Thanksgiving weekend was a bit of a whirlwind. We had four days with no work and the boys at home, so my mission was to keep us all entertained during that whole time, including Thanksgiving when not much is open!
We ended up taking BART to San Francisco to go to a park. Aaron is really into buses right now, so the park I selected was the transbay terminal. At the bottom, lots of buses! But there’s also a magnificent park on the top floor that has lots of beautiful greenery to enjoy, and tables and chairs to enjoy a meal. We packed a picnic lunch of some of our favorite snack foods and while it wasn’t exactly a peaceful picnic with two little kids, it was effective and fun. While we were there we also took the little gondola ride from the street level up to the park. It strikes me as a bit of a silly thing thing, but we enjoyed it and the operator was really friendly and shared facts about the park.
Thanksgiving dinner itself was what has become our usual here in California, we picked up food to be heated up from a local diner about 90 minutes before dinner. It’s a pretty basic Thanksgiving dinner, but it’s easy and we all seem to enjoy it. This year our au pair joined us for dinner, along with one of her friends who didn’t have other plans for the day. It was a really nice evening.
Friday we went to the local Japanese Gardens before heading out to eat at our favorite local restaurant, and then made “rainbow challah” with some food coloring. After enjoying rainbow challah french toast, Saturday we kind of got back into our usual routine of outings and meals.
Sunday we made a gingerbread house! Which Aaron chomped on during construction, which I tried to stop him from at first, but then I just found it to be funny and appropriate, so the patching we had to do to compensate for the holes became part of the fun. That evening we also put up some blue and white lights for the holidays.
In other fun kiddo things, Aaron broke my glasses, and so I needed new glasses. I went a little throwback with these ones to get some sturdy solid-rim ones like I used to wear. They’re not exciting, but I’m hoping they hold up to a little abuse from the boys. I’ll also try to be a bit more careful.
In fun project-y things, I mentioned my SPARC project in a previous post, I haven’t made progress on that but I did find a lot of SLT/MST circuit boards on eBay and since I really like them for jewelry and they’re getting harder to find, I snatched them up.
Given my love for 3d-printed mainframe models, I also picked up an IBM postcard featuring a miniature IBM s/360 display that was built around the launch that makes my little models look even more like toys!
I am still struggling to find a balance between work, family, rest, and hobbies. I feel a bit sad when I’m not making things, but I also have discovered how tremendously important sleep is to being a fully present parent for our boys. I doubt there is a balance, but I do want to get to a place where I’m more satisfied with the decisions I’m making about my time.