February 2024

Chrissy and Gordon took a weekend away and let us have their boys for the weekend. The kids loved having their California cousins over. They played the Impossible Game, Murder in the Dark, and Follow the Leader at night. The teens had a busy day on Saturday, with a youth ice skating trip as well as a temple trip. Todd took them and I hung out with the littles. We had drawing time and went to a park with our scooters. 

Gemma was asked to give a two-minute talk in Primary. She wrote a good one:

"Hi my name is Gemma and I got to choose what I wanted to talk about and I chose to talk about Heavenly Mother. I am going to tell you three important things about Heavenly Mother,

"1. We all have a Heavenly Mother and a Heavenly Father. They are the Parents of our spirits and we lived with Them in heaven.

"2. God means Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. So when you read God in the scriptures, know it means Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. 

"3. Heavenly Mother and Heavenly Father are partners. They worked together to make the plan of salvation and make this earth for us. 

"They both love us and I am excited to see Them again. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen." 

Ginger has turned into a spoiled indoor/outdoor cat with all our winter rain. He has Gemma wrapped around his little paw. He spends lots of time napping and snuggling. I do not like him in the house if he's wandering around, though. He has ... happened ... to spend the night with Gemma a couple of times, which she loves so much, even though he wakes her up several times during the night. 

Hazel got her braces off. Exciting day! She'll need to wear her retainers full-time until summer, and then just at night. She is looking older and older. I have mixed feelings about that. 

The Georges used our cabin over a gorgeous, snowy weekend when we were too busy to go. They dug our snowmobiles out of five feet of snow and cleared our deck off, so everything was super easy to get to when we went up the weekend after. Good deal! 

Larry and Ellen came to visit us that weekend and got a good taste of our teenagers music programs. We drove down to Cupertino to listen to Hazel's chamber orchestra perform in a multi-school festival. 

Jack had a piano recital Friday night, and then an area competition on Saturday. We heard a lot of good music over the weekend! 

We went to a thrift store and had a fashion show. The kids also found a few good treasures to take home. 

Hazel had her first behind-the-wheel parking lot driving lesson. There was a cop in the lot, just waiting for her to do something crazy. I was glad Todd took the reins because it made me super anxious. I did laught at her parking job. 

Gemma went to Imogene Lockhart's birthday party. It was an optional sleepover, but I picked her up at 9pm. At least ten kids were running all over the house - complete madness. I was confident we had made the right choice bringing her home to sleep, and she agreed with me, especially after hearing from friends at school the next week that they were up after 2am. 

We spent the holiday weekend at the cabin with Elaine and her kids. (Andrew couldn't get away from work.) Gemma and Clara cheerfully played wolves and dragons and who knows what else. They have an infinite supply of affection for playing together. It's really sweet. Jack and Stacie enjoyed playing games together. Hazel was sick and spent all of Saturday and Sunday on the couch, sadly. 

We had snowball fights, sledding, a trip to the Murpheys ward for church, and good food. Everyone enjoyed the snowmobiles. Perhaps the highlight of the whole weekend was when we went to the marshy dried out part of the lake and pulled people behind the snowmobiles on tubes. 

Hazel had invited Noah Lloyd to come up as her friend, but he had a track meet on Saturday he couldn't miss. His family all came up on Monday instead. That turned out for the best since Hazel had been sick. She rallied and had a fun day driving the snowmobiles and sledding and having a snowball fight and it was a good day for her. 

Todd's pepper plants are growing beautifully. 

Spring has started. I love living in California! 

Jack had a great season of volleyball. He improved from last year and was much more involved. Nearly all of his serves made it over the net, and he made some other meaningful contributions to the games. It was fun to go and cheer him on. Hazel was usually unable to be there because she was assistant coaching the boys' volleyball team at the high school, but she did make it to two or three games and supported him when she could. 

Hazel got her ears pierced. Again, she's looking so grown up. 

Jack participated in a multi-district Math Counts compettition, and then spent the rest of the day with Pete, Renee, and Ella Andrus on a Japantown field trip, including a visit to the Japanese tea gardens in Golden Gate Park and sushi for dinner. 

Hazel performed a couple musical numbers with friends for a competition that counted as their orchestra/band final test. She and Kate Ellsworth did a violin/tuba duet (unusual!) and she did the song from Carmen with Lucas Taber and Abel. 

Jack extracted DNA from canned pumpkin and from strawberry with his Neon Clear club. He is still going to ballet every Monday as well. 

I took Gemma on a field trip to the Livermore lab. I'd been sick for about a week (thanks, Hazel) and was grateful I felt well enough not to cancel. My opportunities to be involved with my kids and their classmates are getting fewer and farther between. 

January 2024

 Welcome to a new year! I started things off right with a centering sunrise walk down the trail while the rest of the family slept. I can't remember why I woke up early, but I'm happy I made the most of it. 

We went to the church gym for some sports practice. Hazel gave Jack some volleyball pointers and Todd worked with Gemma on layups. 

Jack's main Christmas present was an afternoon at the escape room in town. We decoded clues in a bank heist-themed room and successfully stole the giant diamond without setting off the alarm. 

Then we headed down to Newark to have dinner and games with the Dix family. The kids collaborated on an original song about "dogs" (aka feet) that was pretty incredible. 

After all that New Year's partying, Gemma slept in hardcore the next day. She is a master of the morning sleep-in. 

We went up to Bear Valley on Jack's birthday. I cleared the deck of all the snow we're finally getting and then did yoga, took an ice-crunching walk, and enjoyed my book while the rest of the crew went skiing. 

Jack asked for chicken pot pie for his birthday dinner. We wanted to make rhubarb crumble for his treat, but after hunting realized rhubarb is spring-seasonal and switched gears to chocolate cake with coconut frosting. So yum. 

The next two days we had the young women up to the cabin. We were grateful for the foot of snow that fell earlier in the week so that we had some snow right out in the yard for everyone to play in. Todd also took everyone who wanted up to a good sledding hill. We played games and had good food and it was fun and low-drama. Jack was a little uncomfortable at times being the only young man there, but he made the most of it. And Gemma loved being included with the young women, some of whom are only a month or two older than her now.

When we got home Saturday night, we sent Gemma to her room with an ipad and watched Jurassic Park with Jack to celebrate that he's now a teenager. 

Gemma started violin lessons with Kirstan Hilton this month, her big Christmas present. As soon as we walked out of her first lesson, she turned to me and whispered, "I loved it!" 

Hazel's basketball season continued all month long, but some of the games had huge losses. It can be hard to remember that although her team is called Varsity, it's really basically a JV team - half the girls are freshmen playing for the first time, and none of the players are seniors. It does make a difference. 

I had an amazing massage. It was raining and I could hear it hitting the roof. Stephanie always goes over 10 or 15 extra minutes, but this time she went 30 extra minutes! She has my lifetime loyalty. 

We went back up to the cabin for Gemma's birthday. The Andrus's came with us. Renee snowshoed, I shoveled and yoga-ed, the rest of the group skied, we all played games. It was a quick trip, Saturday morning to Sunday with church in Murpheys on the way home. Then we had ribs and potatoes and mint brownies at home for Gemma's birthday dinner. Gemma got a bunch of stamps for her gift from us. 

Monday (MLK day) we had birthday parties. Gemma and Clara had an exclusive playdate - fancy lunch and ice skating. Clara gave Gemma tiny cute Harry Potter dolls that she's been playing with a ton. 

Jack had a big crew over that evening for pizza and games.- indoor and outdoor. It was a fun group, and we discovered an exciting secret: if you have a game-themed birthday party, you're likely to get a lot of games as presents!!! 

One of my New Year's goals is to update my bedroom by the end of the year. I have picked out a new duvet cover and bought new matching nightstands and lamps. I cleaned up the piles of junk I've been dumping in the corner or on my dresser and have been making my bed and putting away my clutter every single day to keep my room pretty. Next up: my first-ever headboard! Eventually - new window coverings. It is so nice to have my room look intentionally pretty instead of just a mish-mash of random tables and lamps. It brings me daily satisfaction. 

Jack made the boy's volleyball B team. It is fun to go to his games and see how much he has improved since last year. He says he likes being on a team, working together on a goal. 

He competed in Math Counts and enjoyed that experience. He has been chosen to go forward to an intra-district competition next month. He has also begun a ballet class. He's in a club at school called Neon Clear, run by a super smart, super rich man who is paying for the club members to try things outside of their comfort zone, to expand their horizons. Hence, Jack is taking a scholarship ballet class for the rest of the school year. So far, he says he doesn't love it, but he doesn't hate it, either. 

Jack gave a nice talk in church about being a disciple of Jesus Christ. I taught a whole-group Primary lesson on ways we can hear God communicating with us. I loved teaching the kids so much. I wish I had more opportunities to give the kids lessons or lead discussions.

We had so much fun at the last St. Mary's basketball game that we bought tickets to attend another one, and brought a couple of Hazel's basketball friends along for the experience. It was a close game the entire time - exciting! 

We had all the youth over to our house to watch the churchwide youth broadcast Sunday night. Surprisingly, we found ways to fit everyone in. There was a good discussion. I'm grateful our stake's boundaries adjusted in a way that put us in a ward with a larger youth group. 

I caught a stunning sunrise during my seminary carpool walk. Gorgeous. 

Todd is attempting to grow spicy peppers from seed in preparation for Oktoberfest 2024. They are under a marijuana lamp in our den as we speak. 

Hazel's basketball season is coming to a close. They had their last game on February 1st against Granada, the other local high school. All that's left is EBAL (some sort of tournament) next week. Hazel made this poster to advertise their game because she was rightfully affronted that the school was only promoting the boy's team rival game on Friday. She printed several out to pass around campus, spoke to the leadership teacher about including the girls' game in the school announcements, and gathered up fans via word of mouth. She is a born leader.