.  We were able to book 2 seats each on the plane home--so he could have 3 of them to lie down for the flight.   And we booked a wheel chair from the hotel to the gate.   Only thing was, he could not sit in it.   But he did figure out a way: kneeling backwards!

The flight attendants were cool on the flight and even let him stay layaing down for take off and landing.  

Once we got to SF, I got his car and deove him home while he was laying in the backseat.   

This all made this weekend, one of the last before chirstmas, a bitr chaotic for me, as he was unable to do ANYTHING.   I did my best to continue to get the work done, including baking a bunch of Christmas cookies, buying presents, wrapping presents, and generally keeping things organzied.  Luckily, Alaina was a good helper, and due to the fact that we had a huge raistorm, softball was cancelled, as was one of her basketball games due to a power outage.

So, we will see what happens.  Jason seems to be getting ever so slightly better each day, so fingers crossed he will at least be able to walk and or/sit a bit more soon!

Jason's Birthday

 This week, Jason celebrated birthday #47!  His birthday was on Thursday, and he chose homade pizza for dinner, as crab season is delayed again this year.   My dad was able to join us, which was nice.  He also chose a carrot cake for dessert, which he loved but everyone else politely picked at.   He will have a lot of leftover cake to eat himself!

 

Over the weekend, Jason wanted to go to Tahoe, but on Friday night Ethan had a holdiay concert, so we could not leave on Friday.  His motivation to go dropped on Saturnday morning, and so instead we enjoyed a weekend at home.   We had planned to cut down a Christmas tree in Tahoe, but instead headed up to a Christmas tree farm in Sonoma, where we cut a tree for a much higher price :).  Alaina did most of the cutting!

On the way back we stopped for brunch at our favorite brunch place in Petaluma, Sax's joint.   

And then we came home and decotrated the tree!

And since we stayed in town, Alaina got to go to her holiday softball party.  They do a white elephant exchange and she was excited to get Squishamellows as her gift this year!

Thanksgiving at Sea

 This year for Thanksgiving, we did something different.   We took a cruise along Western Mexico for the week that the kids were off school.   We did this because we wanted to do something with Jason's dad to celebrate his 80th birthday this fall--and a cruise was what he wanted to do.  Eileen and him take this cruise route fairly often, and they were excited to do it with us.   Jason's brothers Brandon and Jeremy both joined for the week, so we had the opportunity for a lot of family time.   Plus, no one had to cook or clean up!

We left from Los Angeles on Saturday morning.   The cruise stopped at 3 ports: Cabo San Lucas, Matzalan, and Puetro Vallarta.   Plus 3 full days at sea, including Thanksgiving Day.

In Cabo, we took a water taxi to Lover's Beach with Jeremy, where we went swimming.

In Matzalan, we decided to venture out to El Quelite, a small colonial town about an hour north of the city.   The rest of Jason's family did not join us--but we had a deliciaious lunch at a really unique restaruant called El Meson De Los Laureanos, and after we stopped at a Tequilla Distillery on the way back to the boat.   Unfortuantely, our Uber Driver got a flat tire along the way, but luckily one of the workers drove us back so we did not miss the ship in the afternoon.

Puerto Vallarta was the prettiest stop.  Here, we went to another beach, and then met Jason's family for lunch at a restaurant called Pipi's (yes, the name of Alaina's rabbit ha ha!).

  

Thanksgiving dinner was definitely not as delicious as a homeade meal would have been, but overall it was not too bad.

The sunsets were beautiful!

We returned on Saturday and headed back to the Bay Area.   A good change of scenery.

Piano Recital

Last Sunday, the kids had a piano recital.  Alaina also had a softball tournament, but it was single elimination and her team was knocked out early Sunday morning, so she made it back in time to play (much to her disappointment!)

The kids both had been working on their songs for a LONG time, so they were defienelty ready for a performace.   

Ethan played Viva la Vida by Coldplay as well as a Bach Invention and a Jazz improv piece.

Alaina played a Sonatina by Playel and a Waltz.

They both did a great job!