Holidays 2024

With Thanksgiving complete, we prepared to head into the holiday season. Ryan and I started off with the play Blithe Spirit by Noel Coward at Seattle Repertory Theatre - we went with our friends, enjoying dinner out with them beforehand. Slightly different kind of ghost story than The Woman in Black, much more comedic rather than gothic, but equally enjoyable. Then a few days later we went with them to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Sweater performed by comedy troupe Second City.

My work secret santa started and I got The House on the Cerulean Sea from my "santa" - just in time too as I had to be Ryan's driver for his colonoscopy, so needed something to read during my wait! The first weekend in December we picked out our Christmas tree and got it decorated. We also started our advent - this year I'd gotten the Bonne Maman jam advent and it's been a lot of fun to try several unusual jam flavors through the weeks.

We finished all the house decorating and the kids decided to have some fun with our Merry Christmas letter blocks:

We spent the second weekend in December baking. Each of the kids picked a cookie recipe they wanted to help make. M chose ginger citrus shortbread while G chose peppermint patty shortbreads. Also on my list were gingerbread blondies, iced oatmeal cookies, pistachio pinwheels, cranberry orange pinwheels (these are actually a Better Homes and Gardens recipe, but weirdly I couldn't find it on their website, so you get one of the several online blogger versions that is the BHG recipe with minimal to no acknowledgement that the recipe came from elsewhere - the "adaptations" in this particular case simply being their extra commentary in the method), pine nut rosemary shortbread, eggnog snickerdoodles, and rum-buttered almond cookies. I did not get to all of those that weekend, though we did eventually get to them all. And G helped with the iced oatmeal as well because their calculus compatriots had decided to have a cookie party the last day of school. It's been so much fun to actually do a lot of baking this year and to include the kids in it as well. If you make the peppermint patty shortbreads, we suggest replacing the honey in the marshmallow with corn syrup - honey and peppermint battle for top billing as the flavor and it was just odd; we also plan to use dark chocolate instead of semi-sweet for the ganache if we make them again.

Piping marshmallow onto shortbread!

I had to include both the cranberry and the pistachio pinwheels on my list because the idea of red and green pinwheels makes me happy. Even if I am generally terrible at keeping their shape round while cutting them.

The last weekend before Christmas we attended our friends' annual white elephant party. It felt a little odd because M was sick with a cold and G was completely exhausted from all the tests and schoolwork that last week so Ryan and I went without them for the first time ever. But enjoyable as always. That weekend we did some final present shopping, some more baking, and some prep for Christmas Eve. Back at Thanksgiving I'd found a recipe for beef tenderloin that I wanted to try. So when we made a Costco run the Saturday before Christmas (crazy idea, I know, but it shockingly wasn't any worse than a usual Saturday!), we picked up a tenderloin there so we could make it for our Christmas Eve dinner. I'd never tied a roast before, but found some helpful videos and I think it turned out pretty well.

M doesn't like the blueberry bake that we've traditionally eaten Christmas morning, so we decided to try some new coffee cake recipes this year instead. We split into two teams on Christmas Eve and each made one of them - rye chocolate and pumpkin streusel. I could only find dark rye flour instead of the medium they called for and we tried to make adjustments to account for that, but that one was still a little dry, though tasted delicious so would still recommend. Not too sweet and a nice chocolate flavor. The pumpkin streusel was much sweeter, which I'd probably tone down a bit the next time, but also very good. M, predictably, only tried the rye chocolate and didn't like it (I think he'd like the pumpkin but he was also not very hungry Christmas morning and missed out on the chance to try it before it was gone). So we'll be trying some other new options next Christmas in what may become a never-ending search for something that M will like.

We came down Christmas morning to discover that Santa had come, and fixed the letter blocks while he was here.

It was a fun day, very relaxed as always. We still have one mystery gift that we haven't solved where it came from (did you donate to MOMA in our name? - let us know!). We chatted with my siblings in the evening and all the kids talked about what they got for Christmas. The next morning we got up and headed to Glo's on Capitol Hill for our annual breakfast out. Otherwise, we've been enjoying lots of time just hanging out - and trying to get G to finish up their college applications!

Fall 2024

I forgot to show off the pottery M brought home at Halloween - he's taking a ceramics elective this semester, and this mug was very fitting for the season:

I finally managed to get an action shot of M at fencing - this was the first week of his beginning epee class, moving up from the intro class and now required to have his own gear. He's the one advancing toward the right. Classes are currently off for the holidays and he was so disappointed that there wouldn't be class for a couple weeks.

This tree at work was stunning:

I spent time with Anne while cross-stitching - almost always under a blanket and with a cup of tea by my side. Maximum coziness.

Because my time off at Christmas/New Year's was going to be so spotty in order to accommodate my on-call schedule and co-workers' desired days off, I insisted they also give me the day before Thanksgiving off. I made rolls for the first time in years and made apple gooseberry and pumpkin pie. I messed up a bit on the apple-gooseberry. Couldn't remember what I usually brush the top with and used an egg wash, which I had from the rolls. This made it taste a bit funny because of course what I usually do is brush it with milk and a little sugar! And my cut out designs/vents got a little messed up when the bubbling filling expanded so much it broke the crust. Good thing I've got lots of gooseberries in the freezer, so I can keep working on perfecting the pie!

We also had pork tenderloin instead of turkey this year. M decided he doesn't like turkey all that much and G and Ryan didn't feel strongly about having it either. So we opted to go a little non-traditional. And for unknown reasons, I decided to add to my work the morning of Thanksgiving by making pice ar y maen for breakfast. They were delicious though, so worth it.

To wrap up fall, a couple months after starting it, I finished my latest cross-stitch project! Now I just need to wash the ones I've finished and take them to get framed...

Halloween 2024

It was a rainy Halloween this year, but we still managed to have fun. We went out early in the month for our annual corn maze/pumpkin patch outing and had a gorgeous day for that.

We got ourselves nice and lost in the corn maze

Ryan managed to eat both a large acorn squash half and roasted corn

My mom arrived for a visit the week before Halloween. I neglected her for the first couple days while I wrapped up an insanely busy week of work and then she and Ryan came to my orchestra concert that weekend. We played Saint-Saën's Danse Bacchanale from Samson and Delilah and a piece by Kristina Vasiliauskaite which I loved, Simfonete, among others.

M really wanted to go out trick or treating this year, but was also struggling to come up with a good costume idea that he liked. In the end, he reused last year's costume. We also didn't get around to carving our pumpkins or decorating the house until Halloween day. But we got 30-40 trick-or-treaters despite the rain, so that was exciting! That's about all we ever get, but I was shocked it was that many when it was rainy all evening while last year when it was dry we only got 16. I also appreciate that 3 houses next to us get very into decorating, so there's at least a little draw for kids. 

I went out with M since it was dark already by the time he was ready to go. He thankfully didn't want to stay out long - just long enough to get to a house 3 blocks away that he likes the decorations at, and fill about half of his candy bag. So overall it was a chill evening. After we got home we all finished watching The Birds with Ryan.

All the pumpkins turned out great this year:

Ryan's on the left, M's in front of G's on the right

My mom and I spent a bunch of time making treats: apple hand pies, apple cider caramels, toasted coconut marshmallow covered in chocolate, peanut brittle, and we whipped up some ginger-molasses cookies to sandwich our batch of marshmallow that didn't set quite right.

Ryan and I went to a play, Primary Trust by Eboni Booth the day after Halloween - 2024 Pulitzer Prize winner and we loved it. It's about how we handle change, what makes a meaningful life, and recognizing that even though things will change or may not last they still have value and we can and should enjoy them right now. Highly recommend seeing it if you ever get the chance. We said goodbye to my mom yesterday and now our focus will shift to supporting G as they get all their college applications in and figuring out how to make M's new fencing schedule work as we head into winter.

Fencing

We started a more official allowance for the kids over the summer and M has been enjoying being able to buy all sorts of video games or walk down to the 7-11 for treats. One of the games they bought over the summer was for the VR set and I guess involves swordplay, so after playing a bit of that he told us he wanted to do fencing. This is the first time in ages that he's expressed an interest in an activity, so we immediately looked into options. There were some spots open in a summer camp still, but they were half-day camps and I couldn't figure out how to make that work, so we waited and got him signed up for an intro class in the fall. The ages are nicely split up so he's in a group of 11-15 year olds. The intro class has been once a week, which he has said is not often enough. It's also focused on epee - initially he said he wanted to try sabre, but after a few weeks when given the chance to take another intro class focused on sabre or continue on to beginning epee, he changed his mind and decided to stick with epee for now. When you move to the beginning class you get to have class twice a week and for a little longer, so I think he's happy about that. 

It's been delightful to see him excited about something and having fun with it. Aside from at home, it's probably where he's the most relaxed and willing to engage with others right now. I haven't been able to get any great action shots yet, but here he is getting an actual sword for the first time (in the dark blue shirt) and then connecting to the wire so the scoring system can detect their touches.

So far everyone we've interacted there has been friendly. Of course, at this age you never know how long an interest will last, but it's feeling like a good, positive experience and outlet for him right now - something we've desperately needed - and we'll enjoy it for however long it's something he wants to do.

Rocketry Road Trip

Just before we left for San Diego I got an email from the rocketry club leader about an event in Pasco the weekend after we were getting back from California. It mentioned G by name, so I forwarded to him with a slightly panicked "do you need to go to this and why am I just now hearing about it???" message. Initially the answer was no - he hadn't finished his rocket and wouldn't have time to before the event. Then a couple days later it changed to yes because he was going to be able to squeeze in one last rocket building session.

Then I realized there was no useful information in the initial email aside from the dates of this event, so asked him to get that info. Which led to a second email that contained the broad times and details on when the club adult was going to be at the launch site, but no specifics about when the kids were expected to arrive. I eventually decided that none of us would want to be up at 3 or 4 am on a Saturday to drive out to Pasco, so would be best to just book a hotel and head out Friday evening.

Ryan had done all our driving in California and understandably wasn't eager to do another road trip, so this trip ended up being me and G. We forgot it was Labor Day weekend and that would mean more traffic headed east than usual, especially since it was nice weather and not smoky, so what maps had previously told me would be a 3.5 hour drive was now going to be more like 4-4.5 hours. And of course I'd come home from work late in my effort to get things taken care of before the holiday weekend/before everyone's schools start and we both left our packing to the last minute, so my plan of leaving Seattle right after G finished up an appointment at 6pm didn't pan out. And we still had to eat dinner sometime as well. We did find somewhere to stop for dinner and aside from some overly aggressive drivers wanting to go 90+ in 70 zones and everyone's headlights being so bright they blind you these days, it was an uneventful drive. We got to our hotel about 11:30, watched some Derry Girls, then slept. Not my best sleep ever as the hotel didn't do a great job at preventing a pervasive manure odor from leaking into the building.

I half-heartedly tried to get us going at a reasonable time the next morning, thinking we should get to the launch site about 9-9:30. But G wasn't as eager to wake up and it was their event so I let him dictate the pace a bit. We got checked out and then remembered that we needed $5 in cash for this event. I almost never have cash on me! So we made a last-minute run to a bank, got some cash, then headed back out to the launch site. All this meant it was closer to 10:30 before we got there and G was the last student in their group to arrive. Launches are really boring if you're not actively involved. It was hot and sunny, so I spent the day trying not to burn. Most of the rockets are loud as well, so the rest of my energies were spent attempting to protect my hearing. The whole point of this trip was to attempt to get some certification to be able to do high powered rockets. G had his built and finally got the motor and such attached and shot it off. Unfortunately, the motor wasn't attached quite well enough so while the rocket went quite high it lost the motor coming down and I guess that means you fail your certification. They had some extra motors so he could attempt again, but had to wait around for another student (whose rocket just failed to launch several times) to finish so they could use their motor casing. This meant that we were there much later than I'd planned and there was much drama as it was doubtful for a bit if he'd even get to attempt a second launch - they only had permits to do the high powered launches until 5pm. There was a mad rush as maybe he could do it still but with a different type of motor, so they were all working together to change that out, then they were told they could actually keep the original motor so it was a frenzy to get that back in and attached securely. 

Rockets set up to launch

After all that drama, it was a big letdown when the motor failed completely - his rocket barely made it off the launchpad. Nothing he could have done about it, just a faulty motor and no way to know that until you try to launch it I guess. So he was pretty down about that because without the certification there isn't as much of interest for him to work on in rocketry this year once they've built their team rocket. And this location is the only one he's aware of that holds events where you can get this certification (you need a big open field away from major air traffic and of course all the special permits to launch these off). Overall very frustrating that achieving the certification can come down to something that's completely out of your control.

Once G helped to clean up their club area at the field, we found some dinner - neither of us had eaten since breakfast! - and then got back on the road to head home. G did slightly overestimate their appetite, but managed to get through about 2/3 of this burger.

About 45 minutes into our drive home we suddenly heard a splat on the windshield - no big deal, just a bug. Then there were a few more - is it raining? We didn't remember rain being in the forecast. Followed by rapidly increasing splats and a pass of the windshield wipers made it clear these were bugs, not rain. Thousands and thousands of bugs. Before long I could barely see because there were so many dead bugs on the windshield. We managed to find a quiet side road and were able to clear some with the wiper fluid and G found a nearby gas station about 10 minutes away, which felt like a very long time when you're worried about dead bugs limiting your visibility. So we cautiously made our way to the gas station, wincing with every new splat. Thankfully it was almost dark at this point and we were getting further and further away from the body of water where this had all started, which we were hopeful would resolve the bug issue. Several others were also stopped at this station, scrubbing bugs off their cars. The entire front bumper was a horror scene, but we left that for later, scrubbed the windshield as best we could, and got back on our way.

Thankfully that was the worst part of the drive home. We were both exhausted, but it was so much fun to get to spend hours with G, chatting about anything and everything and introducing them to Carole King's Tapestry album in our efforts to build a good road trip playlist. And, in good news, one of the other rocketry parents was kind enough to offer to drive him (and their kid) back out there last weekend, where G successfully passed their certification - using a different brand of motors this time. 

Summer 2024, Campus Tour Edition

We spent our summer on college visits, which are much more daunting to plan on the west coast than they were on the east coast where you've got lots of great schools all within easy reach. I'm pleased to say that I've been proven right in my thinking that G would be more excited about the whole process once we actually got them onto some campuses and in my assertions that visiting campuses is actually essential to knowing if the school is a good fit for you or not. Ryan didn't do any college visits as a high schooler, so we've been operating off just my experience, but it means I've been discussing it all with two people who have no experience doing this. And my experience isn't always the best guide - I told G there was no need to study for the PSAT/SAT, but then had to walk that back when I realized I had been taking the SAT every year since at least 7th grade, which is not a thing our schools here offer, so maybe he shouldn't listen to me on that one. But for this, I just kept coming back to the fact that if I'd visited Cleveland Institute before auditioning, I never would have wasted time applying there, so yes it actually is important that we visit as many schools as we can from their list.

We've now had schools that went from "hey, it's pretty close by and seems to have good programs, so I could go there" or "hey, may as well throw it on the list" to "omg, this is awesome and I could totally see myself here!" and one that went from "I'm so excited about this school, it's the only website that really stood out to me/drew me in!" to "meh, I'm actually not sure this one is the best fit for me". Which has made the time and effort spent on these trips worth it.

Our first trip was up to Vancouver. Large campus, very much a city campus feel, and with some beautiful views out to the water. One of our tour guides here was actually from WA and a forestry major - which apparently happened accidentally when they clicked the wrong button at some point, but which they now view as a happy accident. It would definitely be interesting to have to figure out all the nuances of being an international student - which feels extra weird when the campus is just a short train ride away! Bonus is that cost for this lands mid-way between our in-state universities and the out-of-state costs we'd pay for any other schools in the US.

Along the way, we've tried to include some fun activities as well since M is getting dragged along on all these trips. For my birthday, we spent time at the Capilano Suspension Bridge. I seem to have a knack for running into coworkers at unexpected places - I saw one the cultural navigators from the hospital in line to cross the bridge! (Our clinic team shares office space with their team; they help families who may have cultural, language, or health literacy needs learn to navigate the complexities of the healthcare system. So, so helpful and we adore them. Most hospitals don't have a team like this and they really should.)

M contemplated if he wanted to lick the banana slug or not; in the end he opted not to. 

We also spent some time in downtown Vancouver, not realizing there was a Rolling Stones concert that day so traffic was a nightmare. Our hotel just happened to be near a Chinese restaurant that was highly recommended by a friend. We ended up eating there for dinner one night and returned the next morning for dim sum. We told G that if he goes to school up there, we'll be visiting regularly just for the food. Also, we had to buy M a baseball cap at the college bookstore because it was too sunny, so we already have some college merch if G goes there!

Santa Cruz was an interesting small city. Rather sprawly but with a very cute main street area. The campus doesn't feel very connected to the city - when you first enter campus it's more like you're in the middle of farmland than a campus or a city. The buildings (when you finally get to them) are an odd mix of brutalist concrete structures and wooden structures that seem to be going for a dilapidated barn style. More than half of the campus has been left undeveloped, which is really cool, especially if what you want is a lot of woods and fields. There are gorgeous views over the city and the beach/ocean. We saw a wild turkey on our way out, so that was exciting.

For our fun activities here, we went to the boardwalk and the beach. I was the designated bag holder while everyone else went on rides - rides aren't really my thing so I was just fine with this. M rode on his first-ever roller coasters. The next day we went back but headed to the beach beyond the boardwalk this time. It was nice to spend a couple hours just sitting at the beach and enjoying the ocean sounds. 

We ate dinner at a restaurant on the wharf our first night, which had a lovely view out to a lighthouse. And they had public music/dancing below the restaurant, which was a lot of fun to watch.

In between all the campus visits, I was very excited one day to discover gooseberries at Met Market. I've never seen them at a store here before that I can remember. And definitely never in this quantity. I was very tempted to buy all they had, but decided I should be nice and leave some for others, so only bought 3 boxes. After allowing some to be eaten fresh, I froze the rest and have enough for 10 apple gooseberry pies! It's been way too long since I got to have one of those, so I'm excited for the weather to cool so I can bake a pie. Our freezer looks like it's been taken over by gooseberries, even though it's just 10 quart bags of them.

G also participated in pole vault camp again, but this year it was much more conveniently located at UW campus and so they could light rail there! No more nightmare trips like last year when all the roads and the light rail were shut down for repairs! I didn't get any pictures of G at camp, but my work shuttle drives right past the UW track, so I snapped a not great picture the week before his session. So many vaulters!

The kids went off to sleepaway camp in mid-August - G's final year as a camper and M's 5th year! G is saying they plan to return next year as a counselor. We decided to mix things up a bit instead of going to the same place on Whidbey that we went the past couple years. Initially we were planning a couple days on Orcas Island but the ferry system is struggling and it was impossible to get reservations so we ended up having to cancel our Orcas hotel stay since the only way to get to the island is the ferry. Instead, we headed up to Bellingham for a couple nights and stayed in a historic hotel right downtown. We'd only ever driven through on our way up to Vancouver, so it was great to stay and explore a bit. Really great downtown area with tons of shops and eateries and way more brewpubs than expected, all very walkable. Not that I really have set expectations about numbers of brewpubs, but everywhere I looked there was another one! I'm honestly not sure how there's enough business for all of them. We found a nice cocktail bar our first night and the bartender was so great - digging in the back to find that they did have a bottle of green chartreuse and making me a bijou, which is my favorite drink but because it's gotten so difficult to get chartreuse I haven't had it in forever. And they had never made a bijou before, so we gave them a new drink to learn about and play with recipes for. It was nice to just sit and chat while enjoying our drinks.

My clover club and Ryan's bijou

The next day we hiked up to Fragrance Lake, which was gorgeous. It was maybe 65 degrees, which turned out to be perfect weather for this hike. Lots of uphill heading to the lake, but then you get nice and rested hanging out at the lake and walking around it. There were a few others on the trail, but most of the time no one else in our sight. On the way back we took a short detour to a viewpoint that looks out over the islands. The only bad part was that the uphills on the way to the lake meant a lot of downhill coming back. My knees really struggle with lots of downhill these days, unclear why, so I was in quite a bit of pain by the time we finished and honestly am not sure I've fully recovered yet. But glad we did the hike anyway.

Once the kids were back from camp it was time to head off to San Diego/LA for our final college trip of the summer. This one was a little more stressful than the others because we were trying to visit three school - Caltech, Cal Poly Pomona (I'm pushing the Cal Poly schools a bit since they're part of the WUE system so there's a chance he could get tuition at these equivalent to our in-state tuition), and UC San Diego. We opted to fly into and stay in the San Diego area because everyone we talked to indicated there would be more of interest there during our free time. This did mean a long drive for our day spent seeing the two schools up near LA. We managed to find an airbnb not far from the beach.

You can just see the ocean past the ridiculously expensive houses

For our first free day we slept in, then headed to the beach in the afternoon. I waded in a bit, but stopped enjoying going fully in oceans/lakes around age 9 or so. Everyone else enjoyed letting the waves crash over them.

The next day we had to be up early for our drive up to LA area. Traffic at the time we left wasn't as bad as we were expecting. Unfortunately, Cal Poly told me there would definitely be tours this day, but then they ended up not having any. I would've tried to set up a meeting with a student or professor if I'd known this would be the case, so it was frustrating. We couldn't even find where to go on campus to see if they had any materials for a self-guided tour (and I couldn't find any online), so just wandered on our own. Classes had already started here as well, so parking was a nightmare and the heat didn't help how any of us were feeling either. Overall, an unfortunately underwhelming experience but I think we were glad we got a chance to at least see the campus. Then it was off to Caltech. Nice looking buildings. This was another surprise - G expected to not like it because of the small number of students (fewer undergrads than students at his high school!), but came away quite excited about it. While of course keeping in mind that their acceptance rate is insanely low and the annual cost to attend is insanely high.

The next day was UC San Diego. This tour went really well also, weather here is more tolerable for all of us than it was up near LA. Much larger than Caltech, obviously, but another place that G felt like he could do well at. Because of the size of this one there's a lot to do on and around campus and it feels more like a campus in a city, similar to UW or UBC. We had some free time after this tour and considered going to the zoo, but in the end M decided they just wanted to go to the beach again. Honestly, the zoo sounds like it's a full day trip and we were all pretty tired from all the tours/walking, so the beach was a nice way to end our trip. The next day we headed back home. I think the strangest thing to me about all our CA trips is discovering just how car-centric most of CA is. Aside from San Francisco, there doesn't seem to be nearly as significant of a transit presence as one would expect, even in the larger cities.

Now all that remains is for G to take the SAT and get applications put together and then see what happens. We will likely try to get a trip in to WSU in the early fall, but there is an event at the high school in September where he should be able to get accepted to WSU on the spot, so that one really is the safety school. 

And now the new school year is upon us. Summer felt like it went by way too quickly, but the fall has things to look forward to as well. G has opted not to run cross country this year, saying they're going to prioritize pole vault year-round instead (we'll see if that actually happens or not....) as well as wanting the time to focus on their applications and classes this fall. M has expressed an interest in fencing, so we've signed him up for an introductory class and we're excited to see how that goes. 

Spring

Lots happened this spring - we started off with G getting their braces off! And we did get the bad news from the dentist that M will need braces after all (though this has become obvious since more adult teeth have been growing in recently), so once all his adult teeth are in then we get to start another orthodontic journey. G celebrated by getting to eat popcorn at our next movie night.

We've been doing a family D&D campaign, holding sessions every few weeks when we get the chance on a weekend. This was a Christmas gift from G to M since the middle school D&D club had been a bust. But M did attend Magic the Gathering club a few weeks ago and has enjoyed that.

G was surprised when their sprints placed them among the top sprinters on the track team early in the season. This meant we added to their spike collection so they now have jumping and sprinting spikes. G even got to go to an invitational for both pole vault and the 200m early in the season. Of course, after that pole vault was ramping up so they did a lot less sprinting...so hopefully the sprinting spikes still fit next year!

The jumping spikes have a bigger heel and there's some difference in spike placement

Despite developing shin splints mid-way through the season (a common vaulter injury I'm told), G had a good season - went to metros and placed 12th while also getting a PR of 11', and just missed getting to go to districts. He could've gone as an alternate, but opted not to so that he could let his legs rest and get started on fully healing the shin splints. They are hoping to do a lot more off-season work on strength training (which will help them be able to use a longer pole and help with getting higher) and maybe working with a local pole vault club so they're ready to go for even higher PRs for their final season.

I made the chocolate raspberry mousse cake for M's birthday...and then again for G's birthday. They aren't very creative in their requests, but it's a delicious cake so I can't really blame them either!

And I made a giant batch of brownies for our office March birthdays.

We had a candy hunt on Easter again. I was most proud of this hiding place, which took them a while to notice, but wasn't the one that took the longest.

After being foiled by illness three times in our attempts to go to a baseball game, M and I finally made it to a Mariners game, and on a gorgeous weekend to boot.

Ryan finally got COVID. The kids had very mild cases last summer, I got it at the end of January, and Ryan in April. I am quite proud of us for managing to not spread it to the rest of the household on any of these instances. Ryan had to go on a work trip mid-April, he got back on a Friday and by Sunday (as we were celebrating G's birthday), he noticed he was feeling a little feverish. After dinner and cake we immediately quarantined him to our bedroom and I moved to the couch for the next ten days. I was determined to do everything I could to avoid getting it again, especially because I was due to be on call again the next week and call had been busy so I knew my colleagues wouldn't be okay if they had to pick up my week as well. It all worked out and I didn't get it and by the time the 10 days was up he was testing negative. Pretty pleased with us that we all made it so long before getting it.

G took their AP Computer Science test and is confident they did well. I started planning some college visits for this summer and fall - mainly in-state schools, one up in Canada, and California schools. We'll knock out several visits over the summer and hopefully that will get G a little more excited about the whole thing. Though they were thrilled when they discovered that UC Santa Cruz has a banana slug as their mascot.

After spending the morning at metros this past weekend, I dropped G at home and the rest of us headed to make sausage and have dinner with friends. I made another cardamom rose cake and it turned out so well this time! I may have made the icing a tad too runny, but that was better than too thick. I put ever so slightly less rose in the cake itself and only put 1/4 teaspoon in the icing and it still came through nicely.

Just a few more weeks left in the school year!