Finn’s Third Piano Recital

On May 20th, Finn had his third piano recital. Here’s the video.

I think he’s made a lot of progress this year! And, more importantly, he seems to really like it. He sits down and plays at home all the time.

U2 at Levi’s Stadium

On May 17th, at my insistence, Bruce and I attended the U2 30th anniversary of the Joshua Tree show. That album was such a huge part of my teen years that I just knew I couldn’t miss the show. We did have a couple of logistical items to work out though — namely, how to get there (traffic in and out of Levi’s Stadium is notoriously awful) and what to do with the boys (we had some trouble finding a babysitter). So, after much deliberation, we decided to leave the boys home alone, which we’d been doing already but hadn’t done when we were going to be that far away and for that long. Luckily it worked out just fine. As for how to get there, we decided to drive part way, ride the last few miles, and park in the free bike valet parking lot that is put on by the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition.

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The biking worked out great! In fact, we would definitely consider biking the whole 11.5 miles if we do it again.

Once we worked our way through the crowd waiting to get in, we got ourselves a drink and settled into our seats. And, we took the obligatory selfie.

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Unfortunately, we were way off to the side, so we missed some of the show that was going on on the giant screens behind the stage.

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But, the band sounded fantastic and it was a thrilling show. Here’s a snippet of Sunday Bloody Sunday.

I’m so glad we got to go. From the NorCal show, U2 moved on to SoCal and did two shows in Pasadena. It was amusing how my Facebook timeline was filled with U2 for a few days as so many of my friends attended shows!

Gold Rush Day 2017

Finn got his turn to experience the magic of fourth grade Gold Rush Day on May 17th. He and the rest of his classmates had been preparing for this day for weeks and they were all very excited. His class was in charge of making this year’s town sign.

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Finn’s work shift at the Assay Office wasn’t until right before lunch, so he spent the morning panning and mining for gold, buying stuff at the general store, and enjoying sarsaparilla at the Redwood Ridge Saloon.

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Finally, his shift started and it was a doozy! He and his friend Satvik manned the scales during the busiest time when everyone was cashing out their gold for the day. Here’s a shot in the calm before the storm.

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And here they are mid-transaction.

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Once they were finally done, they enjoyed a miner lunch of chili and bread.

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After lunch they had an auction, but I didn’t stick around for that so I don’t have any photos. I want to share a few of my other favorite shots from the day and you can see all of my photos here.

Here are Mrs. Johnson and Mr. Easton getting in some gambling time at the saloon.

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A couple of girls from Finn’s class teaching school.

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The opening gold rush.

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It’s such a great day!