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Thanksgiving weekend adventures and more IBM s390x trinkets

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 […]

Date at the BART HMC, local fall festivities, and my SPARC

Several weeks ago a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) board meeting was held at the BART Hayward Maintenance Complex. I’d never been to a BART board meeting before, but the chance to visit the maintenance complex was too good to pass up, and I RSVPed for MJ and myself as soon as I saw it. […]

Halloween 2022

These past two years have been unusual for a lot of reasons, but Halloween was notable because it’s a holiday that is incredibly memorable and social for kids. The pandemic meant very muted celebrations, and either none, or limited, trick-or-treating. As things ease up this year and kids become fully vaccinated, we finally got a […]

Holidays, 41st birthday, and friends

The end of September was a bit of a whirlwind. The Jewish high holy days always land around that time, I have my birthday, and at work we’re winding down from the busiest time of the year (especially true this year!). When we got back from Philadelphia, we immediately paused to observe Rosh Hashanah. We’re […]

We finally made it back to Philly

We celebrated the arrival of 2020 with nearly one year old Adam and our extended family at my father-in-law’s house. There were hats and fireworks on TV and simply enjoying each other’s company. A couple days later we flew back to California and had no idea what 2020 would bring. Turns out, it would bring […]

Cake, cars, and work

As I mentioned in my previous post, we were sick a lot in August. But there were days here and there that weren’t so difficult. In the middle of the month, we were all doing a lot better and attended the wedding of our first au pair. She met her now husband right before the […]

Our house fell to COVID-19

We’re not yet sure how it happened. We were masking indoors, avoiding indoor dining and crowded areas, and not traveling. Still, on a Saturday evening a few weeks ago our au pair started feeling sick and took a COVID test. It was positive. MJ and I immediately ones of our own, his was positive, mine […]

Our weekend routine, car seats, and vaccines

Life with young kids is always changing. It feels like we struggle to plan anything more than a few months out because their preferences change, or we discover someone gets car sick, or some new COVID wave sweeps through. Still, we did manage to fall into a nice weekend routine these past few months that […]

A birthday, an anniversary, and some house stuff

Adam recently concluded preschool for the school year, and toward the end he received an invitation to a pool and splash pad birthday party at a public outdoor venue. Birthday parties are a big childhood thing he’s missed out on thus far due to COVID-19, so given that it was a classmate who he was […]

Cooking together and a parade

Adam and I have been doing a lot of baking lately. Sometimes it’s making Challah or banana bread from scratch on a quiet afternoon, or blueberry muffins from a mix, or just taking pre-made cookie dough out of the refrigerator and dropping it on a baking pan. Along with art, this has been a really […]