Fortunately, the snow returned couple times during our trip, even though one storm fizzled out a bit and turned to ice. The boys enjoyed cleaning ice off the car and shoveling the driveway. I’m glad someone did!

Then on New Year’s Day we woke up to more snow! It wasn’t much in any of these little storms, but it was enough for them to have fun running around in and throwing snowballs, and that was plenty for them.

We made it downtown twice this trip, the first was on the last day of Hanukkah when we went to City Hall to visit the Christmas Village open air market. Notably, they have a stall that sells vegan cannoli, which means once a year MJ can enjoy them. Coming down the weekend before Christmas meant that it was pretty packed though, and the crowds made it a bit difficult to really enjoy. The boys would have liked to go on the carousel but none of us would have enjoyed the lines to get tickets AND to ride it. We ended up going over to a nearby pizzeria for lunch instead of fighting crowds at the on-site eatery, and then made our way over to The Wanamaker Building to stand in line for the Christmas light show.

Wanamaker’s has an interesting history. Founded in 1861, Wanamaker’s was one of the first department stores in the United States, and made several innovations in the realm of retail. After changing hands, the brand finally saw an end in 1995 when it was turned into a Hecht’s, and in 2006 it was turned into a Macy’s. Macy’s closed in the spring of 2025, leaving the building vacant. In spite of changing hands, Macy’s kept up a Wanamaker tradition of a free Christmas light show, and it was believed that as the era of department stores came to a close, so would that tradition. The building is a historic landmark, so there are limitations as to what can be done with it, but there was never a guarantee that new owners would allow open public access like the department stores had. Fortunately, they decided to keep up the tradition of the light show for at least one more year in 2025, and we finally got to enjoy the vintage light show that MJ had enjoyed when he was a kid. The future of this light show is uncertain as the building closes for a couple years for renovations by the new owners, so I was glad that we got to see it.

We also learned that there was a Dickens Village upstairs that I hear included vintage animatronic figures as you walk through the story of A Christmas Carol, but it required free, timed tickets that were sold out for the day. They also had an indoor market, which due to capacity tracking in the building was a much more pleasant experience than the outdoor market and we picked up a few things. From there, we hopped on the train and headed home.

We waited until after Christmas to do some of our bigger shopping, like our stops at Ikea and the King of Prussia Mall, but the mall was still a bit of a mad house. In spite of the demise of shopping malls in the United States, King of Prussia is thriving, and growing. For this visit, we had a little shopping to do, and while we were there we had lunch at Netflix House Philadelphia. Netflix House is the latest in “experiences” popping up in malls, amusingly in places like the aforementioned vacant department stores. Netflix House has a diner-like restaurant and bar where the dishes are all themed based on shows and movies from Netflix, and then you go downstairs to huge displays that reflect their various hit shows and movies, and a free theater (with timed ticket) featuring some of their movies. Of course there’s a very busy gift shop, and then paid activities like a VR experience , mini-golf, and a Wednesday-themed carnival and arcade. The mini-golf was sold out for more than a week, and even with those tickets there was a line to get in.

I love this trend. Like most people, we do a lot of shopping online now, and the loss of traditional department stores has not been much of a loss to us. The joke with Macy’s downtown going out of business last year was: “Such a beautiful location, but I haven’t been to there in years.” “No one has, that’s why it closed.” But sold out experiences at Netflix House? That’s what we want now. So much so that it’s the place I suggested meeting up with my friend Stephen who happened to be in town for the holidays too! It was still winter break for students, but it was a weekday and the place was still packed, just like when our whole family went over the weekend. I think during our next trip we’ll check out Bluey House in Plymouth Meeting.

My second visit downtown was on our final week there. I took a couple early morning work meetings and then packed up my work laptop to hop on a train with our au pair and the boys. SEPTA Regional Rail is nice for working on and I’d queued up a bunch of work that would be easy to do in-transit, which worked out nicely. Once we arrived at Suburban Station, it was a quick walk over to The Franklin Institute, where we all got tickets and I got the three of them settled into their museum adventures. I then walked over to Parkway Central Library next door. You see, I learned from a podcast a couple months ago that Grip the raven resides there, in their Rare Books Department. Grip was once the pet of Charles Dickens’ and was made immortal by his novel Barnaby Rudge. Edgar Allan Poe was a reviewer of the novel, and it’s said that the presence of Grip in the book, as well as a subsequent meeting with Dickens and learning that Grip was a real bird, was an inspiration for his most famous poem, The Raven. Quite the bird! I had to meet her.

I also had the pleasure of arriving in time for the daily 11AM tour of the Rare Books Department itself. Among various other treasures, I saw a real page from a Gutenberg Bible and a writing desk that once was owned by Charles Dickens. Just across from the Rare Books Department they also had an exhibit about death called Or Not to Be which is what actually drew me to come down and visit Grip on a work day, rather than waiting until our next trip. It was a nice little exploration.

I then spent a couple hours working there in the library before meeting up with them at The Franklin to do a late lunch and check out a science show. It was then back to work for me, while the kids spent a bit more time at the museum before taking a 4PM train back home.

And of course, we spent a bunch of time with family. The boys got to visit with grandpa a bunch of times, including a couple of nice meals together. The boys got to enjoy some visits with their cousin Sammy and Aunt Irina. Our trip also included a jaunt over to New Jersey for lunch with a cousin, and then some time visiting with her husband at their house where we ate diner cupcakes (the BEST), MJ diagnosed a problem with her TV, and the boys enjoyed playing with their power lift recliner. MJ and I even were able to go out for a couple of nice meals together on our own, including a very nice dinner downtown at Buddakan. I also spent one evening on my own to finally see Wicked: For Good in the theater, which was quite a treat.

Back at home got to do lots of Lego, play with the Hanukkah train, and we made a little progress on some house projects. I also ended up with an infection that made me a lot more tired than I expected halfway through our trip. I was recovering from a sinus infection when we arrived, and ended up with a secondary, antibiotic-resistant infection elsewhere in my body just a few days after I concluded the round of antibiotics I had been on from the sinus infection. I actually thought I was just tired from all our adventures, birthdays, and holiday stuff, so I blamed my brain when I melted into the couch while MJ worked on things with the boys over the weekend. A visit to Urgent Care on Monday and a pile of tests proved that the pain I had developed that day was indeed an infection. Time for a second round of antibiotics! Somewhat amusingly, I had just begun reading Everything is Tuberculosis, and the irony of reading a book that spends a lot of time talking about antibiotic resistance while fighting off an antibiotic-resistent infection myself was not lost on me. And both also made me acutely aware of how fragile we are in this arms race with bacteria and infections. Thankfully, my infection was uncomplicated and this round of antibiotics knocked it out in a few days and I was feeling a lot better by the time we traveled home on January 8th.

I also had the unfortunate situation of battling a sinus infection while figuring out the answers to all these questions. I always forget how painful those are, and how debilitating the sinus headaches can be. My stomach also didn’t respond to the antibiotics very well this time. Oof. When I say this was a doozy of a holiday season, I hope you get where I’m coming from. We figured it out though!

First: Prep! I’ve already written that we put up lights and decorations, and set up the model trail that we set up for Hanukkah. I realize that Christmas holiday glitter has infiltrated our Hanukkah quite a bit with all of this, but I love holiday glitter and this is just how it’s going to be in our house. Besides, Christmas got the glitter from solstice celebrations. It’s fair all game.

1st Night

To kick off Hanukkah we invited Rebeca over to celebrate with us, and so she could be around for the boys opening the present from her.

I also sent MJ and the boys out earlier in the day to hunt for some jelly doughnuts so we could enjoy a sufganiyot-ish treat this first evening.

2nd Night

Dreidels, gelt, and Hanukkah art!

A latke and an menorah, by Aaron

The boys were relatively self-sufficient with their playing with the dreidels this year, which was fun, aside from the inevitable fights that broke out over strategic dropping rather than spinning of the dreidel to get the desired outcome, hah! They both got the hang of spinning it though.

3rd Night

Around 3:30 in the afternoon, a collision occurred on Interstate 580 near our house that caused a car to be inexplicably vaulted from the flat bed of a tow truck to the BART train tracks that reside in the middle of the highway. It’s incredibly bizarre, I hope details are released at some point as to what they believe happened because it would be fascinating to know how it was even possible (update). The one thing we do know is that it it caused a traffic NIGHTMARE all evening. Adam was scheduled to meet with the leads of a program he’s been enrolled in to celebrate his graduation, and they were a full 90 minutes late – for a 90 minute visit. Still, they made it and we got to celebrate!

Alas, a family friend who was scheduled to come by did rethink her visit into that traffic nightmare. That meant that the latkes I was preparing (recipe here) for her visit had one fewer person to feed, and it was a bit of an anticlimactic conclusion to my latke preparation. Aaron and I really enjoyed them though! And MJ was able to enjoy some leftovers before we left for Philly.

That evening the boys had a lot of fun listening to the news helicopters fly overhead, and following the news about the car on the BART tracks, including watching a live broadcast as the rescue truck with a crane lifted the car off the tracks.

I enjoyed my third night of Hanukkah beer with my latkes and apple sauce.

4th Night

Packing for our trip, and managing a chaotic week that included work, taking the cat to two different specialists, and an emergency dermatologist appointment for Aaron who has a knee wound that’s taking longer than expected to heal. We did presents and lights and it was lovely, but I didn’t take pictures because the evening was a lot.

5th Night

On to Philadelphia! My solution to in-flight Hanukkah was giving the boys a couple gifts on the plane that they could use on the plane. So they each got to enjoy a new game for the Nintendo Switch. Aaron got a Bluey game and Adam got a Cars game that he’d been eyeing at a game shop in Hayward, that MJ had the foresight to pick up as a Hanukkah gift.

When we finally got to the townhouse in Philly, we lit the candles for the fifth night and munched on our quick dinner picked up from Wawa. Then it was straight to bed!

6th Night

I phoned it in with present wrapping this night because while I had presents available to give the boys, I had a busy day at work and zero time to wrap presents. After going out for dinner, we lit the candles and the boys got to open the presents I had tossed into a gift bag with some tissue paper on top. Voila! Everyone was happy.

7th Night

Things were a bit more together today, but it helped that it was a weekend. Lights were lit, and Aaron got his favorite present of the holiday: a really simple ice cream maker. He’s been talking about it for over a month, and has kept talking about it, so he really seems to be enjoying it.

8th Night

We spent the day downtown, and then joined grandpa, his aunt Irina, and cousin Sammy for lighting the candles the final night. With our menorahs full of candles, it was great to have family over, and we all had an enjoyable evening.

And thus concludes Hanukkah for the year! Now that I’ve done the split coast thing once, I think I’m in a much better position to continue it when the need next arises, but with it landing in early December in 2026, this probably won’t be that year. Thank goodness.

Still, I love birthdays! We celebrated as a family together on Sunday, the day before my actual birthday.

And in spite of both of us having too much on our plate at work and a bunch of travel coming up, I convinced MJ to take my actual birthday off so we could celebrate by going on an adventure together.

Alas, it didn’t quite go the way I had hoped. First, I learned that the Boardwalk is only open on weekends now, so no rides! And in spite of my day off, I had an early morning meeting to attend, and so did MJ. And then I had to take Zara into the vet for an appointment at 9AM. We didn’t end up leaving the house until after 11 for the 80 minute drive down. The final wrench in our plans came when we realized that it was the only time we’d have all week to talk to potential au pairs, so our day wound down with 3 hours of au pair interviews lined up, taken from the car in Santa Cruz. I tried not to feel too disappointed by all this. We have a busy, complicated life with demanding careers, and sometimes it really is too much to ask to drop everything and go to the beach. C’est la vie.

But we still had some fun!

First was a stop at The Mystery Spot. The bumper stickers for The Mystery Spot are ubiquitous in northern California, but I never thought much about the actual place until I heard an episode of the podcast Lore a few months ago: Lore 261: Attraction. Among the roadside attractions covered in the episode was The Mystery Spot, and although everything about it is ridiculous, I knew it was a tourist trap I had to visit some day. How about on my birthday?

And it was 100% ridiculous, but for $10 a ticket, I couldn’t really complain. The guide was in good spirits and treats you to a series of optical illusions throughout your tour, explaining that it’s supernatural in origin, but I think we’re all in on it. They have tour participants stand in various spots and experience things in the crooked house that make it look like you’re defying gravity. It can be a little nausea-inducing as your brain gets confused by the illusions, but it’s mostly some good fun. At the end of the hour long tour they give you a bumper sticker.

From there, it was off to lunch! We drove down to the Santa Cruz municipal wharf and got parking near the restaurant, Stagnaro Bros. Seafood which hit the spot for some yummy fried seafood and a local IPA.

We then took a little walk and a call at the wharf before going to sit down by the boardwalk for a half hour or so to just take in the ocean view until our next call.

Our final stop before driving home was Pacific Cookie Company, where I got a decadent chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwich that I couldn’t finish.

Most of all, it was just nice to get a day together as just the two of us. We need more of that.

I thought that was the end of my birthday adventures, but I was surprised when a few friends I met in my Ubuntu days happened to be in Orlando at the same time as I was for IBM TechXchange. Michael, Michelle, and Laura and her husband were in town for a big Disney trip! We made plans the Wednesday I was in town for dinner at the Polynesian resort at Disney World, and we all celebrated my birthday there.

It was delightful. We ate amazing food, watched fireworks, and they even got me birthday cupcakes.

I learned that you can take the monorail even if you’re not doing Disney, and my friends asked the train operator if I could get a look in the front cab, and I got to sit there as he gave me the 30 second tour of the controls.

Our evening concluded with the signature drink from Enchanted Rose Lounge at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort. It was tempting to do the Disney World Monorail Bar Crawl, where you stop everywhere for a drink, but after three days of conferencing, I was more inclined to just go back to my hotel room to get some rest. Maybe next time!

So here we are at 44. Onward and upwards.

Their former au pair, Rebeca, made them signs!

But the summer season wasn’t over yet! The final week of our local swim lagoon being opened lasted a couple weeks past the start of school, so our au pair took the boys one Friday afternoon after school. I tagged along with my work laptop in case she needed help with anything (she didn’t!) and so I could soak up some of the summer weather too inside the beach tent with my laptop.

After being dormant last year following some necessary, but invasive, pruning our plum tree is back this year with lots of plums! The boys have been helping me pick and eat them, and we grabbed a couple pounds to once again make some of our annual plum jam.

And then we picked a bunch of apples from the apple tree and I made apple butter for the first time. I used this recipe and would probably let it cook a bit longer to thicken it up more next time, but I think it came out really nicely. Next time I’ll also need to be more careful with my arm while chopping 5lbs of tiny apples, my elbow has been howling for days. I also need to figure out more things to do with apple butter, but so far putting it on toasted challah and waffles have both been winning approaches.

Our weekends have been rather laid back this month, one Saturday was particularly so when a transformer exploded down the street, plunging our whole neighborhood into an outage for nearly 20 hours. The explosion was so bad that it took out part of the top of the pole, there was a visible flame for about 20 minutes, and the fire department came by with a truck to close off the area until the power company arrived. Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be any other damage, and with a trickle from our solar panels (cloud day!) our Powerwalls remained charged enough to get us through the day. We were still careful about usage (oh no, I can’t do laundry or use the oven!) and it was cool enough that we didn’t need the air conditioning, but overall it was very nice to be able to get through almost a day of outage without it impacting our lives much.

We spent that Sunday afternoon in San Francisco to visit the new Nintendo store. MJ accurately described it as “a Disney store, but for Nintendo” and I was totally in love. On weekends they still have a line outside to make sure the store doesn’t get too packed, but it moved along quickly and we were able to pick up some goodies. Adam and I also got to play Mario Kart World on a massive screen, which was a ton of fun. Going with the boys was certainly a delight, especially with how much Adam loves Mario Kart, but I also snuck back a few days later to peruse things myself more slowly and buy a few things I had left behind.

In boring house stuff, we’ve been doing a lot of planning to get our storage situation more under control. We own some storage space in San Francisco, and are hoping to get that organized so we can begin to use that more effectively and empty out the garage a bit. It’s slow going, but honestly we just need to start chipping away at it. It was nice to discover a wire rack we had never opened while at the storage unit though, it fit perfectly in one of our closets here and meant I could get to work on some of that organization without buying anything, hurrah! I’ve also been working through a bunch of little tasks around the house, like changing filters, replacing a light bulb outside (more complicated than it sounds!), and replacing the steering wheel on Adam’s favorite fire truck toy. I’ll give myself a “C” on the fire truck fix, it works but I could have done better.

We also welcomed MJ’s friend Matti over for a few days this month. The boys really enjoyed seeing her, and she was kind enough to stay with the boys one night so MJ and I could take a little parent vacation at a hotel in the city. We hardly ever (never?) get away together for more than a meal, partially due to some family circumstances, but largely just a habit that was developed because we had young children during a pandemic. We really should find a way to make this happen more often.

That Saturday she was visiting was also Castro Valley Cruise Night, our annual event where classic car enthusiasts are invited to town to cruse up and down the Boulevard. I talk a lot about how much I love the events our town hosts, and this is one of the best. So many people come out, and we all love cars so it’s always such a pleasure to spend a little time at. Plus, we can easily walk there because we live downtown! So we walked over to dinner, and then leisurely walked home to enjoy the cars at sunset.

August wasn’t all roses though. Part of the reason we’ve been doing more chill weekends was because MJ injured his finger quiet badly while doing some household repairs a couple weeks ago, and the boys have been simply exhausted with their new school schedule. Adam has longer days, and Aaron is going to school every day now (instead of his previous M,W,F preschool schedule). It’s leading to a bit more grumpiness than we’re used to, and it’s clear the boys have really missed having time to just relax to TV or video games. Going on adventures is grand, but some days the heart just wants a whole lot of Minecraft and Bluey.

I’d say this was our first proper Great American Road Trip with the kids. They’d done an hour or two here and there, and three hours when we drove from Hollywood Beach to Melbourne, Florida over Thanksgiving, but this was a six+ hour trip. We wanted to stop and visit Boston and MJ’s best friend Matti, and then we’d continue up to Maine to see my sister and nephew, and show the kids where I grew up.

We drove up to Boston on a Wednesday, and made pretty decent time up to Boston in spite of a little traffic and the required potty/meal breaks. At one point we stopped at a Target to pick up some supplies. We made a final stop for fast food in Boston in the late evening and eventually got to our hotel. We did adjoining rooms again, but it was an extended stay style hotel so the rooms were larger and had pull out couches instead of the full multiple beds like we’ve done in the past. It also had a kitchen, which came in pretty handy for washing water bottles and keeping our fruit and leftovers chilled in a real refrigerator. The first night I slept with the boys while they got used to the room, but by the second night I was able to convince them to sleep on their own with the connecting room doors open in case they needed us (or just got scared), and we brought their audio baby monitors for an added level of support. It worked out well.

Our first day in Boston was spent going on their first MBTA subway rides!

We met up with Matti and took the subway over to the Boston Museum of Science. Growing up in Maine, this was basically the closest science museum to us, so it was where our Girl Scout troops did our adventures at, I remember sleeping there at least once (maybe twice?). I have a ton of memories from there, and it had been years since I’d been back. It was a real delight to bring the boys there.

I had hoped that going on a weekday would mean the shows wouldn’t be as crowded, but the Tesla coil demo was already filled up a full 15 minutes before the show, and the 3D movie shows were mostly booked for pre-registered school groups. Still, we had a lot of fun. Aaron’s love of animals drew him into the natural history exhibit and drawers full of specimens, from fur to beetles to bones.

Adam’s more mechanical inclinations had him chasing lights and motors. They both enjoyed the dinosaurs and the Boston Dynamics robot.

The next day we took the other two subway lines (we hit all 4!) and for a visit to the New England Aquarium. Once again, this was the aquarium from my childhood, but the last time I was th/images/journalpics/072025/mtba_subway_fam.jpgere was actually in 2019 when Adam was a baby and we were in town for a conference. My mother, sister, and nephew came down to visit and we had a lovely day together.

It was really fun to meet up with Matti again and go with MJ and the boys. The aquarium was a bit lean on sharks, much to Aaron’s disappointment, but they both love penguins and this is a good aquarium for them.

We split our aquarium visit in half, taking a break for lunch and playground mid-day and then returning to see the rest of it later in the afternoon.

We also got ice cream, during which time the boys insisted upon getting soft serve ice cream from a truck, while the adults partook in Ben & Jerry’s. Yum.

The next morning it was off to Maine! MJ had a few car parts for the trailer hitch we couldn’t complete in Pennsylvania shipped up to Matti’s house, so he collected those in the morning and we got on the road around midday. I was thrilled to be on our way up to Maine, but the boys are real city kiddos and they loved spending time in Boston. We’ll definitely have to make the trip up again in the coming years, but this visit was a great start.

What’s for dinner? A lobster roll, of course! I ended up at The Barking Crab where I enjoyed a blueberry wheat beer, some steamers (clams), and my glorious lobster roll with fries and coleslaw. I was seated in a 2-person table right by the water, which with the lovely spring weather, made the whole experience basically perfect.

That evening I also stopped by L.L. Bean because the perfect weather was threatening not to last, and I had a baseball game to go to the next day. I picked up some quick-drying hiking pants that I wouldn’t have to worry about getting wet, and a rain coat that I needed anyway and had been wanting to buy for a while. I also walked over to some more touristy areas to pick up some gifts for the boys.

Saturday morning was the most chill time I’ve spent in a long time. I slept in, enjoyed the hotel pool, spent some time reading and playing video games. That allowed me to leisurely get ready for my journey to Fenway Park for a baseball game. I took the MBTA regional rail to a station that was about a 20 minute walk from Fenway, and the lovely walk took me through a park. The stadium took me by surprise, I was just walking down the street and suddenly it was in front of me!

I walked around to get a feel for the area, and then went in side to enjoy the pre-game Taco and Tequila Fest that I had tickets to. If I were to do it again, I’m not sure I would have done that part because it was a bit boring to do by myself, and there was a fair amount of milling around as we waited for the rest of the stadium to open so we could get to our seats.

I had good seats, and there was an empty one next to me which was nice. The weather ended up being absolutely perfect for an evening game, with the threatened rain not making an appearance. It was just warm and lovely. And it was a great game, with the Red Sox trailing for most of the game but pulling off a win against the Braves in the end! Plus, I got to see a home run sail over the green monster and out of the park, and the Braves have former Athletics players Matt Olson and Sean Murphy so it was nice to see them play again, even if I was rooting against them.

The journey back to the hotel was noteworthy for me because it was my first time riding the subway in Boston and it was completely overflowing with baseball fans leaving the park. They were running a lot of trains, but it was still a squished ride back. I took two subways and then a bus which put me quite close to my hotel, and it was all pretty easy to navigate. Thanks, Boston!

Sunday morning I took a walk down to the Boston Tea Party Museum for a 10:45AM tour. I was lucky to be on the tour with a small group and so we all got our hands on the “tea boxes” to throw off the boat and could ask questions. Throwing things off a boat because we’re mad at the government over import taxes felt very appropriate right now. I really enjoyed the downstairs walk through of the tea party story as well, they made really fun use of projectors and other tech to make the whole experience quite immersive. We’ll have to take the boys some time.

From there it was over to enjoy lobster roll number 2, this time at James Hook & Co where you ordered from a truck and then sat down in their outside patio. Continued nice weather made this a lovely lunch, though I did prefer the food the day before. My walk back to the hotel included a stop for ice cream, and then I swung by the conference center to pick up my badge before things got busy on Monday. I had a relaxing evening, and then popped downstairs when I got a message from a colleague about a few folks who had gathered in the lobby to say hello for an hour or so.

My week was spent at the Red Hat Summit and on Thursday I had a late check-out which allowed me to take it easy and then have a late lunch (and lobster roll number 3) nearby. But a spring nor’easter was coming through, and the rain was coming down in buckets. I’m grateful I decided to take my tourist days before the event rather than at the end, because it would have been very disappointing otherwise! Even as it was, I got to the airport rather early because I had nowhere to be late on Saturday afternoon and my flight was ultimately delayed due to the weather. A rainy end to my trip, but rain is lovely once I’m out of it.

Thankfully, once my delayed flight took off the journey home was uneventful, and I was able to rest at home on Friday.

1. To make me feel better about our home, rather than “argh, it’s always a mess!”
2. To make it easier for me to complete tasks, less “where is that form for school?” and “where is that 9 inch baking pan?”

And with the overarching goal of bringing back a bit of control to my life and feel less overwhelmed, which I’ve been struggling with lately.

I’m happy to say that I’ve been largely successful so far. I came up with a system for the kids so their school stuff isn’t just all over the place, and it’s easy to stay disciplined about putting away their papers and returning things on time. I also did some under counter organization, which has been incredibly useful so far, and we’ve kept it up for a few weeks!

I joked that it’s funny that I’m “so old” that under counter organization excites me, but honestly, I’ve always been like this.

In other house news, the TV in our au pair’s room died recently. MJ was feeling industrious, so he bought a set of boards for that model online and did a project with Adam to replace them. Success! I feel a little bad that my first inclination was to buy a new TV because they’re so inexpensive, but replacing the board in them was even less expensive in terms of cash, they had fun doing it, and it kept one more TV out of a landfill.

As life continues to chug along, it’s noteworthy that eggs are very expensive right now. Bird flu has decimated chicken flocks for months and no end in sight. With federal efforts that would help that come to a conclusion being dismantled by a fiercely pro-business, anti-health federal government I’m concerned it won’t get better any time soon. Our local grocery store got to $15.99 for 18 eggs before I finally decided to haul myself over to Costco one morning (before they sell out for the day) to grab two dozen for $8.99. It’s still on the expensive side (California always is) but even for here the situation was getting a bit out of hand.

I’ve continued taking Tuesday evenings for myself. In early January I went to San Francisco to see Nosferatu at the AMC Metreon. I pre-gamed by watching the original Nosferatu from 1922, and I’m very glad I did. It is the same story, but the new one has some really great nods to the original and some beautiful scene recreations. The movie was beautiful and well-acted, and I didn’t find it too gory. It also doesn’t have the cheap jump-scares that are so popular in horror now, and which I don’t like. I want my horror to be beautiful and nightmare inducing, but I don’t want to feel anxious about it while I’m sitting there watching it. This movie really hit the mark. I also saw Flow at our local theater, and finally saw Wicked! Another Tuesday evening I decided to go swimming at nearby Hayward Plunge, which has a $5 drop-in rate. That was a lot of fun, I love to swim and I’ve been looking for an outlet. Other evening activities for myself have included going to the library and reading, which satisfies my desire to have a calm evening to recharge. I have some San Francisco dinners with friends queued up after our spring break trip to Philly, which I’m looking forward to as well.

We observed Purim recently, which sadly got interrupted by Aaron having a cold that came with a side order of fever. That meant we had to avoid the event at the synagogue we’ve been hoping to go to more, but we did make Hamantashen! It was a smaller batch than previous years and we only did cherry filling, but everyone seemed happy with it and the boys had fun making it.

Since we were home for the sick kiddo weekend, we spent some time finally putting some more paintings up around the house. It’s nice seeing things come together, and finally starting to free up some space in the garage.

And then I promptly put a car in the garage. It wasn’t planned, but MJ’s 2000 Alero hasn’t been doing great lately. We had to recondition the battery recently after I neglected to take it out for a drive for a few weeks (oops). Once the battery was healthy again, I took it out for a jaunt to the car wash and grocery store, and didn’t make it past the entrance to the car wash. I put down the window to pay for the car wash, and heard a clunk. The window had fallen into the door. Unfortunately, it’s a relatively expensive fix, and with the overall condition of the car and usefulness to us, we made the sad decision that it was time to say goodbye. It’ll be a few weeks until we can actually part ways, so it’s basically taking up all the free space in the garage until then. It’s been amusingly weird having a car in the garage.

The following weekend everyone was feeling much better just in time for Monster Jam in Oakland. I’ve never had any interest in monster trucks, but Aaron really likes them and I thought it might be a fun thing to do with the boys. We weren’t sure how they’d react to how loud it was, but we came prepared with noise dampening headphones. And indeed they did have fun! I could have passed on it honestly, which is funny because so far my own interests have been quite aligned with the boys, and this was definitely a departure. It was nice to be able to take BART there though and not have to worry about parking.

Tomorrow we’re off to Philadelphia for spring break. Our house sitter gets to try her hand at keeping our new house tree alive while we’re gone, but I think she’s up to the task. In fact, given my track record with house plants, it may even be healthier once we return.

Because of how it moves around on the Gregorian calendar, there is always a chance that we’ll be spending part or all of Hanukkah in Philadelphia over the winter school break. It presented an interesting challenge, how do we give the big gifts like their new bikes if the bikes are in California during Hanukkah? And for smaller things, do we just plan on bringing a bunch of gifts home instead of keeping them at our vacation home? We got creative, and brought along an extra suitcase just in case we ended up bringing things home (we did!).

Now, one of the things about winter break is that the kids are home from school, so we revisited our summer strategies of keeping them occupied. During this two and a half week trip, our au pair also decided to take some much deserved vacation over New Years and so that left us with most of Hanukkah just the four of us, and nearby family. This year it began on the evening of Christmas, and with most things closed the boys and I got to work on making a bunch of sugar cookies from my family recipe. We quickly discovered that we don’t own a rolling pin (our supplies are rather limited there) so we used a water bottle. The cookies came out great, I forgot how much I like them. I ate a bunch.

For dinner MJ and I got Wawa hoagies and I tried my hand at making latkes. We purchased a food processor a few days before so I wouldn’t have to manually shred potatoes and onions like I did last time when I made them in California. What I didn’t think about much was oil, so I just used what I had: vegetable oil. I came to regret that decision. Turns out, using vegetable oil for latkes makes them cook much too quickly and I ended up with burned latkes, only a few of them were even edible. It also filled the house with an oil smell that lasted for hours. Thankfully, my second attempt at the tail end of Hanukkah was much more successful with Canola oil and lots of ventilation.

Also, we discovered that Aaron loves latkes.

We did some Hanukkah crafts, including a table runner that the boys enjoyed coloring and putting up some small lights around the house.

The boys fell in love with sparklers over the summer, so I joked about and then produced “Hanukkah sparklers” which we played with in the snow on the second night, which is also the night they were treated by grandpa coming over and doing gifts with them. This year we also gave Adam the opportunity to help with candles, which he was really excited about.

Of course the Hanukkah train came out too! The boys are treated with year-around trains in Philly now that we have a Lego train that we put together over the summer, so we temporarily put that one away so we could enjoy the more traditional model train.

Next year there’s a good chance we’ll be splitting Hanukkah between coasts, so that will be an interesting one!

We were greeted with snow! The boys had seen flurries before, but they’d never actually had the opportunity to play in the snow, and that was remedied with this visit. They shoved a little, tried to ride their bikes in it, and delighted in throwing snowballs at me. I made the mistake of shoveling the driveway because I was worried about ice, and that set back my recovery by a couple days, but it didn’t tear anything, which I’m grateful for. It did end up being bitterly cold for several days though, and I’m glad we had recently bought some winter coats for them both.

I took the last week of the year off to enjoy Hanukkah, which I’ll write about later, and go on some adventures with the kids. The first was to Fonthill Castle in Doylestown. First we stopped for brunch at nearby Cross Keys Diner and it was absolutely perfect, it was everything I love about little Pennsylvania diners. Then it was off to the castle! I had been to the sister museum, Mercer Museum, a couple of times, including with the boys two years ago. The castle was a whole new experience. The museum is a winding path of all kinds of collected items from the early 20th century, including a lot of every day things, offering a real snapshot into life back then. The castle is where Henry Mercer actually lived, building what was a farmhouse into a castle of concrete. It’s just as strange and whimsical as the museum, which unexpected discoveries at every turn. We happened to pick up a children’s book about the castle when we were at the museum the last time, so we had some idea what to expect, and it was fun to match up the photos and drawings in the book with what we were seeing in person.

The whole place was absolutely fascinating. I loved how natural light was so effectively used in places like the library and map room, since electricity was still rather new and most rooms would have been lit by a single light bulb. In one room he had real cuneiform tablets built into the columns from thousands of years ago that he picked up on his adventures around the world. We also did a little hunt ourselves after MJ read a Hanukkah display that mentioned he had a menorah tile somewhere in the house – we found it, on the ceiling!

Aaron got a picture of his stuffed dog, also a purchase we made the last time we visited the museum, by Rollo’s Stairs, a series of stairs that the dog had run through and left his footprints in while the concrete was still drying.

Upon completion of our indoor exploration, we took some time to explore the grounds. One of the photos from the book had the tree-lined driveway pictured, so we took a nice stroll down the driveway to experience it.

It was probably the warmest day of our trip, so the boys also enjoyed running outside in the grass around the castle, which also allowed me to get a few more photos of the whole castle in all its glory.

Since both MJ and I had off on New Years’ Eve, we took the opportunity to hop on the regional train down to Philadelphia, an adventure the boys constantly ask for. Our first stop was to see the Ice Dinosaurs exhibit at the Academy of Natural Sciences. We love this museum and Aaron really loves dinosaurs, so we knew it was a must on our visit downtown. It was a hit with all of us!

From there, we took a bus over toward City Hall for lunch at Iron Hill Brewery, and then walked up Market street to visit The SEPTA store to pick up a bunch of transit goodies, and also look at their exhibits. They have a full size PCC trolley in the downstairs lobby, and also various small exhibits scattered around. In front of the store itself there are a couple of model train displays to enjoy. From there, we walked up to City Hall, which I’d never actually walked through before, and then visited the outdoor Holiday Market still going on. I am certain it has shrunk since Christmas, but there were still several booths still set up and the boys got to watch people ice skating. Now they really want to go ice skating. Plus, MJ found a cannoli with vegan filling, so he could eat it! Turns out, you can do just about anything with enough oil and sugar.

We filled the rest of the week with activities like free building with Lego, which it turns out Aaron really, really enjoys, and Adam and I finished our first Light My Bricks build, which was a lot of fun. We started with a small car we knew we could finish on our trip and took the other kits (R2-D2 and Tantive IV) home with us to California to work on them here.

The boys are also enamored with science kits, so they received a few of them from their grandpa for Hanukkah. One of them was a volcano experiment that had you first make the volcano and let it dry for a few days, and then use it for exciting eruptions!

And the Friday before we left was an exciting day: The release of “Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl” on Netflix in the US! The boys and I have been so excited about this, and watched all the other movies leading up to it in preparation. So first thing on Friday morning we all snuggled up on the couch and watched. I even paused for a little while to write about it on my fan site!

Our evening on Friday concluded with a final dusting of snow and dinner at our favorite Italian place in town, a beautiful conclusion to the trip and a nice distraction from all the house close up tasks we had the following morning.

For the trip home, I was four weeks post-op and thankfully had the ability to handle suitcases to a limited degree. The pain was definitely still there, but the flight didn’t add to it, and we all got home safely and on time.

It worked out really well, and on Saturday we were joined by our first au pair (who got married and stayed in the US), their second au pair (who is now going to school in the US) and their current au pair! Maybe next year we’ll do a birthday with other kids, but none of us were ready for that yet.

As requested, he had a cake with dark blue frosting and a Chase from Paw Patrol decorating theme.

And his au pairs brought him gifts, which is always fun.

He’s really grown up in these past few months. I think being in preschool is helping him, but generally he seems to have just really taken off conversationally. He’s also more strongly communicating his preference for things, like dinosaurs and drawing, so much drawing. I love the little person he’s growing into.

Beyond the birthday, December didn’t exactly unfold the way we expected. I had an emergency appendectomy the day before the party, which I’ll write about soon, and it knocked me out of commission until our trip to Philadelphia on the 18th. But before we left we made time to go over to our favorite donut shop, Rudy’s Donuts, which was closing for good. I’m really bummed, it was so good and we could walk there as a nice Saturday or Sunday adventure. But the owners are retiring and I that’s certainly a conclusion of business that I can respect. The news had gotten out about their pending closure though, and the weekend we went was the weekend before they closed and the line looped around inside the building! I can’t imagine how it was their final weekend.

As we packed for Philadelphia the boys got to pack their new Lego luggage! We picked the pair of suitcases up at Costco and they came with matching backpacks. This was the first trip where the boys would have their “own” luggage (what ended up in the bags was only partially theirs). In general, it was a success, though there were several times at the airport where they asked adults to pull them for a while.

The boys are growing up!