Gametes In Love

I think we may have officially reached our max in Pikachus 🙂

G’s a big fan of American Ninja Warrior. Although I looked for local gyms to give him a “like” experience I turned empty. As a result, we’ve build some of our own obstacle courses in our living room. However, as luck would have it, Shane, in conversation with a local parent learned about King’s Camps… so here we are. Celebrating G turning 10, American Ninja style.

This morning, I got to wake up a boy who was 10. I invited him to go to “special breakfast” for his birthday, if he (and his brother) could get out of bed fast. They did! As he was getting up, he himself called out his double-digit day. It’s a big deal to him.
The week leading up to his birthday is always interesting. As I prep for each birthday post, I go back to my archives of photos and videos and audio recordings. This time, I scrolled back perhaps a little too far and found one of my earliest recordings of him telling me about why skunks stink. He was about two. His voice was so little. I can’t believe that same human who recorded THAT was the boy sitting in front of me. Gah — this life thing, it creeps slowly as it’s speeding past you.
This was the first year I found that G’s wishes about his future and his identity of self hasn’t changed all that much. Is this when things start to settle in? It makes me both eager for next year, while dreading next year.

What is your favorite color? Blue & yellow
What is your favorite book? Son of Neptune
Who are your best friends? Milo & Brayden
What is your favorite movie? Fantastic Beasts and where to find them
What is your favorite song? Timber
What is your favorite TV show? Pokemon
What is your favorite animal? Snake
What is your favorite toy? Cards: any type of cards that I like to play with.
Which cards to like you play with? Magic, Yogio, Baseball and Pokemon
What is your favorite food? ice cream
What flavor? chocolate
What is your favorite thing to wear? Clothes! Baseball clothes
What do you want to be when you grow up? Baseball player.
  What position? i don’t know… and i don’t really care
As long as you’re a baseball player, you don’t really care what you play? Uh-huh!
Is there a team you want to play for? No
Is there a tea you DON’T want to play for? Dodgers
Tell me one awesome thing that’s happened to you this year? Our team took 2nd place in a baseball tournament
Give me a piece of advice. be a good kid.
How does one become a good kid? You do your work
What kind of car do you want to drive when you grow up? I don’t want to drive a car. I want to fly a car

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Ah — first day of school! This is usually the day that your Facebook feed explodes with photos of kids standing for a “first school day portrait”. Wanna see ours?

Yep! That’s it!
One was too cold and the other too grumpy for a pic.

Just keeping it real, folks 🙂

Once upon a time Shane and I used to spend our week-ends skydiving. In that adventure we befriended many an awesome people. We’re lucky to get a chance to see them once a year (typically focused around Stefano coming to visit). This last time, we hosted. G had a terrible case of sun-burn, but parents and kids had a blast.

As the kids grow egg hunts are now a scavenger hunt with eggs providing clues to the next one. This part was fun.
Convincing them that they couldn’t start until they cleaned up the house, and all the whining that ensued… that part wasn’t fun.

Flattery AND an offering of my favorite candy bar??? I won’t lie: my first question upon seeing this last night was ‘What am I being buttered up for?’

A sophisticated shop keeper sold us on another cat. I passed on the pet eagle though.

Storm’s class had an event. They’ve been “studying money”, and each kid had been assigned a job as the final for this project. They had to make the “goods” they were going to sell, and then each class represent their store. There was a cashier too. The store with the most cash at the end of the night “won”. Sadly, it wasn’t the pet store, but hey — he tried 🙂
And no, we didn’t buy the eagle!

I told myself that THIS time I wouldn’t forget to post our family photos. I usually hold out to send out holiday cards, but that time of year is wrap-up of photo-season crazy, followed up by holiday prep-crazy, so … I’ve been forgetting. But since I’m sitting here catching up (and recognizing that our family photo is 3 years old) I realized I didn’t do it. Again. :-/

So here goes. Photos by Renee Marie Photography, who has been awesome enough to put up with our insanity for years 🙂 We did this session at one of my favorite places out here — the Redwood Preserve in Los Altos.

Please note — family photos mark the one of handful times time of year I force our sons to dress up…. in jeans.

Ski week just happened, and we took a short trip for a few days. We visited Hearst Castle, the Lighthouse and some tide pools on the shore right outside of our hotel. It was lovely…. and frigid for a February.

To see more photos of the castle and lighthouse scenery, check out the Flickr album: https://www.flickr.com/photos/avalikelava/sets/72157694354741675