Halloween

Halloween preparations start with a pumpkin patch trip -

It appears the days of being excited by putting pumpkins in a wagon, petting a bunny, and riding a drowsy pony are long gone - along with the days of having entire fall weekends without soccer games, birthday parties, and play dates.  This is currently the go-to pumpkin patch for our crew:  a lot filled with giant bounce slides and houses near the freeway in San Mateo, close to Daddy's work.

 

After 30 minutes of bouncing in decidedly un-fall-like weather, two red-faced and sticky kids are frog-marched over to the "pumpkin patch" to make their choices.  The straw bales almost, but don't quite, hide the cars parked just outside the fence.

This year's Halloween costumes skewed to the scarier side. After 4 consecutive years of being some sort of feline, Lucie decided to branch out and requested a werewolf costume.  And once again, searching online was an alarming exploration of the abundance of "Sexy Insert name of thing here" costumes that exist, and why they would make such a thing in kid's sizes.   Also, as Lucie pointed out, it's important that the costume is SCARY.

I think she makes a very scary little werewolf:

Brennan's costume was difficult in a different way, as he had requested a Zombie WWI Soldier costume - I blame the history comics he's constantly reading.  Surprisingly, this appears to be an untapped market for the costume industry.  I briefly started pricing out olive drab suits and replica WWI-era gas masks, and then remembered 2 consecutive Halloweens carrying around Storm Trooper helmets and thought the better of it.  He took the news surprisingly well, and cheerfully offered to be the Grim Reaper again, but last years' dark robes were noticeably shorter on him.  So I dredged Uncle Gavin's old space camp jumpsuit out of the Halloween bin, which was tried on, declared "cool", and the end result was Zombie NASA Crew.

Daddy returned to his Johan Cruyff kit, which does a great job of making my costumes looking less obscure. 

(if you give up:  Heathers.  It's been an interesting litmus test of which of my current acquaintances watched the 1988 Winona Ryder film as religiously as I did.)

For a Halloween First, Brennan decided he was carving his own pumpkin this year - he wanted to make a ghost.  However, I'm still Lucie's Pumpkin Monkey, and was directed to make this cat after she failed to find a horse design I thought I could execute.

They also decorated their little pumpkins using Lucie's paint set, making a Puppy Pumpkin -

- and a Bomb Pumpkin!

I managed to finagle my way onto my favorite field trip, the the first grade visit to the Mission neighborhood to cap off their learning about Latino heritage and Dia de los Muertos.  I love listening to the kids talk about their favorite Balmy Alley murals, and I love that stopping for lunch in the Mission is part of the field trip.  We stopped at d'Maize for really tasty pupusas and agua fresca.  Sadly, the bread-man making was not part of this trip, so we only got to stop in to La Victoria bakery to admire the baked goods and the oferta, and to pick up a bag of pan de muerto for later.

We managed to take advantage of a few balmy October afternoons to climb Tank Hill.  Some kind soul set up a rope swing again, so the kids get to enjoy spinning and swinging with a fabulous view -

- even if they don't even bother to look at it.

Fall Soccer

...And we're back at Grattan field for Jellyfish practice!  It was a little touch-and-go after the spring season, but Lucie and her friends (and the moms) managed to talk Daddy into another round of coaching.  Even better, it's GIRLS ONLY!  Which has made getting the kids to practice much easier - they are all super-excited to go, and they keep pretty good tabs on each other in the after school program.  However, I'm not sure this translates to any improved behavior AT practice.

It was also interesting to see how the more experienced girls became much more aggressive players once the boys were out of the mix.

Brennan is back for another season with the Gorillas.  Almost all their games were in Golden Gate Park, at the Beach Chalet fields, which is nice because it's on turf and generally has parking.

Also there's plenty of open space for the little siblings to terrorize each other in the trees and shrubs.

The boys are still in one of the tougher brackets for Rec teams, so they had some tough games and not a lot of wins.  But they stayed positive, were (mostly) kind and supportive of each other, and thanks to their coaches, practice good sportsmanship.  They were rewarded with 2 decisive wins for their last 2 games, and a fun post-season party at the Park Chalet.

The games keep weekends pretty busy, but we fit in a Sunday trip to Healdsburg, since Fall is such a warm and pretty time up there.  I'm glad we went - just a week later, the devastating fires hit multiple areas of Sonoma and Napa counties.  Even in San Francisco, the air quality was bad enough to cancel the school Film Fest, multiple soccer practices and games, even recess.  Luckily, the fire crews were able to contain the fires before they spread to the Healdsburg area.

In addition to youth soccer, there was a fair amount of pro soccer, with the new San Francisco Deltas team playing just down the hill at Kezar Stadium.   Daddy arranged for both teams to be game ambassadors - they got to play games on the pitch and walk the players out for the national anthem.

Here are the girls:

The other team was Canadian, so I got spend two entire national anthems worrying that my child was one of the ones giggling and whispering to each other at the center of the lineup.  Then I put my glasses on and realized it was Rosa.

We also lucked out with a complimentary upgrade to the VIP seats, so Brennan & I got to watch the game in these funny little clear plastic clamshells on the sidelines, and have a delicious Filipino chicken dinner instead of a lukewarm stadium hot dog.

A few weeks later, the boys got their turn:

We even convinced cousin Ian to spend a night shivering in the fog.

Generally, a lot school and neighborhood friends could be found there, so there wasn't a lot of actual game watching going on.  Mostly it was running up, down, and around the stadium, and showing up to pester adults for cash just about at the point I'd decided they'd been abducted.  It was sort of graduate level seminar in Free Range Parenting, and I don't think I've graduated from Free Range Parenting high school yet.

Anyway, we survived everyone's season.  Due to various weather and air issues, the end of the Jellyfish season was a little...nebulous.  Since they didn't get to have a sweets and medals ceremony at what turned out to be their last game, it was pushed to their final practice. 

The coaches took the players out to celebrate at their sponsor's business - the Ice Cream Bar!

Hello Grattan and Hello Heatwave

While we left Truckee later than we hoped (as per usual), we did manage to get on the highway before noon, so our re-entry for the first day of school was less traumatic this year.

So here they are, ready for 1st and 4th grade! 

Brennan is now in a combined 4/5 classroom, looking a little too happy to be back in the same class with his pal Django.  I've been pleasantly surprised by how supportive and inclusive the 5th graders seem to be with the younger crew joining the classroom.  Which we certainly need, because 4th grade is a lot more work.  It's not so much the volume of the homework, but the expectations (which I am 100% in agreement with) to copy down the assignment list & understand it, to put your name on everything, to find it in the giant binder to turn in, to advocate for yourself rather than have a parent intervene - that are the struggle.

Little siblings tend to get assigned to the same teacher as the older one - so Lucie is in Room 213 with Ms. Schultz for 1st grade, just like Brennan.  She was a little nervous the first morning, but has settled right in and seems to like her class and teacher.  After 3 years of watching her brother do homework, she finally has some of her own and attacks it in typical Lucie fashion.  It's due on Fridays, but generally by Wednesday, when I ask how her homework is going, she replies, "Already turned it in!"

Just two weeks into the school year, a record setting heat wave arrived.  The first day, through strategic window/blind/fan management, we were able to keep the apartment temperature from climbing over 80°.  But San Francisco isn't really equipped to handle a 104° day, much less 2 consecutive ones.  There was nothing for it but to set up camp at Ocean Beach and stay there all day with our neighbors.  We even had pizza delivered to the parking lot.

Heatwave Day 3 was spent at the Coppola Pool, which ironically enough, we generally plan so we can get a break from grey skies and chilly fog.

It was also pretty hot there, but at least we could just stay submerged.

Ice cream breaks excepted, of course.

And we stopped in Marin for burgers on the way home, since they actually have air-conditioning in the suburbs.  And, thank goodness, we got a little break when overnight temperatures finally dropped below 70° and I stopped threatening to move us to an airport hotel.

Heatwave Day 4 was not a record setter, but still pretty warm by San Francisco standards.  I don't spend a lot of evenings relaxing outdoors, but this was one of them.  Even better, there was cold drink delivery -

Look out this amazing service!  And I only had to wait 6.5 years for it.

We had an al fresco dinner to celebrate Labor Day and the last day of the heatwave.  Enzo joined us so his parents could celebrate their anniversary.

Now that our bedrooms were no longer stifling, airless cells, it's time to get a decent night's rest - we need to be ready for soccer season!

Truckee Summer

We had such a good time ending our last summer vacation with a nice long stay in Truckee, we decided to do it again this year.  Also, being able to actually enjoy the house was sort of the point of relocating our Very Small Real Estate Empire from Atlanta to the Tahoe area.

Gangi was able to join us for a week - the kids were excited to show her all their favorite Tahoe Donner spots, primarily the Trout Creek rec center pool:

- and the vending machines full of junky little toys and gum-balls at Pizza on the Hill.

It wasn't all pool-lounging and pizza eating.

I signed the kids up for an archery lesson, partly to get them out of Gangi's hair for a bit, and partly as an apology to Brennan, who had wanted to do an SF Rec & Parks archery camp with his school buddies but couldn't due to mis-matched schedules, the nail-biting competition for camp spots the minute registration goes live, and his mother's inability to do 2 drop offs in separate locations and get to work on time.

Lucie really wasn't that interested, but was a trooper and went along with it for her brother's sake.  Despite Lucie's concerns about being the youngest and the only girl, Gangi reports she looked well on her way to being the next Katniss Everdeen by pick up time.

Brennan spent a week doing Tahoe Donner Adventure Camp with his buddy Enzo.  They did a sort of Tahoe activities sampler package, mixing up outdoorsy stuff like hiking, gold-panning, and fire-building with country-club leisure activities like golf & swimming at the pools.  They will probably declare themselves "too old" for it next year, and want to do camps focused on more specific interests - so I'm glad they got to have a fun week trying different things, and doing the same hokey camp activities kids have been doing for decades (scary stories, tie-dye, s'mores, etc).

Lucie went to her favorite camp of the summer - horse camp at Piping Rock Equestrian Center!  She reports it was "way better" than the horse camp she did with the San Mateo Y last summer, because she "got to do lots of riding every day, and at the other camp they only got to do riding a few times". Which shed some light on why a) I was miraculously able to find a horse camp last summer that would take 5 year olds; b) why Piping Rock cost almost 3 times as much, if you factor in that it was half-day.

The grand finale was the horse show on Friday.  The kids brushed the horses to a shine and adorned their manes and tails with ribbons and braids, and then showed their families how they could ride safely in a group, navigate a little obstacle course, and do an emergency dismount.  

Lucie was awarded the "Horse Whisperer" ribbon, possibly because she rolled with a change of mounts several times during the course of camp.  Here she is on Classy, but I think she preferred riding Eclipse, a smaller gray mare who unfortunately was on the disabled list on show day.

It was a fun week - but kinda busy - before we knew it, it was time for Gangi to fly to Michigan, our friends to go home, and Daddy had to get back for a few days of work.  Monday started a little chilly and overcast - bad weather for a pool day, but perfect for a hike with Roux!

Of course, you're never on your own for long at Tahoe Donner.  Hours later, it warmed up, and we found school friends Maddie, Adain, and Conner at the pool.  Which sprawled into Bingo Night at - you guessed it - Pizza on the Hill.

We had a field trip with the same friends (& their mother) to Nevada City.

Our visit to the Empire Mine Historic Park was a bit of a bust - the kids were disappointed they could only go this far down the mine shaft.  In my defense, all the promotional material touts the site as "one of the oldest, largest, deepest, longest and richest gold mines in California" and kind of downplays that currently almost all of it is flooded.

But I managed to redeem myself with our next stop - the 49er Fun Park.  $30 got us a cup full of tokens and 2 go-karts.  Waiting for 5 kids to calculate how much candy and cheap trinkets their game tickets would get them was excruciating, but on the upside, Lucie wasn't sure about her go-kart driving skills and asked me to be her chauffeur.

We made sure to fit in other favorites - like pool-side ice cream treats:

- Wiki Stick art and buttermints at The Lodge -

- and binge reading graphic novels picked up at the thrift store.

Daddy was back soon, for Brennan's birthday.  He celebrated 9 years with a new skateboard -

- and a piñata cake with family and friends.

What? you say, How is that a piñata cake?  It doesn't look like an animal or Spiderman or Sponge Bob.  No one is whacking it with anything.  Well, my friend, check out the candy insides of the cake:

We spent a little playtime enjoying toys old and new in the driveway-

Roux showed interest in making new friends -

- but I thought that might not be the best idea.

We started our last day off right with a very exciting trip to the dump.  Sorry, no photos, but I can report that finding the site and paying $9 to throw styrofoam and unwanted lumber into a stinky, hangar-like building while wondering what the minor scrapes I acquired in the process were possibly getting infected with, did embolden us to start claiming "part-time" residency status.  

Also the dump looked close to some access points on the Truckee River Trail, so why not make a day of it?  We brought along the bikes for a few hours of cycling along the river, with a few stops:  lunch in Squaw Valley, mistaking 2 large hairy dogs for bears, and what might appear to be an Olan Mills studio with a "mountain forest" backdrop.

While we were biking, Brennan and Lucie were invited to join their friends for a big boating party on Donner Lake, followed by pizza and a sleepover.  While I'd made some "last night of summer vacation" plans, I knew what they would prefer -

- so I dropped them at the marina, called the restaurant to change our 4 at 5pm reservation to 2 at 7pm, and went to stuff cardboard into the bin at the Sheriff Station solo.

I'd filled my maximum number of yard waste bags and even Daddy had run out of chores, so we went downtown early to walk around before dinner.  We made it about halfway down the main drag when the sprinkling started, progressing to a full-on downpour by the time we got back to the restaurant.  But it gave us the chance to stop in the wine bar downstairs, and mid-way through dinner the rain stopped and left this behind:

As always, we wished we could stay longer, but it was time to head back to the city for the first day of school.  So long, Truckee, we'll see you again soon!