We celebrated Independence Day this year with Mike, Carla and family at their house in Sacramento, which meant a couple of great things: we got to see the “girl cousins” and the boys got to try their hand at fireworks for the first time. The kids had a great time in the pool while the adults chatted.
It was really nice to spend the afternoon with Mike and Carla, and we also got to see Carla’s parents who joined us. I haven’t seen them in ages!
After dinner and before the fireworks, the kids did some marshmallow roasting and s’mores eating.
And then we gathered out front for fireworks.
The sparklers were a hit.
After the sparklers we lit some other fireworks and watched the magic of things like Red Devil and Purple Rain.
We’re trying to take advantage of our new surroundings and visit some of the great things available to us. We’ve been to the Exploratorium a few times. (Bruce took the boys again while I was in Napa; they had quite an adventure just getting there on the train since there was a Giants game that day and it was Pride weekend.)
We’ve also visited California Academy of Sciences, which had lots of great stuff including a rain forest section, a planetarium, a skull exhibit and penguins. Ezra liked this giant frog.
Finn wasn’t too sure about this ridiculously huge snake.
The living roof was pretty cool.
I also took the boys to Hiller Aviation Museum in San Carlos, where Finn and I had gone on a field trip a few months before. It’s not the most lively place, but there’s a lot of good airplane history. The boys’ favorite thing was the helicopter simulator. Specifically, they liked to crash it.
They also liked pretending to pilot the big plane.
For a change of pace, one day the three of us went to Santa Cruz. We were armed with squirt guns, buckets and shovels and the boys were undaunted by the chilly, foggy weather.
They had some pretty good battles.
Eventually the sun started to peek out. They did some digging.
At the end of June some of my buddies (Jerri, Gina, Laura and Cindy) came up for a wine tasting weekend. Jerri and Gina were also running a half marathon, but I’m going to ignore that fact lest I feel like a total schlub.
I don’t have many pictures, but we visited three wineries on the first day (Friday). This shot is from the second winery — Jerri needed to do a little spooning with this sculpture.
On Saturday, Jerri and Gina got up early for their race. While they were gone, I went for a nice walk. Good scenery.
After the race and cleanup, we headed out for another round of wineries. Jerri demanded a castle … and found one.
The wine here was just OK, but the Guido-like pourer was worth it. I think Jerri took this picture at the castle, but I have no idea what we were doing. Maybe the wine was good after all.
Our last winery was one that did sparkling wines. Here were our in our very comfortable setup.
The glasses all together were lovely …
… and the wine was delicious but I had hit my limit by then. Lucky for Cindy — the beneficiary of my share.
The next day we were winery-ed out and decided to drive to San Jose to see the Winchester Mystery House, which was interesting and weird.
This post is woefully out of order, but lately I’ve seen a few posts from fellow LFL stewards who are having trouble with people taking all of the books from their libraries. I never wrote about our troubles with this in July 2013, but I’d like to have a record of what we did about it, so I’m writing this post now.
Overall, we have had a fabulous time as stewards of the library. We’ve occasionally had people take out all the hard cover books but really once they stopped taking off the R2D2 handle (well, we actually just replaced it with something less tempting after two thefts), we haven’t had any other trouble.
But in July 2013 we had about a week of someone clearing out the entire library. It’s a little jarring to go out to check on the books only to find this:
We had great neighbors and friends who replenished the books when we put out a call that this emptying had happened and the library rebounded quickly.
And then, sadly, it happened again.
After a week, we put up a note:
We still have no idea who was doing it, but it never happened again after we put up the note (which we took down after a few days). And this is a more typical picture of our library’s inventory.
On a happier note than my last post, our trip to Pasadena in the beginning of June super fun. It did our hearts good to see many of the friends we miss so much. We chose that weekend because Friday evening was woodworking class, a gathering of many of our favorite people. Plus, I wanted to see Cari’s reaction when we just showed up at her house. I know I would lose my marbles if she just showed up at my house; turns out she pretty much did the same. (Shout out to Rob for keeping the secret so well!)
It was a full house and I paid almost no attention whatsoever to the very involved project Rob had clearly put a lot of thought and time into.
I was too busy being a chatty distraction and taking pictures.
I was happy to see that Allen has taken up the job of woodworking documentarian.
The kids also spent some time goofing around.
Ezra and Jack made one project together instead of two, and they signed it.
The next day we went to Descanso Gardens with the Bannings. I think this picture kind of sums up everyone’s personality right now.
After Descanso, my family and I parted ways for the afternoon so I have no pictures of their activities. They went to the Heffernans for the afternoon, and the boys stayed for a sleepover (their first). Jerri sent me a few pictures.
Minecraft bonanza.
Blurry (always moving) Henry, Charlie and Finn.
Reading and laughing Lucy and Ezra.
I, on the other hand, spent the afternoon visiting Roseanne for a much needed haircut and color. Once that was done, Sherry and I went to the Kings game! Stanley Cup Finals, Game 2!!!
The Kings beat the Rangers 5-4 in double overtime. Best. Game. Ever.
The next morning we picked up a couple of happy and tired boys and headed to Hamilton Park for an impromptu get together. We were pleased and touched that so many friends were able to stop by and visit for a bit.
And then we headed to lunch at El Patron, where we ran into realtor extraordinaire Lisa Ashworth! After a hearty lunch, we hopped in the car and headed back to Nor Cal.
Over the last year or so, Finn developed a bunch of little bumps on various parts of his body — toes, arms, legs, etc. I wasn’t terribly concerned because they didn’t seem to bother him, and when we went for his check up in April with his new pediatrician, she told me they were molluscum contagiosum. Apparently, it’s very common in children; it’s a virus and eventually the bumps go away on their own. They can be treated if they are bothersome, but otherwise they can be left alone. Good, all set.
Fast forward to the first week of June. One of the bumps on the back of his leg was red and I was afraid it was infected, so I made an appointment with the pediatrician to have a look. (I tried getting in to see the dermatologist but their next appointment was weeks out and I thought this needed more timely attention.) So, on Wednesday, June 4th we went in for his doc to have a look. She looked him over and then said something like, “I can take care of these. I have some stuff for them and it’ll make them go away.” It sounded great. She gave me no warnings of ill effects or any other treatment possibilities.
As she applied the medicine, she said, “You may see this bubble up and blister a little bit.” OK … at that point I was still trusting that she knew what she was doing so she proceeded. She painted the medication on all of his bumps with the cotton end of a swab, lifted him down from the exam table, and got ready to leave the room. He started to complain that it was hurting and she said, “It shouldn’t hurt.” And then she left with no instructions or warnings of what was to come.
I helped him get dressed and out the door, and by the time we got home he was in a lot of pain. He sat carefully on the couch, not really wanting to do any activity. That night, he had a hard time sleeping because the bumps, which had developed into huge weeping blisters, were everywhere.
The next morning I put him in a lukewarm bath and took some pictures of the blisters, intending to send them to the doc or nurse to see what was going on. It was pretty gross.
When I called the nurse, she was unable to receive the pictures so I brought him back to the doctor. I was furious by this point and gave an earful to anyone who would listen. By the time of the appointment, Bruce and I had researched how the medication should have been applied — suffice to say, much more sparingly and carefully than it was — and we knew the doctor had screwed up. Because of her sloppiness, he had blisters where he didn’t even have any molluscum. Of course, she wouldn’t admit to any wrongdoing, instead saying things like, “That is a strong reaction” and, “These things happen.” She ended up treating him with cream they use for burn victims and bandaging him up.
He fell asleep on the way home from the office.
This was particularly bad timing because we had planned a surprise trip to Pasadena that weekend — we were leaving the next day. Luckily Finn is such a trooper and despite hating all the bandaids and not being able to swim with his friends over the weekend, he weathered it just fine.
The trip gave us the chance to talk to two of our doctor friends who were both taken aback by the level of blistering. They also both advised us to see a pediatric dermatologist when we got home.
By Monday the blisters were starting to heal and again I soaked him in a bath to get the bandaids off and took some more pictures. They still looked gross.
We had another appointment to get the blisters checked. This time Bruce went with us and, in addition to having another round of burn cream and bandages applied, we found out exactly what medication was used: Cantharone Plus, which is not indicated for patients under 12.
Needless to say, that was the last visit with that doctor. We subsequently took him to a pediatric dermatologist who assured us that his skin will eventually heal, although it may take a couple of years for the color to go back to normal in some places. They also explained how they apply the medication, which confirmed what we knew: that the original doc applied it incorrectly.
It’s two months later now and Finn is doing fine, although significantly more afraid of doctors than he used to be. Can’t really say as I blame him; I feel the same way.
The boys’ last day of school was May 29th and I grabbed a couple of quick shots from their classrooms. First, Ezra’s class with his teacher, Mr. Holbrook, in the middle.
Here’s Finn’s table.
And his class, with his teacher, Mrs. Schmidt.
It wasn’t easy coming in mid-year, but the boys did great with the transition and the teachers were very welcoming. I couldn’t really ask for more.
In May we camped a couple of nights in a tent cabin at Big Basin Redwoods State Park. We’d never tried tent cabins before, and although our cots are more comfortable than the “beds” provided in the tent cabin, it was nice to not have to set up our tent. Here’s our home away from home for the weekend. The setting was beautiful.
It was a little chilly, so we had a fire. Of course, we would have had a fire anyway, since building it is the boys’ favorite part of camping.
They tried their hand at whittling and really enjoyed it.
We all slept OK that first night, and we had some smiling faces at breakfast.
Pretty soon we set off on a nice hike.
Ezra likes the banana slugs.
After a rest, a little bike riding and some fun with the dry ice we’d brought along …
… we headed back out for a shorter hike. At some point we came to a small bridge with this note carved into it.
Obviously, my head almost exploded because of all the errors. The kids didn’t care; they just wanted to throw things into the water below.
Here are more shots from the hike.
Back at camp, marshmallow roasting capped off the evening.
In the morning the boys got the wood stove working in the cabin. Just because.
And then we headed home. We had missed Game 7 of the Kings v. Ducks playoff series that weekend and were out of service range the whole time. As we headed back to civilization, I was very happy to receive several text messages with the good news that the Kings had trounced the Ducks (6-2) and moved on to the next round!
We took a little trip to Palm Springs last weekend for Bruce’s step-sister Michelle’s wedding. We flew out of SFO for the first time. I’m always taken aback by the boys’ enthusiasm for airports: “Mommy, look! There are planes here!”
They also had this very cool Japanese toy exhibit. My favorite was the robots.
We had a great time swimming and playing with all the cousins. I was too busy chatting and watching the kids in the pool to take pictures unfortunately. But I have some from the wedding. Here’s the bride and groom.
Bruce usually comes home from work in a good mood. He’s enjoying his new job — the team, the work itself and the whimsical Google environment are all a good fit. But one day a couple of weeks ago he came home a little embarrassed. He’d accidentally printed out a 1,000-page document when he intended to just print part of the table of contents. Because he had left the building when he started the print job, he didn’t realize what had happened until he got back much later.
He quickly owned up to the accident and suggested his penance should be to have to actually read the document: IEEE Broadband Wireless Access Standards, which sounds riveting. Another colleague proposed that he make a paper mache balloon piñata for Cinco de Mayo like the ones his group plans to fly to provide internet access to remote areas.
So in other words, the gauntlet was thrown and the Moisions sprang into action. I found a local party store that sells giant balloons and Bruce printed out some pictures of the balloons to figure out proper dimensions. Saturday morning he started the paper mache.
Here’s the offending paper.
This project really is an engineering problem, so it’s right up his alley. He was worried that the balloon would pop before the paper mache was dry, so he set up a little stand for it.
After the first couple of layers, he decided that he wanted it to get some sun since it wasn’t particularly warm out. So we very carefully moved it out of the garage. It was windy, so in addition to it needing a cushiony place to sit, he tied it down so it wouldn’t blow off the box.
After a few hours in the sun, we moved it back into the garage and tackled the next engineering issue: how to get it to drape down so it’s not ball-shaped. This is where I think most people would have a good laugh and give up. But not my nutty husband.
His original thought was to use string to get the shape and do the paper mache around the string.
But that didn’t work because the paper would just rip when he tried to stretch it between the strings. Luckily, we still have a lot of cardboard left over from the move, so out came the box cutters and the hot glue gun and we shaped a stronger base. (And I say “we” because I was tasked with holding things in place while he did all the work, but I’m taking some credit anyway.)
After tying it to a beam in the garage so it would stand upright (and take a little weight off the balloon), he started in on the first layer on Sunday morning.
Later that evening he added more layers and got a little help from Ezra.
They’re a good team.
By the next morning, it was looking pretty good!
He still had to add some layers to the part that wasn’t showing when it was hanging up.
And we had lengthy discussions about how to attach a way to hang it when it was all done. More glue gun, cardboard and zip ties.
A couple of days later it got an attachment.
And hanging proved successful.
Of course, in order to be authentic it needs a payload.
More zip ties, glue, cardboard and black spray paint.
While all this was happening, we were also trying to figure out what we should put inside. Our first thought was, of course, candy, but that seemed too obvious. I suggested bouncy balls which I thought would have a nice effect but could be problematic with little control of how far they would go. They would also add a lot of weight to an already heavy contraption.
Then Bruce had a great idea: origami cranes (or loons!) in the tradition of making 1,000 cranes for good luck. After some searching, we found people on Etsy who make them, in Google colors no less. We figured we’d buy some and make some ourselves, knowing it was unlikely we’d be able to make as many of them as we needed to fill the ball.
We initially bought 500 3″ cranes from a woman in North Carolina which came folded and needed to be pulled out into shape. We put the kids to work.
We then set out to make more (which included a late night trip to Michael’s for origami paper). We found that we had an easier time making them from 6″ paper, so we hunted through the packs of paper for the primary colors, put the kids to bed and got to work. It didn’t take long for us to realize we needed provisions.
We kept at it and our small pile got bigger as we managed to get a little faster at making each crane.
On Saturday, though, we brought in reinforcements: Baris and Alexandra.
Alexandra is a pro and cranked out lots of cranes. Baris joined the rest of us newbies, and together we made about 200 cranes in a few hours. Of course, we had some delays, namely dinner and my own stopping to cheer for the Kings who beat the Ducks in Round 2, Game 1 that night.
On Sunday, Bruce put some finishing touches on the payload: a mocked-up comm system complete with solar panel.
We took a break for lunch with our neighbors and then headed out on our two hour drive to Elk Grove to pick up the other 500 cranes we’d ordered on Etsy. The best part of that little excursion was that we arranged to meet Mike, Carla, Emily and Kendra for dinner in Sacramento. So great to see the “girl cousins” as the boys call them!
On the way home, Bruce unfolded all the cranes, threw them to the boys who threw them in the back of the car. So what started out in this box …
… ended up to be this giant pile.
When we got home, I put the kids to bed while Bruce started getting the balloon ready for transport to Google the next morning. After attaching another, smaller balloon in the hole to keep the cranes from pooling in the bottom, he filled the big ball.
Then, while trying to figure out what to use for the beating stick, we decided to contact our neighbor Chris who has his own [much crazier] project going on in his backyard — Tsunamiball — and therefore has lots of tools and scrap wood. He brought over a perfect stick and then had a look at the balloon. He proved to be the voice of reason, convincing Bruce that the ball was just too strong and no one was going to be able to bust it open. So … out came the drill.
And eventually the saw.
It ended up looking like this.
Just to take this to a whole new level of kookiness, Bruce was worried that the cranes would a) be dusty from all the drilling and sawing, and b) get wet when he put the last layer of paper mache on (he couldn’t possibly leave it full of holes), so he had taken them all out.
Trust me, there was a lot of mocking. Undaunted, he continued cutting, in part because after he did the initial cuts he tried hitting the ball and it didn’t budge.
Here’s a shot of all the holes from the inside.
Next there was sanding …
And the last layer of paper mache.
After it had mostly dried, he blew up another balloon for inside (he’d popped the first one with the saw) and refilled the cranes. He marked a tiny black spot where he thought the weakest point was in case they ran into trouble breaking it.
And we loaded it in the van.
He sent me this picture of its final home between a couple of Google buildings.
The festivities started earlier than I thought they would so I didn’t get to see the beginning; apparently Bruce got to take the first swings. When I rode up I could hear the smacking sound already so I rushed over to grab a few photos.
And here’s the guy who finally did it in.
I love this shot of the aftermath. The cranes worked out great!
You can see more of my photos here. Some of Bruce’s colleagues also posted photos. I’ll add links as I get them. For now, here and here.
Google’s Take Your Child to Work Day was April 23rd and the boys were thrilled to have a day off from school and get to spend a [half] day with Bruce at work. I was going on a bike ride with a friend that day, and the boys wanted to commute by bike to Google, so we started the day together. It’s a short 2-3 mile ride from our house to Googleplex.
Since I wasn’t there, I don’t have any pictures of the activities they did, but I snapped one when I picked them up.
Naturally, they got some souvenirs and wanted to wear them immediately.
Nothing like a little handball with “Super Android.”
Easter was, not surprisingly, a quiet affair for us. The boys were excited to see that they had baskets in the morning. I’m pretty sure they didn’t even remember it was Easter.
After checking out what kinds of candy they got, they immediately jumped into building their new small Legos.
Pretty soon they were out in the back yard trying to find all the eggs the bunny had left.
That bunny was pretty clever.
In the evening we had dinner with our new neighbors and watched the first period of Game 2 of the Kings-Sharks series. The Kings were ahead when we left but ended up getting throttled 7-2. (Side note not at all related to Easter: The Kings went down 3 games to 0 but came back to win the series by winning the last four games in a row. Woohoo, on to round 2 now!)
Finn turned 7 a couple of Saturdays ago and we had our traditional morning present-opening extravaganza.
And waffles at his request.
He spent the day playing with his new stuff and building Lego sets.
That evening we were scheduled to meet up with some of Bruce’s high school friends. Finn had okayed the outing and we brought cupcakes along to celebrate. He had insisted on cupcakes so that I had to struggle to put seven candles on one. Those were his words exactly. We worked it out.
It took a few tries but he managed to blow them all out.
Just two days after Ezra’s shearing, Finn decided he also was ready for a new ‘do. He’d talked about it a bit in the last month but wasn’t ready to take the plunge. Someone at school had apparently told him he needed a haircut, so we had the obligatory discussion about how it’s his hair and he can wear it however he wants. He confirmed that he wanted to cut it. I think the few really warm days we had played a part in his decision. All that hair was hot!
He was looking a bit shaggy.
Having no idea where to take him for the cut, I decided to make an appointment at a local place right next to the ice cream store he likes. That way at least I knew he’d have some solace if he hated the haircut.
The old guy at the shop started right in with the clippers after briefly discussing how short Finn wanted to go.
Eek!
Once he got rid of the bulk, things started looking up.
There was so much hair on the floor. This is only one of the piles.
It took quite a while for the shaping and finishing. Finn was pretty patient. And so was Ezra, who made himself at home.
Finally it was all done, Finn was all smiles and we headed to the ice cream store!
After ice cream we rode directly home to get itchy Finn in the shower.
No tears that day and seemingly no regrets, though he says he’s growing it out again. Starting now.
