The weekend after we returned from our trip to Atlantic City epitomized why we spend our summers in Philadelphia: the ability to spend casual time with family. On Saturday we spent the evening with some of MJ’s older cousins at their apartment in New Jersey. We ordered pizza and had a nice evening of catching […]
Archive for the ‘family’ Category
Atlantic City Waves
August 6th, 2026 by pleia2
While we’re spending our summers in Philadelphia, we try to do one east coast adventure where we take some time off from work. Last year we took a road trip up to Boston and southern Maine. This year we went back to Atlantic City! The last time we went was a couple years ago over […]
Cars, camp, and celebrating the 4th of July with Big Boy and where it all happened
July 22nd, 2026 by pleia2
The 4th of July weekend sort of began on Friday, July 3rd when I had the day off from work. Aaron was concluding his Nature-based day camp, and MJ and I had a rare Adam-only day on our hands. Unfortunately, the weather had been scorchingly hot, with temperatures reaching 100F and the heat index soaring […]
Philly Typewriter and a Minecraft museum crawl before Father’s Day
July 7th, 2026 by pleia2
Our Philly summer began on Monday, June 15th with our cross-country flight. We brought Zara long, since six weeks was much too long to leave her with a pet sitter, but I was really nervous about how she’d handle the flight. Most cats do just fine, Caligula even made the journey when he was quite […]
Cherries and a Northern California Safari
June 30th, 2026 by pleia2
The final weeks we were in California before heading to Philadelphia for the rest of the summer was spent cherry picking, going on a safari, and checking out a local beach! But first we had a visit to the vet with Zara. She’s been doing great! But hadn’t been to the vet since concluding her […]
Kicking off California Summer
June 22nd, 2026 by pleia2
I returned from the Open Source Summit just in time for Memorial Day weekend, which was also the beginning of the last week of school for the boys before summer break. Saturday of Memorial Day weekend was spent doing errands, but one of those errands was going to REI and buying a couple cots that […]
Work travel side quests
June 1st, 2026 by pleia2
A little over a week ago I returned from two back-to-back work trips. With one of them ending on a Thursday and the next not until Sunday, I considered flying from Atlanta back home to San Francisco, and then back out again to Minneapolis, but timing and cost-wise, even with additional nights in hotels, that […]
Space, t-ball, fire and making a bunch of holes in the wall
May 13th, 2026 by pleia2
We’ve had busy kiddo schedules lately. Aaron has t-ball practice on Monday evening and games on Saturday morning. Both boys have swim class every Tuesday evening and religious school every Sunday morning. I know it doesn’t sound like a lot, but after a full week of work/school, having weekly obligations like this (which also include […]
Spring break and Passover in Philly
April 15th, 2026 by pleia2
At the end of March we all hopped on a plane to head to Philadelphia for an extended (2 week) spring break! We flew out on Friday, so we were able to attend a birthday for their cousin Sam. The birthday party took place at an large indoor playground with all kinds of fun stuff […]
CPOSC 0x10
March 31st, 2026 by pleia2
This past Saturday MJ and I piled the boys into the van for a 90 minute drive out to Lancaster for the Central Pennsylvania Open Source Conference (CPOSC), which was celebrating it’s 16th annual-ish event (hence, 0x10). It was my fourth time attending this event, having been in 2009 before I moved out to California, […]