Ryder Wrong?

Halloween 2011

2011-11-05T16:41:00.001-07:00

No, it's not all about the crazy pumpkins I carve. All-in-all, I sometimes find the traditional ones more charming anyway. And really, the only things at our house more charming than the rest of the family's pumpkins were this creepy vampiress and her scurvy pirate pal.I didn't bother to take any pictures at the school Halloween parade. The kids never quite manage to get their costumes on quite right and I'd been told (errantly, it turns out) that makeup was not allowed at school. It made everything that much more fun to put together on Halloween night. The kids had no idea what I was about to turn them into.And maybe that's just as well because I don't think Mam really understood the purported demeanor of vampiresses.And although pirates are generally surly, Smunch was particularly surly on Halloween night. He didn't want to pose for pictures and he made that very clear. In fact, it was not at all clear that he'd be going trick or treating with his rotten behavior.Say what?But, of course, they both got to go after gamely posing for pictures in front of the house I'd painstakingly decorated just hours earlier.I'm not sure why I bother with this. On holidays like Halloween, our quiet little cul-de-sac is kind of a bummer. A whole bunch of effort and almost no one gets to see it. I took it all down today. Harumpf.

The kids had a grand time trick-or-treating while I took the guinea pig to the vet. They came home with WAY too much candy, much of which was donated at school to be sent to the troops overseas. Yes, I'm that mean.

I wonder what it looks like by the time it gets out to the desert. That's an awful lot of chocolate to melt along the way!

Ryan Vogelsong, the Squash

2011-11-05T16:07:00.000-07:00

It isn't really Halloween if I don't do something crazy with a pumpkin, right?

For the past couple of All Hallows Eves, I carved two of the San Francisco Giants' more colorful players, Tim Lincecum and Brian Wilson. I had a lot of different thoughts about who to carve this year. An ode to Buster Posey seemed like it might have been in order after his season-ending injury, but his clean-cut, boyish face just didn't seem like it'd make that great a pumpkin. I thought Pablo Sandoval might be a good option, but couldn't find a picture I wanted to emulate. But I liked the idea of carving Ryan Vogelsong on a pumpkin. He's got that interesting goatee and the intense pitcher's eyes. And he had a great backstory...having been around the block several times and having been traded to the Pirates from the Giants about 10 years ago. Most, recently, he was playing in Japan. Then, he came back and earned a job in the Giants' starting rotation. It was super impressive and fun to watch. I wish I'd made it to one of his games, but I never did.

I started my latest pumpkin-carving adventure with this photo:

photo courtesy of Charles LeClaire, US Presswire

I enlarged it, altered it in Photoshop a bit and used it as a template, which I painstakingly transferred onto a rather large pumpkin. Then I started in with some of your standard carving tools that you can pick up at the supermarket...and a plain ol' kitchen knife.

This particular pumpkin, it turns out, was pretty dry and hard to carve. In the end, I needed to use a Dremel tool to get the not-cut-entirely-through parts deep enough for plenty of light to shine through.All told, I worked on it for two days, over 6-8 hours, I figure.The final product looked like this: It's always fun to light it up and realize that it really kicks some serious butt, even though it doesn't look like much when it's unlit on the kitchen table. I decided it needed the SF logo and added that at the last minute.

You may recall I won the Giants' pumpkin carving contest in 2009 with my Tim Lincecum pumpkin. I think this one turned out even better and I entered it as well. I haven't heard anything, so I'm going to assume I didn't win this time around, but I'm always ready to be surprised!

My New Gig

2011-11-04T21:19:00.000-07:00

Uh, no, there will be no more babies. At least not mine!

The title is sort of ambiguous here because it seems like I have multiple gigs at any given time. Mid-mid-life crisis, I'm trying to cut down on them and really figure out what I want to be when I grow up. I don't know that I'm making much progress on that.

In the meantime, a fantastic part-time job fell out of the sky and into my lap. It uses my genetics degree and all that writing training. And it pays well. And I can work at home most of the time. Or I can go into the office and interact with human beings, rather than sharing some passing words with the guinea pigs and having a very large cat sit on my keyboard. I'm excited...and completely daunted. I haven't worked in an office with any regularity in almost 10 years. And when I took this job, I'd conveniently forgotten that my kids have full weeks off school...including one at Thanksgiving and two weeks around Christmas. Those times are coming right up. Well, best to set the bar low early on, right?

But that wasn't really what I wanted to write about, because although it's a great job and it'll be a nice change for me, I know it's not going to be something that scratches whatever itch I've got going on. It won't be wildly fulfilling. It won't fill that unnamed void in my life. It's a fun new challenge, but it won't be challenging forever. And let's face it, tech writing will never be exciting.

What's far more exciting is that a while back, my friend, K, asked me who takes my Christmas photographs for my holiday cards. Well, that was flattering. If you've been around my blog a while, you know I take them all myself most years. And I have fun doing it too. A few weeks later, K e-mailed and asked if she could pay me to take some photos of her daughters. Pay me? To take photos? You've got to be kidding! But I was thrilled to have the opportunity.

So, last weekend, I showed up at her house bright and early. Her younger daughter, R, was just getting up when I arrived. Fortunately, she's a happy morning baby, so she was fun to photograph.R's big sister, M, was asleep during most of this photo shoot and wasn't altogether thrilled about getting dressed up all pretty just to have her picture taken. She wasn't about to sit still for it either, but that's just as well, I suppose. And in a way, it made for some more interesting photos.It was a little challenging and I can't claim to have much knowledge of what I was doing, but I liked the results and I think K did too (unless she was just being nice!). I'm pretty sure M was more than a little relieved when I left!Now, I've got a whole host of fun little activities to turn into little side businesses! Tech writer by day, photographer in the early morning and cake decorator at night. And don't forget pumpkin carver in October. No clue who's going to pay me for that yet!

And for the record, I didn't actually charge K for my time. Since I neglected to successfully get her a gift to celebrate the birth of R, this is it. I think this'll last a whole lot longer and be more appreciated than those flowers Teleflora failed to deliver anyway!

The Great Guinea Pig Adventure

2011-11-04T20:40:00.001-07:00

There will come a time when my children no longer remember how we came to own a couple of guinea pigs. So, it seems only right that I should write a little something about it so it's not forgotten...although it's hardly the kind of story you pass down from generation to generation.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at one of Smunch's baseball games, trying to stay out of the blaring sun, when Gram arrived and told me that her friend, Mary, had found a guinea pig in her backyard. In fact, this guinea pig was so brazen that it wandered right into her house. But Mary and her husband didn't know what to do with a guinea pig and weren't williing to try picking it up. My mom had taken them a cat carrier with which to try to trap it. But, as far as I can tell, they didn't really try that either. I told my mom that if they caught it and couldn't find the owners that I'd take it before they gave it to Animal Services. Somehow that turned into the suggestion that I go over to Mary's and catch the rodent myself.

Now, I'll admit that as I drove over there I sort of wondered if it was actually a guinea pig at all. After all, people are forever misidentifying animals "in the wild"...or in the backyard. This critter was supposed to be living in the bush under their living room window. By the time I showed up, it had been there for three days.

Mam went with me and we camped out outside the bush. We peered in where we could, but couldn't see a thing in there. I put a little pile of carrots out in hopes of spotting the critter and we sat on the lawn and waited. Before too long, there was a suspicious rustling in the bush and moments later, a furry little face peered out. It was a guinea pig and it was cute, but skittish, with long, multi-colored hair.

In a long series of events, we managed to get the guinea pig in the carrier after about 45 minutes...using the classic trick of leaving a trail of carrots into the carrier and a string on the door with which to close it from a distance.

So, now we had a guinea pig and we took it home with us. I quickly posted a query on our elementary school e-bulletin board asking if someone had a guinea pig cage I could take off their hands. And I was fortunate enough to find a great big cage...for free. The guinea pig, who we eventually named Roamer, was very, very happy to be back in a cage where someone would feed him hay, lettuce and oranges.

It took a couple days before we managed to put up signs in Mary's neighborhood (which is not our neighborhood). And a couple more days went by before we finally got a call from a family over there who'd been missing their guinea pig, Rooster, for two or three weeks. And they weren't particularly close to Mary's house either. Rooster must've had a grand adventure before being returned to his family.

Although we all got a little attached to the furry fellow, it was nice to see he had a good home with people who were thrilled to have him back. They even gave us some pictures of him to remember him by. Nice folks.

We sped off to Mam's soccer game, lunch and then straight to the pet store...to look at guinea pigs.

The first place we went had a number of guinea pigs. They were all part of a group of about 150 that were rescued from the home of a hoarder. They were mostly adults and all extremely skittish. It was hard to tell if a feral guinea pig or two would ever warm up to a couple of kids. Although both of the kids already had their hearts set on one of the piggies there, we headed to a more traditional pet store to see what they had.

They had little, young guinea pigs. They had cool markings. Mam picked out a very calm one with brown, orange and white. She seemed like a very sweet little piggy.Smunch had a pale calico one picked out, but the sales person couldn't catch her...a sign that maybe she wasn't going to be very calm at home either. We thought we'd check elsewhere, but the sales clerk said she was going to get a few more from the back. And oh, were they cute! Gavin picked one out right away and we took them both home with us.

At my suggestion, Smunch decided to name his guinea pig Rita.I thought it was funny that he accepted that suggestion...which came from the name on a random e-mail in my inbox. I didn't even know the Rita who sent the e-mail. Mam temporarily named her guinea pig Mocha, although the next day, her name was Butterscotch. I liked the idea that they'd be named after two of my favorite drinks, but I figured having one named something purely kid-like was really more appropriate. Butterscotch remained sweet and calm while Rita was a total spaz who sprinted laps around the cage at unpredictable moments.Now, what we learned a couple of days later is that you don't want to pick out the super calm, sweet guinea pig. Because it means she's not healthy. And I found myself taking our new guinea pig to the VET on Halloween night, where she was promptly diagnosed with Bordetella...otherwise known as kennel cough...and given a prescription for Baytril. She really wasn't very well, her sides heaving and looking pretty depressed. The vet warned me that she might not survive. Bordetella can be really hard on guinea pigs. And, of course, it's very contagious.So, Rita made her own trip to the vet last night as soon as we spotted symptoms. Her eyes were a little crusty and she'd stopped sprinting around the cage. She seemed a little bummed, herself.

These have become very expensive little rodents. But Butterscotch appears for all the world to be on the mend and after a day of medication, Rita's pretty much back to her old self. Mam is smitten.Smunch likes them but the novelty seems to be wearing off already. They're funny, squeaky little critters and I'm kinda looking forward to having them around...

Blue Sox

2011-11-04T20:28:00.000-07:00

Creative name, huh? Despite his love of baseball, Smunch is new to playing in the Fall. This is the first year he's tried it and, at least from my perspective, it's been a lot of fun. It's much, MUCH more laid back than PONY baseball in the spring. He has some of the same rather intense coaches, but even they seem more relaxed. More than anything, it's about developing skills. It's not about winning. They don't even keep score.And that's a good thing because Smunch's team is full of boys who are the youngest in the division. Given that Smunch is a little guy himself, that means he barely reaches the shoulder of some of the boys out there. He's still nine. Some of them are 12. And some of them are BIG 12-year-olds! Of course, that doesn't make him less serious about the whole thing.He's still no power hitter, but he's impressive in other ways. He knows how to back up a play better than a lot of the kids out there. And even when he flubs a play, he's likely to recover. His head is in the game, even if his body isn't necessarily big enough to cooperate. His strike zone is so small that he gets a lot of walks. And at this level, there's a lot of stealing, so as long as he's on base, he's got a good chance to score. Here he is, safe at second. He just wants to make sure you know.These games are kinda fun, even though it's obvious the Blue Sox are usually getting obliterated by their opponents. But they're still long. It gives me pause to know I really encouraged Smunch's passion in baseball. I encouraged it and now he loves it...and now we spend hours and hours a the baseball field...in the sun, the cold, the wind...whatever. I think even Smunch, who has thoroughly enjoyed the game, is relieved when it's time to go home.

After the Rain

2011-11-04T20:18:00.000-07:00

Something about the rain makes me want to go out and take pictures as soon as I know my camera might survive. Prior to that, sitting in a coffee shop sounds awfully nice.And October rain is especially cool around our house because October is spider season and every web in the yard is suddenly gleaming.Perhaps autumn has come at last...

Whiskers

2011-11-04T20:13:00.000-07:00

Our remaining cat, Skimble, is a monster feline. When I took him to the vet the other day, she agreed that he needed to lose some weight, but said that given his frame, she'd expect him to be 14 or 15 pounds regardless (he's more like 17 or 18 pounds). So, although he's sort of oozy, he's pretty magnificent. He's got great markings and terrific orange stripes. And he's got fantastic whiskers. I set about trying to capture them in the sunshine the other day.Doesn't he look regal? Well, he looks sort of noble at least until he rolls over on his back and then he's just kinda cute...and oozy.He's not the brightest cat we've ever had, but he's awfully sweet.

Remembering Oliver

2011-10-09T21:00:00.001-07:00

We lost our cat, Oliver, to cancer early Saturday morning. I don't usually make a big point of blogging about our pets. And you'd be pretty annoyed if I blogged about every guppy or goldfish we'd killed. But the cats are different. Both of our cats had been members of our family since Smunch was just six months old. So, they're his contemporaries, in a way. As much as the kids have taken over my life, it still hard to believe how difficult it is to lose a pet.

When we got them as kittens, Oliver was the little one. He was quickly nicknamed "Smalliver". He was such an adorable little kitty.He had a neat little patterned nose...part tabby, just like his coat. And on one of his first nights with us, he declared his love for Scott by crawling up on his shoulder and falling asleep.To some extent, he was Scott's cat from that moment on. But as Smunch got older, he also became Smunch's cat. I guess sometime more recently, he became Mam's cat too.He had a magnificently expressive, long tail that always waved around to greet us. And he was the cat who was always on my office chair or in my face while I tried to work. His claws have pulled loops out of the thighs of many pairs of pants. He talked a lot, but was very sweet. He also liked to run from window to window when he spotted another cat roaming the backyard. And although he was always an indoor cat, he took every possible opportunity to slip out an open door, sometimes not turning up again until morning.

We'd sometimes find him in unlikely places...on top of the armoire, on top of the kitchen cabinets, upside-down and stuck down behind the furnace. He was a great jumper...most of the time.

And he was the only cat I've ever known who was obsessed with access to the sock drawer. He managed to figure out how to open at least two of them, as the claw marks on Scott's dresser drawer will attest. He would open the drawers while we weren't around, so that there were often clean socks strewn about the house. At his most lovable, he would saunter into the family room in the evening, while we sat on the sofa, and deposit a sock at our feet. He was so proud to be able to deliver us his kill for the evening. And it was so, so funny.

He loved to hang out on the back of the sofa in the evening (or any other time, really) when we watched TV, too.Back in April, he was vomiting a lot and we took him to the vet. They ran some tests that looked like he might have lymphoma. But we changed his diet and his follow-up bloodwork, just two months ago, looked normal...or so they said. And although he lost some weight (which was a good thing, I thought), he seemed fine.

When Oliver stopped eating on Wednesday night, I didn't think much of it, but by Thursday night he still wasn't eating and he was getting lethargic. I took him to the vet first thing on Friday. Smunch was really nervous about it and asked a million questions as we walked to school.

Oliver was at the vet all day being poked and prodded, running up an astronomical bill. Each call from the vet sounded more dire...his white blood cells were through the roof, his bilirubin was high, it looked like he also had leukemia. But the vet was also very positive about the treatment options for lymphoma. I was secretly skeptical. We were looking at months of chemotherapy to extend his life for...months.

Scott was out of town. I asked plenty of questions, but under the pressure of losing our cat, I approved everything the vet suggested. When I picked Smunch up at school, the first words out of his mouth were, "How's the kitty?" I told him the truth...that Oliver was very sick and we'd need to make some really difficult decisions about him. And that he was going to die. It was awful.

The vet gave Oliver steroids, a first dose of chemo and some anti-nausea medication before I picked him up around 6 p.m. I brought him home. He stumbled out of the carrier and laid down on the floor. He still refused to eat. He drank a little water and laid back down on the kitchen floor.

By the time Scott arrived home around 9:30, he was sleeping in the laundry basket in our closet. And he looked bad. The night was miserable, Oliver was more lethargic, he cried in pain every half hour or so. I sobbed while he suffered. And by the time I realized he'd been quiet for a couple of hours, I already knew he had died in the night. At least he didn't have to suffer anymore.

I'm grateful that we were spared difficult decisions about chemotherapy and euthanasia, but it was such a hard, hard night and a harder day, watching my sweet little boy absorb the news that his favorite cat was gone. He was so sad and it made it so much more difficult.

So, now we are a one cat family. Although Skimble sniffed at Oliver's lifeless body before it was taken back to the vet, he appeared to search for him for the rest of the day...looking as though he expected to be pounced on every time he turned a corner. Since then, however, I think maybe he's realized that this means he's the only cat to bestow attention upon and that he's getting a LOT of it from his sad family members. I'm pretty sure he's going to embrace this new role with gusto.Rest in peace, Oliver. You were well loved and will be dearly missed.

Girls Getaway

2011-10-09T20:48:00.000-07:00

I can't say that I'd ever spent a weekend away with just my girlfriends...not since high school anyway. But a couple of my high school buddies decided that since we're all turning 40 this year, we should celebrate by getting away from our families for a while and hanging out together somewhere...anywhere, really.

After much deliberation, we decided to take the cheaper option of staying at my friend K's father's house in Sausalito...and just for one night. When there are seven of you and there are nine young children under the age of 10 among you, it's hard to schedule anything where you can all make it for more than a single night. But you take what you can get.

I took off right after Mam's soccer game. It's easy to get to Sausalito from here, but it turned out the house was a little harder to locate. And no big surprise with a view like this:We hung out for the rest of the afternoon, then went out for a fun dinner on the water.And although we're no great partiers, we were still up 'til 2 a.m. yakking about one thing or another. When you've known each other as long as we have, it doesn't seem to matter much that we don't get to see each other all that often or that we've all taken different paths in life. There's always something to talk about.

We had a mellow morning around the house...before taking a nice walk down many, many stairs into town for brunch.

We'd prepared for a foggy, chilly time, but the weather couldn't have been more beautiful and the walk back up the hill was actually kinda hot!The whole trip was far too short. Fortunately, there were more birthdays and birthday parties to come. It's been a great year for getting together! We're hoping maybe we can make this an annual thing...Who wouldn't hope?

Blue Angels

2011-10-09T17:10:00.001-07:00

Around these parts, when someone mentions the Blue Angels, most people think of the performing team of fighter jets operated by the U.S. Navy. These aren't those Blue Angels.But they don't look like anything you'd want to mess with either, do they?

Mam had a fairly lackluster soccer season last year. Somehow, the fiestiness she showed during her first year of playing soccer had worn off. This year? It's back.She's right in there, taking the ball up the field and taking shots on goal when she gets them. It's a lot more fun to watch this way.

Truthfully, her team is struggling a little. They're a great team with a lot of girls who have Mam's spunk, but each Saturday, they seem to lose by a single goal. Last weekend, that goal (the only goal of the game) was scored during Mam's tenure at goalie. Fortunately, that wasn't the case this weekend...although they lost 1-0 again.

They'll win one of these Saturdays, I'm sure.Mam certainly isn't giving up. She's just refueling.

September Garden

2011-10-09T16:58:00.000-07:00

I know. It's not even September anymore.

After lamenting that things grew so very slowly this cold year, my garden did finally grant me some yummy fruits and veggies. And, as usual, I couldn't help but photograph them. Why not, right?

Our little apple tree did well in its inaugural year of fruit bearing and produced four different kinds of small, but delicious apples.And after the pear tree was raided by squirrels last year, it had a pretty good crop this year, thanks to some bird netting. The pears are always fantastic. The tree now as some sort of blister mite infection that I can't seem to et rid of, so the pears turned out bumpy and mutant-looking, but they tasted great anyway.And although my tomatoes clearly don't thrive in whatever kind of soil we've got (I'm thinking it's probably infected with something that tomatoes can't handle and I need to stop planting for several years or find some seriously disease-resistant plants) we still got at least a few tomatoes off each of the plants.There were a few dinners worth of beans and three or four cucumbers as well.

And here it is October. There are just a few apples left out there and summer is already feeling like a distant memory. Guess I'll look forward to some lemons and grapefruit!

The Bestest Gift

2011-09-05T12:23:00.001-07:00

Although the San Francisco Giants' season may be all but over at this point, the Little League Fall baseball league is just getting started. And this year, Smunch thought he might like to give that a shot. As luck would have it, the coach of his Mavericks team decided to coach "Fall Ball" this year and asked Smunch to join his team. Score.

So, while some little boys might revel in a new erector set, a new bike, a new scooter or even a nice big ice cream cone, this little boy could not have been happier that his parents decided he'd outgrown his baseball bat...and needed a new one.

A First for Second and Fourth

2011-08-23T11:18:00.000-07:00

I'm so glad we managed to get away for a few days before school started. And I was tickled pink to be in Yosemite when the call went out to help sort school supplies this year. Thank goodness that was something I couldn't help with at all. I got roped into helping with a coaching clinic for soccer, but that was fine.

I took Mam out to see if I could find her a cute dress for the first day of school. She's always resistant to going out. No matter what she's up to at home, it's always more interesting than anything involving getting in the car. We went to Kohl's. Nothing. We went to Target. Nothing again. I sighed and asked if she wanted to wear clothes she already had or go to the nearby mall...expecting a swift end to shopping. We went to the mall. She found a dress at Macy's. I hated it. I made her go to Gymboree. Nothing she liked and nothing I wanted to afford anyway. I dragged her to JCPenney. Nothing. Finally, I had to suck it up and tell her she could have the dress at Macy's. I hadn't checked the price tag. At least it was on sale.

When we got back to Macy's, she went right back to the dress she'd found and then chose its neighbor...which still wasn't something I would have picked out, but was a whole lot cuter than the original choice. I agreed quickly and we checked out as fas as possible, before she could change her mind.

She may have been overdressed for the first day of school, but at least she was cute.Smunch wasn't thrilled with the teacher he'd been assigned for the year. I was pretty happy because she was the only fourth grade teacher who wasn't new to the school and she has a good reputation. It didn't show that much, but I think Smunch was pretty anxious about the first day.Mam, on the other hand, got just the teacher she wanted...except that that teacher now has a shared classroom, so she'll only be there part time and is sharing with a former kindergarten teacher. I like her teachers, but I wasn't super thrilled about another shared contract. Mostly, I was relieved that she didn't get one of the other teachers...who is also a terrific teacher, but I thought Mam would be particularly poorly suited to her style.

Mam couldn't wait to get to school. She really missed her friends over the summer and was just so excited about everything!As is tradition...in many families, I suppose...Daddy and I walked the kids to school.They chattered happily the whole way. It's so nice to have them be excited about school. When I look at what other parents deal with in terms of first-day jitters and separation issues, I have to admit that I'm very fortunate. My kids clearly love me, but they're also happy without me. I must've done something right somewhere along the line!This year was strange because the kids wait in lines all the way across the blacktop from each other. So, I couldn't easily go back and forth between them. I missed meeting any of the teachers. But that was fine. One of them knows me and the other two probably know who I am as well. I've been a known quantity at school for a while now.

Both kids seemed perfectly happy in line for their new classes. Although I'm sure he had no qualms, Daddy carefully questioned Mam about whether she was really ready for second grade.Mam gently reassured him that she was indeed ready for the year and all it entailed.

As if I needed more proof that I burned out almost every volunteer impulse last year, I took one look at the annual back-to-school coffee (where the year's volunteers are recruited) and decided that I'd really like to go home...to my eerily quiet house, eat breakfast and read the paper.

Mam, predictably, had a great first day and to my great relief, Smunch was thrilled with his class too and reports that he really likes his new teacher.

It's going to be a good year.

One Last Waterfall

2011-08-12T22:21:00.000-07:00

We were due to leave on Thursday and had to be out of the cabin by 10. But that didn't mean we had to leave Yosemite right away. We packed a lunch and headed to the trailhead for Chilnualna Falls...one of the lesser-known waterfalls in the Park. In ways, it's not as grand as its cousins in the Valley. The full hike to the top, however, takes three-and-a-half hours. It's a long waterfall with lots of different cascades. And it's not as small as it might appear in that photo at the top. Here are the kids next to the same cascade. See them?The hike to the lowest part of the falls was a whopping 10 minutes or so and we weren't quite ready for our trip to be over, so we continued up to appreciate some of the other cascades.Finally, not so far up, we found a cascade with a pool where you wouldn't be washed over a cliff if you dove in. Mam, ever the enthusiastic water sprite, was first into a swim suit. Smunch refused at the get go. Mam never got further than her feet, however. It was COLD! Didn't stop me from diving in head first however. And, uh, it was COLD. One little lap over to the falls, where there was quite a current, was enough for me.I got right out and dried off on a warm rock. Daddy took a little swim too and agreed it was "refreshing". All dressed back in our hiking clothes, we set off back down the trail, got in the mommymobile and made one last stop at the grounds of the Wawona Hotel to eat our lunch before we set off home...where two lonely kitties and the announcement of the kids' classes for the Fall awaited...

More Haze and River Floating

2011-08-12T21:56:00.000-07:00

I don't know what possessed us to take the drive over to Glacier Point on our third day in the Park. We knew the wildfire was burning on that road. And no, it wasn't a great, big dangerous fire, so driving the road was no big deal and the kids enjoyed seeing the little fires burning.

But the detour probably took us 90 minutes out of our way to the Valley and the views were, uh, compromised, shall we say? That part was pretty predictable, but we figured the smoke in the Valley was getting worse and the views weren't going to be better the next day, so might as well give it a shot. It didn't even look too bad for a while...you know, until we *got* there!Perhaps there is something slightly majestic about Half Dome rising over the blanket of smoke. Uh, maybe. You could hear Nevada and Vernal Falls from up there much better than you could see them.And the kids, especially Mam, were slightly annoyed that this little side trip delayed their opportunity to go "rafting" for the first time.

Because that's what we'd told them we were going to do. After all the complaining about hiking, I figured we needed something else. Anything else to get them excited about this trip. So, rafting the Merced River in the Valley it was. I made Daddy stop again along the way for some more pretty meadow pictures. I doubt the kids were thrilled about that either, but I wasn't in the car, so I didn't hear about it.Of course, we arrived in the Valley somewhat later and had a hard time parking. We finally made it, hopped an overcrowded shuttle to the rental place, filled out forms and stood in line. They're pretty particular about making sure kids weigh at least 50 pounds before they're allowed in a raft. You have to sign something saying that they are. But one look at our featherweight of a Mam and the guy at the window wasn't so sure. He invited her inside for a little weigh-in.

I was sure she was over 50 pounds, but honestly I don't weigh her daily or even weekly. I was suddenly struck by fear that maybe she'd somehow lost weight since she was last weighed. She hadn't. I guess her height makes up for those toothpick legs somehoww because she was about 55.

We waited for an "orientation"...which should probably be entitled "10 Dumb Things You Shouldn't Do While Rafting". And we finally got our raft and schlepped it over to the river. This would have made a good picture, but there were no extra hands for a camera.

For those who have been rafting, I should probably explain that this wasn't exactly rafting. It was more like floating-in-a-raft while dodging the occasional bridge jumper. Still, that seemed perfect for our timid Smunch. I'd half expected him to refuse to go altogether, but it turns out he was totally game and really enjoyed himself.And Mam wasn't even questionable. She was going to be happy regardless. We weren't hiking, after all and that was the best news she'd heard all trip.The views from the river were also predictably hazy, so I'm sure this trip could be more spectacular. But it was made spectacular by a couple of happy kids who couldn't wait to set back out as soon as we were done lunching on the shore.We made the trip in some time under the advertised two hours, dragged the raft out and waited for the bus to take us back. We treated the kids to some ice cream and decided to take a leisurely walk back to the car. After all, it's not a hike if you're just going to the vehicle that takes you back to the swimming hole, right?

Actually, we'd planned to go on another short hike to the waterfall by the cabin, but by the time we got back, it was already getting late and we opted just to stop at the swimming hole instead. Daddy and the kids watched a little girl using part of the rapids as a water slide and decided to try that out. I was pretty proud of the kids' fledgling swimming skills. They looked a little alarmed being whisked along in the current, but had a blast. It was fun for me too. I was a little sorry I'd left the camera in the car, but then, maybe it was more fun without it.

Down in the Valley

2011-08-12T15:23:00.000-07:00

Wawona is about an hour's drive from Yosemite Valley. It means that it's not as crazy or crowded, but it also means a drive there and back every day you feel the need to go. You can't not go to the Valley, especially with children. They probably wouldn't even know they'd been to Yosemite without a few waterfalls and big, big rocks.

Most years, the waterfalls are mere trickles by August. The fact that it rained a ton this year was what prompted me to get the trip organized mid-summer. For a change, there would still be something to see. We made a stop at Bridalveil Falls on our way down the hill.Then, we stopped for some nice views of Upper Yosemite Falls before locating a place to park. Fortunately, we'd managed to make it there early enough that parking wasn't a big problem. And our parking spot also featured a nice view of Half Dome.The air was a little hazy from the smoke of a nearby wildfire, but it wasn't too bad.

We hiked up to Mirror Lake, which was more meadow than lake, even in a wet year. And the air was even hazier by the time we got there. So I the views of Half Dome were mostly obscured. I took pictures of flowers. How novel.We made our way back, had lunch and set out to visit Lower Yosemite Falls...and easy hike that was nonetheless complained about vociferously. And Smunch, who had developed any number of concerns about any number of things we did or saw, was very concerned about all those people out there breaking the rules and climbing on the rocks below the falls.They're just tiny in this picture. I'm not sure what Smunch expected me to do about those hundreds of transgressions. Send them all to their rooms, perhaps?

Although we're all looking pretty happy in this photo, I'd had quite enough of the whining by 2 or 3 o'clock and we decided to head back over the mountain to our cabin.We stopped at the Tunnel View overlook...because that's just what you do, isn't it?It gave us a good idea just how smoky it was. And it gave me another idea. Seven years ago, a dear friend of mine had a wedding in Yosemite Valley...a lovely affair that I failed to appreciate with my premature 6-month-old who screamed bloody murder on all car rides. But during one of the less screamy moments, we'd stopped at this very spot for a family photo. Things have changed just a bit since then...and it's not just that the air's smokier.Naturally, there was more jumping off rocks into the river when we got back. Too bad we can't end every day like that at home.

Back Outside

2011-08-12T14:34:00.000-07:00

We started off our summer with a camping trip, so why not end it in the great outdoors as well? We last went camping in Yosemite in 2008. That time, it was sort of a fluke. I happened to check for camping reservations in May or so and there was ONE campsite available in the park, so we took it. That sort of thing doesn't happen very often. Yes. I checked.

So, this time around, we again stayed in Wawona, but rented a little cabin for 3 nights instead of camping. All in all, it doesn't save that much work except for setting up camp and taking it down. The bathrooms are more convenient and you don't need quarters for the showers. Still, I'd be camping if I'd had the choice.But the cabin had everything we needed, including two bedrooms so we wouldn't have to try and get the kids to sleep in the same room. Bedtime was a nightmare in San Diego. It not only had satellite TV (on which to watch the Giants lose repeatedly), but wireless internet too. Thankfully, we weren't there that much!

We stopped overnight in Fresno to visit Grandpa Ryder on our way to the park. From there it's a pretty short drive into Yosemite and we made our first stop at the Mariposa Grove because that was something we skipped three years ago and it was right there at the entrance.It made for a nice, albeit long-by-kidlet-standards, hike among the sequoias. We saw some deer and this chimpunk who kindly posed on a branch for me.The kids weren't overawed by the trees, but I think they were at least a little impressed. There were flowers and butterflies. Those kept Mam agape intermittently.Not really long enough to stop the whining though. In her defense, the shoes she'd worn were too small and the walk is hardly flat. I don't imagine her feet felt too good.We were able to check into our cabin an hour early and were advised on the local waterfall and swimming holes. After we got the mommymobile unpacked, we headed for a recommended spot in the river. You've never seen a kid happier to be in the water than Mam was.Too cold? Not a chance! It turned out you could jump right into the river from the rocks above.That is, you could jump in if you were very careful to note that it was only about four feet deep! Daddy learned quickly.

Interestingly, it wasn't fearless Mam who launched herself off the rocks next, it was my timid little Smunch.Despite Smunch's glowing reports about how much fun it was, Mam wasn't so sure.It took watching Daddy, Smunch and me jumping off several times for her to warm up to the idea. Then, of course, it was all the rage and she jumped over and over, later instructing other children on the ins and outs of jumping from the rock.We went back to the cabin to change into dry clothes and then set out on a pre-dinner hike around the nearby meadow. This seemed like a great idea. The light was beautiful, I figured we'd see a deer or two and it was an easy, flat trail.The one part I'd failed to account for was that it's a meadow and meadows often mean standing water, especially in a year like this one where there was a lot of rain. And evening brings mosquitoes. Mosquitoes like me. A lot. Turns out they find the rest of the family pretty tasty as well. At least there were some pretty flowers.And the light was indeed lovely.I'm sure we walked faster as we went along. I may have forgotten the DEET, but at least I brought the hydrocortisone!

Summer Veggies

2011-08-12T11:25:00.000-07:00

It's been such a sad, sad summer in my garden. It's been so cool that these were the first two tomatoes to ripen and there've been only about five more. None of the bigger tomatoes are red yet...although one of them is a yellow/green tomato anyway. The basil's all ready to go, but no tomatoes to eat it with! The string beans have been fun though. Mam helped me plant a variety of colors, so we've got purple, yellow and green beans. They're good too...although the purple beans actually turn green when you cook them. You can see a couple of funny little squashes. I thought I was buying yellow crook-necked squash, but clearly I blew it. These are little, green spaceship-shaped squashes instead.

Fortunately, I got the netting over the pear tree in time to save our crop from squirrels this year. There are tons of ripening pears out there. And our apple tree will have a crop for the first time this year too...of three different apple varieties. I'm looking forward to seeing how that turns out...although I may have let our little tree become a tad overambitious this year!

Wrapping Up

2011-08-12T10:35:00.001-07:00

Gosh, summer seems to last forever around here and yet be painfully short at the same time. I don't remember summers being like this when I was a kid. They seemed to stretch out forever. I was usually ready to go back to school. And I wasn't signed up for several camps with built in entertainment either. Somehow, I managed to entertain myself without turning on the TV all the time. I wonder how that happened.

So, the last couple of weeks of summer finally arrived with August. I was excited to take Smunch to baseball camp at the San Jose Giants' Municipal Stadium. He'd declared that he liked neither of the baseball camps he'd been to in previous summers, so I thought this one might be good for a change...and it would be a blast for him to get to play on the big field with stands and a PA system. Meanwhile, I sent Mam to cooking school for half a day each day. It didn't really give me a lot of time and it turned into even less time when Smunch got sick after just one day of baseball camp.

He made it to the first day and the last day and missed everything in between. What a bummer! Still, he was looking like a pro on the last day, when they got to play games and be announced over the PA system.He really enjoyed the camp. Hard to tell if that's because he missed two days or because it was a better experience for him. They gave us an evaluation of his skills. It fairly glowed with praise and said he stood out in his group. Maybe that was the big difference. In other camps he didn't stand out. But it turns out that many of the boys in San Jose had only played for a season or two. Smunch just finished his fifth. No matter. He had a good time. That's all that counts for me!

And although I took no pictures of Mam in her cute little cooking apron, she had a blast baking every morning. She even started asking to help in the kitchen all the time. Once in a while, I can even come up with something for her to do and that's pretty darned cute. Worth every penny, that camp.

The same week saw the end of swimming lessons for the summer. I feel like I can finally say with some confidence that the kids can swim. They may not look pretty doing it, but given a fall into a pool, they're not just going to give up and drown.And I was perversely pleased that the brother/sister pair they had lessons with was far more misbehaved and obnoxious than they were. After this summer, they've been taught all the strokes, they just need some polishing. O.K., so they still look like they're drowning if they're attempting to swim butterfly, but still... Smunch's freestyle was looking great and Mam's backstroke is coming along nicely The evening after Mam's last day of camp (Friday, where Smunch was done on Thursday), we took our last summer trip to AT&T Park. Smunch was not thrilled with the choice of games we'd made.The biggest fan in the world does not like to see his team lose and he figured that a game against the Phillies was a likely loss.

Mam, on the other hand, was thrilled that we decided to take her to a game this season.And although she enjoyed a hot dog and some cotton candy, she mostly reminded me why we don't take her to games. She's a real pain. Crawling on the ground, asking to go home, being bored out of her mind.

Of course, by the time the sixth inning rolled around, Smunch was asking to go home too. This almost never happens, but Jonathan Sanchez was pitching and doing a poor job of it. They were losing 8-2. We made him stick around a little longer. And what a great idea that was! The only redeeming value to the game, in the end, was getting to see a bench-clearing scrum initiated by Sanchez hitting Shane Victorino with a pitch and Victorino making like he was going to charge the mound.This lasted quite some time and was the most amusing part of an eventual 9-2 loss.

One more family vacation and then summer is just about over. Thank goodness. The fighting and boredom are both unbearable. Then again, so is homework...

Butterflies

2011-08-12T10:23:00.000-07:00

While we were in San Diego, I noticed that the passion flower vine covering Aunt Karen's fence was home to a considerable crop of caterpillars. We even found a couple of chrysalises (chrysali?) among the leaves. Being the biological sort, I decided to do a little online research to try and figure out what these critters were.

It turns out that there is one butterfly, the Gulf Fritillary butterfly, that lays its eggs only on passion flower vines. And its caterpillars looked suspiciously similar to those we found. I also learned that their range extends to the San Francisco Bay Area and you know what that means.

I asked politely if I could relieve Karen of her fattest caterpillar and a chrysalis. We left with a baggie of passion flower leaves and a jar containing one fat caterpillar and a healthy-looking chrysalis.I never did take a picture of the caterpillar. By the time we'd completed our drive home, our caterpillar was already hanging in a little "J", ready to turn into a chrysalis itself.

Happily, the first butterfly emerged from its chrysalis during Aunt Karen's visit. We spotted it while it was still coming out and watched as its wings dried, enjoyed it taking its first fluttery flight around the "butterfly house" and finally let it go. It sped away so fast that I didn't even get a picture with its wings open.Fortunately, it's pretty on the underside too.

The second butterly emerged a little over a week later and this time I was sure to get a picture before it flew away in the exact same direction as the first...doubtlessly looking for some passion flowers to land on...

San Diego Comes to Visit

2011-08-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

Maybe we were just in San Diego, but that doesn't mean that Aunt Karen didn't bring the boys up here just a couple of weeks later for a visit. It works out pretty well to do things this way. She can spend lots of time with our parents while we feel like we got to see them quite a bit over the summer.

We didn't do a whole lot. Gram was sick most of the time, so the kids hung out together, getting on each other's nerves intermittently, but never willing to go to their separate corners. We took one last outing to Happy Hollow on our family membership, which expired at the end of July. It's probably just as well. My kids seem to be outgrowing it to a large extent. Its sort of sad to see. I didn't take them there nearly often enough when they were smaller.

Smunch was particularly impressive on this little excursion. When neither Mam nor SPENCER! was interested in doing things that Lucas could do, they ran off to the playground, while Smunch joined Lucas for a ride.Ohmigosh. Could that be any cuter? It's a little shocking just how big Smunch is compared to his newest cousin. Even as a small kid, he's just so BIG!

Smunch also took a ride with SPENCER! once we could convince SPENCER! that Smunch would really like to spend a little time with him too. It looked like they both had fun.It has long been the case that Smunch gets left out when it comes to visiting with SPENCER! Spencer and Mam are much closer in age and have more common interests. Smunch and SPENCER! don't really have much in common other than being boys who are cousins. Their personalities are very dissimilar. SPENCER! is much more like Mam in his level of enthusiasm and fearlessness. So, it's really pretty awesome to see Smunch taking such an interest in Lucas. Wonder if he'll manage to turn him into a baseball fan...

A little Extra Baggs

2011-08-12T09:40:00.000-07:00

Way back last November, there was some sort of cosmic cataclysm in which the scrappy San Francisco Giants won the World Series. I've written plenty about that, so I won't rehash it. During that time, I spent many a morning reading the sports page of the San Jose Mercury News and got to know the styles of many of their writers who covered the Giants in 2010. Andrew Baggarly (aka: Baggs) quickly became one of my favorites. And I soon discovered that he also keeps a blog, Extra Baggs which is often even more entertaining than his game stories.

After the Series, Baggs went home to Oregon and started work on a book about the San Francisco Giants, their history and their road to the first World Series Championship title in San Francisco history. Naturally, I had his book, A Band of MiSFits the instant it was available. And I devoured it quickly.

Baggs did a few book signings up at AT&T, but I was never able to make it up there to see him...and it's a long way just to stand in line to have a book signed. But right when we got back from San Diego, I noticed he said he'd be in San Jose signing books, just a few days later. This was not an opportunity I was going to pass up.

So, we went for dinner at nearby Santana Row and headed to Barnes & Noble, where Baggs took questions for awhile, showing off that he's really pretty eloquent in addition to being ridiculously knowledgeable about both baseball and the Giants' cast of characters. I didn't ask any questions myself, but I loved hearing his answers on everything from instant replay to Buster Posey.

In the end, we bought an additional book for Smunch to have signed. And I thanked Mr. Baggarly for teaching my son to read with his great stories about the Giants. It wasn't faint praise either. I'm not at all sure Smunch would have developed his love for reading without the sports section of the Mercury.I was pleased to see, after we were done getting our books signed, that the line for Baggs' autograph stretched far through the store. It's good to know there are so many fans of the written word among all those Giants fans!

Root, root, root for the visiting team...

2011-07-26T20:17:00.000-07:00

For the last few years, we've been sure to buy a couple of tickets to a Padres game while we're down in San Diego. Daddy has always taken Smunch to Petco Park for the game while I stayed with Mam, Aunt Karen and SPENCER! This year was special. First of all, I got to go, while Mam stayed with Aunt Karen. Second, however, I got to go wearing this:because for the first time in the history of our visits to San Diego, the Giants were in town. We caught the last game of their four-game series with the Padres.

I admit it felt a little weird to be wearing the orange and black in a foreign stadium...although I'll add that I think Petco is a beautiful stadium. Maybe not as picturesque as AT&T from the outside, but just awesome in the corridors (which are open to the air and draped in vines) and in the park itself...but I was far, FAR from alone. Not only were Smunch and Daddy there, but I'm pretty sure there were at least 10,000 other people dressed similarly. It was a little hard to tell just who the home team was!Matt Cain pitched a great game and the score was tied at 3-3 at the end of the ninth inning. I texted Aunt Karen to let her know we'd be a bit late for dinner. Predictably, Smunch didn't mind the extra baseball time.Finally, in the 11th, the Giants' newest catcher, Chris Stewart, squared up for the perfect suicide squeeze bunt, scoring the runner from third and ensuring that we got to see this guy...Yep, that's Brian "The Beard" Wilson. And in typical fashion, he made the last inning torturous. But it was over. The Giants won and the three of us...and our new 10,000 closest friends, went home happy.

Daddy and Smunch went to visit the USS Midway museum for the third time the next day while Aunt Karen and I hung out waiting for Lucas to nap and finally made it to the poolin time for Daddy and Gavinto join us. And that? That was it. A yummy breakfast, some fond farewells and off we went...home again, just in time for Aunt Karen, SPENCER! and LUCAS! to come visit us!

The Water Down South

2011-07-26T19:46:00.001-07:00

I guess it was really just a few of weeks between our camping trip in far northern California and our trip to visit Aunt Karen's family in far southern California. The kids were both in sports camp for two of those weeks. July 4th was in there. We took our first trip to the Shoreline Ampitheatre to see the San Francisco Symphony and fireworks. That went well. It was a lot of fun. Don't know that we'll keep doing that in the future, but we might! Then Mam had a few days of "farm camp". I dropped her off a a bus nearby and they took her out to the camp. I was thrilled at how smoothly that went...but not surprised. Mam is hardly a shrinking violet, even when she knows no one else there.

And before I knew it, obviously, it was time to leave for San Diego. This was to be a mellow trip. No big theme parks, primarily the pool and the beach. Oh, and baseball, of course. We can't forget baseball! There was SPENCER! And for the first time in the Ryder family history of visits to San Diego, there was also LUCAS!We started our stay with another new pastime...checking into our hotel. With the Westbrook family expanding, having our own digs has been a nice addition, even if it really cuts into our evening chats. This year, our hotel also featured some educational value, as a swarm of bees had moved into one of the trees by the pool. You could see it from our room. I'm sure some guests were intimidated. But you know me. How cool is THIS??They were there for the duration of our stay. Maybe they've got family in San Diego too.

We spent our first day with the Westbrooks, at their house and at the pool. I didn't even bring my camera, but it was a nice day. I fixed them dinner. We all relaxed. The kids went to bed easily...a marked improvement over our first night. The next day, we headed for the beach in Encinitas. I think my kids could spend their lives a the beach without ever noticing the passage of time.Mam was in the water before I could even turn around from setting our stuff down. And she might have spent half an hour out of the water during the entire four hours we were there. Spencer largely joined her, even though he didn't quite have her stamina.Smunch, on the other hand, busied himself with tooling around on the beach. He went in the water a little, but is generally a whole lot more timid than his little sister and lets her have the water to herself...well, to herself and a bazillion other people.I look pretty mellow, don't I? I mostly hung out with Aunt Karen and LUCAS!while Daddy went out in the waves with Mam. It just wasn't that warm. I was mostly snuggled in a blanket in our shelter. In the end, I went for a short swim before we left. It seemed a pity to let everyone else have all the fun. At least the water was warm! The kids spent our last few minutes there, burying each other in sand, ensuring another trip to the water...and a trip to the showers.We don't usually go to Encinitas to go to the beach, but we chose to go there this time because it was in the direction of Carlsbad and Carlsbad is the home of pick-your-own strawberries.I think it took six of us about 10 minutes to pick $16 worth of berries. Worth every penny for that night's strawberry shortcake!

Farewell to Prairie Creek

2011-06-28T13:30:00.000-07:00

This was the longest camping trip our little family has ever taken. And for the first time, it really felt long enough. Unlike Lassen, there aren't loads of different things to do up in the Redwoods. There's pretty much hiking and...uh...hiking, sleeping, eating. Not that that isn't wonderful. We spent a lot of time driving around Lassen. We spent very little time driving this year. And that was great.

Friday, we drove back to Trillium Falls with the tripod and I took the pictures in the previous post. Then, we made good on our promise to Mam and drove out to the beach. The road along the coast is dirt and full of potholes. I couldn't quite imagine driving all the way to Fern Canyon. We stopped at Gold Bluffs Beach...about 4 miles short of the Fern Canyon parking lot...and I'd had quite enough of the road by then.We were some of the only people on the beach who weren't surf fishing. The fishermen (and women) seemed to be pretty successful. Mam collected bits of dead crabs from the beach, while Daddy and I sat and chatted. Fortunately, the sand is dark out there. It wasn't a super warm day, but we were warm enough sitting out there on our blankets, eating the lunch I'd packed before leaving.Mam was a lot happier to be at the beach than Smunch was. Already starved for information about his San Francisco Giants, Smunch got in a little baseball on the sand instead.As far as hiking went, it was a light morning, so after we left the beach and returned to the campground, we headed back out for one last set of trails before packing up to head home. This time, we chose the Rhododendron Trail. It sounded nice and it didn't disappoint.This hike was on the steep side compared to many of the others we'd taken. We chose to go down the "strenuous" South Fork trail rather than hiking up it. That was a good thing too. By the time we got to the top point on the Rhododendron trail, the kids were pooped.But the steep trail meant we were down and back to the van in no time.

Still no elk in the meadow near camp. So after dinner, I opted to go for a little drive, back to the spot where we'd seen elk a couple of days earlier, to see if I could find some bucks worthy of photographing. Nada. None on the drive there, none in the meadow there either. None on the way back...at least not until I exited the freeway on the way back to the park.

It looked like a couple of cars had crashed into each other at the bottom of the off ramp, but that wasn't the case. They'd just stopped quickly to take in the sights.There were five of these guys, grazing in the grass at the side of the ramp and later blocking the entire thing to traffic.

I took the kids back to see the elk when I got back, but the bucks were gone. Fortunately, there were a few out in Elk Meadow, so they still got to see some.

As soon as we got back to the campsite, Daddy and I set to packing everything we could, with our sights set on an early getaway the next morning. We hoped to stop near Eureka for breakfast at the Samoa Cookhouse, which had come highly recommended.

Everything worked out perfectly. We packed up the food and the tents and headed off.An hour to a yummy breakfast of French toast and eggs and then home.

Oh, how badly this trip was needed. And, as usual, as soon as we got home, I was back to leafing through the camping book, wondering where we might be able to go in August!

Elk and Trillium Falls

2011-06-28T13:12:00.001-07:00

Day 2 of our camping trip brought some elk, but not in Elk Meadow. We drove down the highway to see these ladies. And really, we were headed for the trailhead to Trillium Falls. The elk were just a bonus. Humboldt County is not Yosemite by any stretch. There aren't a lot of magnificent waterfalls, but this one is pretty darned lovely.It was just a short hike to the waterfall, but we spent a bit of time there while I took pictures. I didn't bring a tripod, so we returned the next day to take these shots.There was a nice loop to follow, which included some gigantic skunk cabbage.It also included a lot of ferns, moss and redwoods.We opted to go back to the campsite for lunch and the kids played in the creek for a while, wading around in their water shoes and throwing rocks, naturally.I took a short nap while Daddy went to play catch with the kidlets. Then we headed back out for another hike through the "Cathedral Trees" and the "Big Tree".There was still whining going on, but Daddy managed it with the kind of grace I only wish I had. Not only did he manage to distract the kids from whining, but he also engaged their little minds with brain-teaser-type puzzles that they not only enjoyed, but they begged for more. My little overwhelmed brain just doesn't quite have the bandwidth for this kind of child stimulation, apparently!

Another great day of hiking and camping. One day left before making the long trek home....(Mam was insanely proud of herself for carrying the evening's supply of firewood all the way back to the campsite!)

Outta Here

2011-06-28T12:31:00.000-07:00

I was impatient about booking a camping trip this year. In the end, that meant our reservations were for the week right after the end of school. We were supposed to leave Monday, right after the weekend baseball tournament. Fortunately, sorta, I got a phone call a couple of weeks earlier, informing me that our campsite at Sequoia National Park was still under SNOW.

The message indicated that they should be able to relocate us to a different campground, but in reality, they'd displaced about 1,000 campers and the chances were slim. So...I whipped out my trusty camping book and found a completely different campground in a completely different direction, which was available for the same number of nights, although not until Tuesday. Fine. Another day to pack and get our butts out the door.

We didn't leave particularly early on Tuesday, so we didn't arrive at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park until about 5:30 that evening. There was a large, rather magnificent herd of elk near the entrance. Awesome, I thought, we'd get to see plenty of them in the next few days. We'd have to, right? We were camping at Elk Meadow campground after all. But, yeah. Not so much!At least the foxgloves were pretty.

Daddy and the kids quickly got the campsite set up while I fixed spaghetti, garlic bread and green beans for dinner. S'mores for dessert (of course) and then a bedtime. Mam awoke the next morning, excited about our first campsite visitor:She kept track of this guy all the way through breakfast. Of course, he was far from the only banana slug we saw.

For our first day at the park, we decided to visit Fern Canyon. You can drive down the highway and up the unpaved road along the coast to get there, but we opted (out of sheer foolishness, probably) to hike there from the campground. It was a lovely hike through the redwoods, but it was also about 12 miles round trip...with two small children.Not surprisingly, there was a lot of whining, particularly from Mam. Daddy insisted she try some beef jerky, since she'd done a poor job of eating breakfast. That didn't go over well.

About five miles into our hike, we finally reached the signpost for Fern Canyon and stairs down toward the creek.Of course, we got to the bottom of the stairs and there was no sign of a trail. Fortunately, there was a ranger. Daddy had asked back at the visitors center if we'd need to walk through water. They said, no, just maybe some mud. They were wrong.

The trail criss-crossed the creek several times, requiring Daddy and me to take off our shoes and wade through the water. It would've been a whole lot easier if we'd brought our water shoes. Daddy carried the kids across the creek more than once too.

We barely saw anyone on our hike, but Fern Canyon was pretty busy. Obviously, most people opt to drive there and take the short walk to the canyon rather than hiking overland.It was certainly worth the trip. Even the kids seemed happy to be there and appreciated the steep walls covered in ferns. At that point, we were out by the coast and we took a short walk to the parking lot, primarily to use the restrooms, before heading back. Mam was adamant that she wanted to walk out to the beach, but it was windy and chilly. We promised to go another day.The hike back still involved quite a bit of whining and Mam eventually ended up on Daddy's shoulders. But we all made it and I think I was the only one with a blister. So much for my nice comfy hiking boots! At least Smunch was pretty happy and cooperative all day.It was another relatively late arrival at our campsite, so it was straight to making a campfire and dinner yet again. The kids were grateful for the break.

Baseball's End

2011-06-20T15:56:00.000-07:00

Does that title make you laugh? It makes me smirk just a little because we all know that baseball is NEVER over in the Ryder household. There's a whole summer of San Francisco Giants, after all!

We were "fortunate" this year that Smunch didn't make the traveling all-star team for his league. Sure, that would have been flattering, but he was getting so little playing time on the club team...and he got that same kind of time on the travel team last summer...that I wasn't keen on letting all our summer plans slide just for more baseball.

Instead, Smunch was chosen for the "In-House All Stars" team. The team was a mixture of Phillies and Marlins players, with one player from the Cubs and they played a single weekend tournament with two games on Saturday and two on Sunday.In a lot of ways, it was a fairly dismal affair for the team dubbed The Chillens". The games were long and although they were somewhat close in score, the Chillens lost every single one of them.

On the upside, Smunch played pretty well. He pitched well enough to get the attention of the coach...the head coach of the Marlins who had also coached the Mavericks.Smunch never pitched for the Mavericks, so the coach hadn't seen that much of him. He struck out a bunch and got some good coaching on how to pitch just a little better. He also got a few hits and I believe he even scored once.

It was a mind-numbing weekend, with Daddy largely unavailable due to scorekeeping duties and me roped into providing snack just because no one else volunteered to bring anything when the kids had back-to-back games right at lunchtime. Watermelon, yogurt, cheese sticks...and hot dogs provided by another family. It was pretty successful as snacks go.

And know what? The coach asked Smunch if he was planning to play Fall Ball (he already was) and said he was getting together a team and he'd like to have Smunch on it. Awesome. I have a feeling summer is going to feel mighty short before baseball season begins again!

Another Last

2011-06-20T15:43:00.000-07:00

The end of the school year seemed to come up in such a rush, that I barely figured out what I needed to do before it was all over. I was responsible for organizing a portion of each of the end-of-year picnics - 1st grade and 3rd grade. And I got tasked with collecting donations for a gift for Smunch's teacher...not my favorite activity since I went crazy on that stuff when Smunch was in 1st grade.

So, in the end, I just took photos of the kids with their teachers. I'll certainly miss them all. I couldn't have been happier when I learned that we'd have these teachers this year. It seems like just moments ago that I was delivering their school supplies and introducing myself. This year flew by in something even faster than a blur.

Here's Smunch and his teacher, Mrs. Panec. Despite my freaking out over Smunch's oral presentation, I have to say that she is possibly one of the warmest, most wonderful teachers I've ever met. If you'd asked me at the beginning of the year, I would have said that warm and wonderful were not the qualities I really looked for in a teacher for my son. Structured and strict were more like it. I didn't know how this year would go. But you know what? It was his best year yet.

Mam had two teachers this year. They split the week with the class and they've been teaching as a team for years now. They complement each other very well and I hadn't dared hope she'd be chosen for their class. It was just what I wanted.Unfortunately for the teachers, they didn't get the easiest class ever. They were chatty, they were loud, there were several fairly disruptive children. Mam wasn't one of them. She did fine and she had a fine time. She liked everyone. Everyone seemed to like her. She had at least one "boyfriend" at any given time during the year.Her teachers seemed to manage the class with just about as much grace as any teachers could possibly muster. And as much as I know that class drove them crazy, there were still tears on the last day. I'll miss them as well.

I only hope we're so lucky next year!

Time Off

2011-05-17T16:37:00.000-07:00

Parents don't get a whole lot of "time off". There's no big revelation there. There are a few oh-so-lucky couples who have family willing to take the kids...or even clamoring to keep the kids so the parents can go out of town for a weekend...or even a week in some cases. We're not one of those couples.

But my mother did offer, about three years ago, to take the kids for the weekend for our 10th anniversary. We took her up on that without hesitation and had a wonderful time in Carmel. I'm not honestly sure anything will ever rival that trip in a lot of ways. It was such a huge relief to leave both kids at home with trusted caregivers after seven years of occasional babysitters.

We managed to get away for a single night last year. It was nice, but really didn't cut it.

This year, Daddy got a special offer from the same hotel we'd stayed at for our 10th, begged my mother for mercy and booked us for another weekend.Truth be told, this place is gorgeous, but not altogether my kind of deal. I'm uncomfortable with valets who open the car door for me, having my napkin placed in my lap for me, putting things on "my tab". Nonetheless, it not hard to appreciate getting the heck out of Dodge and away from children and obligations for just a little bit.

Soon after we arrived, we drove to Carmel Valley and had dinner at a cute little place called Café Rustica. It's a warm, snug little place with some super tasty Italian food. I enjoyed my dinner a lot, including the first wine I'd had in months.

Having had several discussions lately about just what is my thing, Daddy and I used Saturday to go for a hike above the ocean. We arrived at Garrapata State Park...one of the 70 slated for closure...to find that the trail I'd hoped to take was closed, but we decided to go for a walk up the canyon anyway.It was a good choice. On a not-so-warm, overcast day, the canyon was beautiful and green. There were some little waterfalls...and lots of ferns.We walked and walked until the trail started going significantly uphill. We'd passed a blank sign that had almost certainly said "Trail Closed", but since it no longer said anything, we hiked right past. Before we knew it, we were out of the canyon and on the steep trail that had been closed, for obvious reasons, like it was really washed out in spots.I was secretly kind of thrilled that we got to go that way anyway, with a viable excuse. We reached the top and had a snack overlooking the ocean. It was cold and windy up there, especially after getting all damp and sweaty on the way up, but the views were still pretty impressive.We took the steep and sandy route down. The trail really took it out on my knees, but we made it to the bottom with time to spare and took a little walk around the shoreline before heading back to the hotel and showering for dinner.

This hotel has a very nice restaurant ($$$) where we had our official anniversary dinner. I had some tasty things I'd never tried before, including a butternut squash tart with arugula. And naturally, we had some decadent desserts, including this carrot cake with cream cheese mousse on top and blood orange sorbet on the side.I'm sure it was all too pricey and I'm glad I never looked at the bill. It all just went on "the tab" anyway, right?The hotel hosts a lot of weddings. Saturday was no exception, even though there was a storm blowing in. I'd forgotten that our room (which was the same one we'd had a year earlier) is way too close to wherever they load up the delivery trucks with wedding supplies at 1:30am after the festivities are over. Between that and the wind, rain and hail, we didn't sleep terribly well. So when it was raining the next morning, we went for breakfast, then went back to our room for a nap. Later, we headed into Carmel to pick up some trinkets for the kids and their babysitters.

We took a windy little walk along the tidepools at Asilomar and headed home with that same feeling kids get when a particularly fun playdate is over. Coming home was way more of a bummer than it should have been. At least the kids were happy to see us!

Hippity, Hoppity Holiday

2011-04-29T19:49:00.000-07:00

If you're not the religious sort, Easter is pretty much all about the Easter Bunny. That's sort of silly when you think about it, but it gives the kids something to look forward to. Mam started asking about Easter at least two weeks before the day arrived.

The kids woke up early and took it upon themselves to dress in their Easter best...which was pretty cute and pretty funny. Probably not quite what I would have chosen, but then, my parents decided to go to San Diego for Easter this year. That meant it was just the four of us. And it meant that no one was here to be disappointed that I hadn't cooked a breakfast extravaganza or used my best china. There was no pressure and it was a decidedly low key day...except for the egg-hunting, that is.We didn't dye eggs this year. I'm the only one who will eat hard boiled eggs, so I didn't see the point in wasting them. The Easter Bunny left markedly fewer plastic eggs around the yard than in previous years. There were complaints that there wasn't enough candy. There was plenty of candy. I still anticipate throwing out the majority of it, like every other year.

I was thrilled to see our big rose bush had burst into bloom right on cue. This has got to be one of my favorite plants in the whole yard. It's just so darned pretty and I do very little to keep it that way. Our cat, Oliver, was fairly desperate to join us and since he's learned to open the back door, he almost did...I didn't take any pictures of breakfast. We'd picked up some cinnamon rolls and bear claws at the local bakery. I scrambled some eggs and Daddy cut up some fruit. We ate on our everyday plates. It was yummy and totally nausea inducing. I had to take a nap afterwards.

Daddy and I fully enjoyed the day. No baseball games, no practices, no one to entertain. But at the end of it all, Mam declared, "It didn't even feel like Easter!" I don't know what was missing for her, exactly, but I'm inclined to try and keep it this low key. My gosh, it was a nice change...and honestly, I think the kids had a pretty good time, don't you?

Blah, Blah, Blog

2011-04-29T17:51:00.000-07:00

I don't know what it is about this time of year exactly. Maybe it's the relief of having the birthdays over with. Or maybe it's the craziness of baseball and softball season. I took a hiatus from blogging about this time last year as well. But this year I also have a job and I've been working out like a crazy woman. I'm not totally sure what's up with that either, but the bathroom scale? It's not up at all. In fact, it's down, so I feel the need to keep working out like a fiend. I doubled down on yoga this week, made it to pilates, ran about 10 miles (total). I've also been at school a lot, taking kids to the library, helping kids with writing, helping kids with reading, helping them construct bird nests, serving lunch.

At the same time, turning 40 doesn't seem to be agreeing with me very well. I'm facing a very classic mid-life crisis and dealing with it poorly. Here I am at 40. I've achieved most of what I set out to do. I'm in desperate need of a second act, but I don't know what that is and I'm not willing to do less parenting to achieve it. Hmmm.

Anyway, so where were we anyhow? Well, there was this:Smunch started his baseball season as a member of the Phillies. He has a nice team. I like them. And, much like last year, he's one of the better players on this team, where he's one of the weaker players on the club team. It's probably good for him to have the contrast.

And there's this:Mam seems to be enjoying playing with the Pink Butterflies. And I'm enjoying being the team manager again, but parents really are crazy. I feel ridiculous having to tell another mom that her 5-year-old daughter canNOT play with those big earrings in her ears because she really might tear her earlobe off. It's very obvious. It's not my kid...and yet, I'm responsible. And I ask them not to bring snacks for their kids to eat during the game because it's very distracting both to their kid and to the other players. The game is only an hour. I think they can wait. FEED them before you come for heaven's sake! But several parents don't take my pleas to heart. Their children are a problem. Apparently, I also need to ask them not to bring toys for their daughters to play with during the game. Ugh. At least the girls themselves are fun.

One of my other high school buddies finally saw fit to turn 40 as well, so my group of friends all attended her party in The City. It made for some fun photo opportunities.And all of us were there...which is always nice. This will be a fun year that way.Got to hope it's this good ten years from now!

Spring break came and went. I took the kids up to the zoo for part of one day, but mostly we were at home, waiting for Smunch's next baseball practice to occur. So, it wasn't quite the fun spring break one might hope for. We spent the final weekend in Manteca, playing at at baseball tournament with the Mavericks.

There's not a lot to do in Manteca, but they do have one heck of a baseball facility there. Each field was built as a replica of a famous ballpark. On Saturday, the Mavericks played a double header at Yankee Stadium. Apparently, the tournament organizers weren't really up on the habits of 9-year-old boys because their games were scheduled back-to-back at 6:30pm and 8:30pm. Although they didn't get back to the hotel until 11 that night, they were all psyched to get to play under THE LIGHTS at least.Now, the day before the tournament, the coach sent the parents an e-mail saying that not everyone was going to be in the starting lineup this time around. This time, he said, he was going to field the most competitive team he could. I knew what that meant. It meant we were driving to Manteca to see Smunch play just a few innings of three long games. Bummer. That's pretty much the way it played out too, but the Mavericks played respectably. The mercy rule was never invoked. They always played to the time limit. And Smunch even managed to walk, steal second, have a short conference with the coach...steal third,and finally score the tying run by stealing home.He never actually got a hit during the tournment, but he had a good time, even though he didn't play much. And the hotel had a pool, so he and Mam got to swim with the rest of the team before their lackluster game at Fenway Park on Sunday. Who could blame them? They were tired. They hadn't slept well at the hotel. Their opponent was relatively local and their team got to go home early and sleep in their beds Saturday night.

I admit it was kind of fun, but I was still left wondering why we bothered. While Daddy kept score on his iPad, I took over the controller for the outfield scoreboard. At least that was mildly entertaining.

And last weekend was Easter. I guess that ought to get its own blog entry. I didn't take nearly enough photos, but that's O.K...

Play Ball!...Again

2011-03-14T20:31:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was a super sports extravaganza all over the place. Smunch had two hours of practice with the Mavericks Friday evening, followed by an hour of basketball practice. We started Saturday morning getting Smunch to the tournament ball field at 7am for an 8am game. *yawn* Daddy took that on while I dropped Mam off with a friend so she could make it to opening day for softball. Then I took off for the tournament myself.

It was early and chilly. The Mavericks have been practicing for just a couple of weeks. The other teams at the tournament have been playing together for months...or years in some cases. It was a valuable lesson in humility for a bunch of boys who'd tried out and made the team.There was a lot of stealing during this game. The Mavericks' are Mustang 1 level PONY players...and they've only barely started practicing for their regular season. Mustang 1 is the first level where they learn to steal bases and such. So, it's a little mystifying to them yet.Smunch is attempting a steal of second in the picture above. See the ball? He didn't make it.

I left after that game and picked Mam up, fed her lunch and whisked her off to her last basketball game. Smunch was also supposed to go to his last basketball game...and maybe if his coach hadn't given out trophies at practice the night before, he would have done that. Instead, he decided to play the second game of the baseball tournament...and I made him call his basketball coach and tell him. Unfortunately, the coach didn't answer, so he had to leave a semi-intelligible message an hour before the game and Daddy took him back to the diamond.

The Killer Penguins made their last stand. It was one of their most challenging games of the season and only seven girls were available for the game, instead of the usual 10. The girls played hard and they did well. I don't do a very good job of keeping score, but I think they were probably a little behind at the end.

No matter, I had to whisk Mam off to her opening day softball game with the Pink Butterflies. We weren't too terribly late to the game. Just missed the first inning. Mam seemed to have fun.I forgot to take off her basketball jersey and didn't even notice until the end of the game.

I called Daddy when the game ended to see if I needed to head back to the baseball facility. I didn't. The score was 21-0 and the game was almost over. The Mavericks would have one more game on Sunday. Just about the time we set the clocks forward an hour for daylight savings, I got the e-mail that the game was at 8am the next morning. The boys would need to be there at 7am again...only this time it was an hour earlier.

Daddy got the early morning job again and Mam and I made it there during the first inning...to freeze our butts off in the foggy, breezy early morning while the Mavericks got pummeled one last time. It might just go without saying that we did *nothing* for the rest of the day.

Hasta, Killer Penguins

2011-03-08T19:11:00.000-08:00

According to our schedule, last Saturday was the final stand for the undefeated Killer Penguins. I'd offered to make a cake for their celebratory end-of-season party. Of course, I didn't know at the time that the end of season party would be scheduled on Mam's birthday. It prompted us to have her party the previous day. And it prompted me to take the entire week off work to complete two cakes at once.

In typical Killer Penguins fashion, they vanquished the competition.Mam scored three baskets and her teammates scored many more. The other team might have scored three total. I was glad they scored, at least.This basketball season was so much fun. The coaches were great, the girls really enjoyed each other and played really well. Not surprisingly, that meant I wanted to make a really special cake for them.

I started experimenting with making fondant figurines. I'd never tried that before and wasn't the least bit sure I could pull it off. I liked my killer penguins though...and judging by the number of people who asked me where I'd found them, I'd say other people did too.I wanted an "icy" look to the cake, so I chose not to blend all the color into the fondant and make it marble-y. And knowing I had a team and siblings to feed, I put it together just like Mam's ladybug cake.It sat like that for a couple of days, which was a pity because it didn't look nearly as marble-y by the time I got to decorating it. We had to go to several stores before we found an appropriate basketball hoop. I just couldn't imagine making an edible one of those. Store #3, which was out of them, called store #4 and put it on hold for us. I made a little lake and piped on some snow.I added borders to both layers and carefully started placing penguins. Note to self...it's much easier to have a consistent border if your cake is in the middle of the plate.As a final touch, Daddy helped me engineer a dunking penguin.Somewhere along the line, I got an e-mail saying the reservation at the restaurant was for 46 people. I briefly panicked and made a quick sheet cake...which was, um, not particularly attractive, but functional.

Driving the cake over to the pizzeria was a little dicey and dunking penguin didn't show up entirely intact, but it was easy to fix and the cake went over well. The crowd sang "Happy Birthday" to Mam and most important, she got her trophy, as the coaches described her as a "little fireball". Ah, yes. Fireball, indeed.Naturally, it turns out that the coach's schedule was wrong. The Penguin's last game is this coming Saturday, overlapping with Mam's first softball game. There won't be any more cake.

Turning 7

2011-03-08T17:33:00.000-08:00

I'm finding that it's hard to plan anything truly special for my daughter's birthday. I don't necessarily do a whole lot better with her brother, but as soon as his birthday's over, it's already too late to start thinking about hers from scratch. So, it was several days after Smunch's birthday that I sat down with Mam to talk about a guest list.

I don't know where this child came from. I really don't. She isn't a thing like her mother. I can tell you that. I always had a few really good friends and some peripheral friends, but I wasn't friends with everyone. Mam, is friends with just about everyone. There are some notable exceptions, but there are 24 kids in her class. Even if she's not fond of a quarter of them, that's still 18 children to invite. In the end, she invited 17, including a kindergartner from down the street, a friend who goes to another school and two girls who aren't in her class this year...in addition to a full half of her first grade class.

I made a snap decision that if we had to have that many children at our house, they were going to watch a movie. I chose "A Bug's Life". Despite the ladybug in the movie being a rather surly male, I figured it was probably as close to "on theme" as I was going to get.

The kids started arriving at 4:30. By five, they were sitting down creating their own mini-pizzas out of English muffins and all the fixins I could come up with. Pizzas were flying into the oven and flying right back out.It was complete chaos. Kids were loud, kids were crazy, some kids were grumpy. Prodded by her current "boyfriend", Mam announced it was too loud. I suggested she rethink inviting so many kids next time.

Once kids started finishing their dinner, we sent them off to play Twister in the family room with Daddy.With 15 kids, it was still crazy. Not too many kids can play Twister at once.

Mercifully, we started the movie as soon as 5:30 rolled around. And a beautiful silence filled the air as 15 children became complete zombies in front of the TV. Of course, there was plenty of giggling, but relatively speaking, it was so under control!When the peace was finally over, at least there was cake to keep them occupied.Naturally, half of them complained about either the fondant or the strawberry filling. Cake never occupies kids for as long as you'd hope. We ended up having Mam open her presents...something children rarely do at birthday parties anymore.

When that was over, they all went HOME. And that was the best part of all! That and the next morning...Mam's actual birthday...when she got her brand new bike, which she already loves.Funny to think there was a time when I was near certain that she'd never be able to ride a bike...much less have a crazy birthday party.

Ladybug Birthday

2011-03-08T17:12:00.000-08:00

Mam decreed that this year would be a ladybug year for her birthday. Well, O.K., I thought. I had visions of an oval-shaped cake that I could decorate as a ladybug. That's a lot of red stuff. It's hard to color things red. It takes a lot of coloring. It took a long time for my vision of this cake to finally take shape. As always, it had humble beginnings.This was a white cake with strawberry filling...as requested. Naturally, upon actually tasting it, Mam decided that she doesn't like strawberry filling. Such are the whims of a 7-year-old.I wasn't so sure what color I wanted this cake to be either. I wanted it to be bright and cheerful. Ladybugs make me happy. I wanted this cake to have that same effect. After seeing Mam's rather extensive guest list, I also decided it needed two tiers.And now it was yellow. It wasn't quite the bright, cheerful yellow I'd been looking for, but I decided to go with it rather than doing anything rash, like making a whole new batch of fondant...because yeah, I make my own fondant and color it myself.I added grass. Lots of grass. As much grass as I thought I could add without turning it into a jungle cake. The grass is just rolled out fondant, cut with a pizza cutter. I added a leafy fondant border...because it just needed a border.I made daisies out of gum paste and let them dry so that they curved just so. I made ladybugs out of red fondant, rolled into egg shapes and cut in half...then added heads and spots with a FoodWriter pen.Last, but not least, of course, I had to add the flowers and the ladybugs to the cake. It was looking promising, but it was hard to know for sure until they were on.I always take a picture at this step because I'm so worried that I'll write on the top of the cake and that'll ruin everything. Honestly, the writing, while being elementary school perfect, turned out oddly centered. Fortunately, a few strategically placed daisies and ladybugs seemed to make up for it.I admit I was pretty proud of this one. It turned out every bit as cool as I'd envisioned. Mam loved what it looked like, even if she's refused to eat any of the leftovers. Of course, I don't want to be stuffing myself with them either. Maybe next year, I should just whip out the canned frosting and a box of cake mix!

More Snow...a Lot More Snow

2011-02-26T10:51:00.001-08:00

On the way back to the cabin from Homewood, we stopped at the ski rental store and turned in my skis for snowshoes. At that point, when I was feeling, oh-so-not-part-of-my-skiing-family, I really just needed the promise of doing something I would really enjoy, even if it was going to be a solo trek. It seemed like some snow hiking and a peaceful afternoon to myself might be just what I needed.

It was snowing when we got up on Thursday, making Daddy decide not to take our fledgling skiiers back out to the slopes. So, there would be no peace in the cabin. Daddy put the chains on the van and we had breakfast at my favorite little spot in Carnelian Bay. And we went back to the cabin. As soon as there was a sign of the snow letting up and with the rest of the family all zombiefied by one screen or another, I put on my snow gear, swiped Daddy's nice sunglasses and set out with my camera.

Ahhhh. There's nothing quite so beautiful and quiet as the woods in the snow.Walking in snowshoes can be hard work, but I was much more in my element than I'd been for the past couple of days. I took photos of the cool little things I saw along the way.One of my boots was giving me problems, but I managed to ignore it for the most part. That is, I ignored it until I suddenly realized I'd dropped Daddy's expensive sunglasses in the snow where I'd last stopped for photos and I really needed to go back for them. Fortunately, I hadn't gone too far, but by then, my boot was really killing me. I triapsed back up the hill, found a piece of the glasses sticking out, grabbed them and headed back the way I came. Now, I was really going to have to head back to the cabin. I couldn't keep my socks from slipping and the rubbing on my left heel. I got a little lost with all the trails in the snow, but fortunately not disoriented. I made it back within half an hour or so.I arrived back at the cabin to find Daddy creating a sled run on the hill across the street. I was relieved that the kids were finally back outside. And sled runs are fun!Until this happens...That doesn't even look so bad, but then this happens. and sledding is done for the day. Too bad. I missed most of it. But with my foot still hurting, I couldn't have made it up the hill anyway. And no wonder it hurt!Maybe I should learn to pay better attention when my body's trying to tell me there's a problem. Ouch!

We knew there was a storm blowing in later on Thursday and that it was supposed to last through Friday, but we stayed in our cabin because a) I'm cheap and we'd paid for it and b) I really wanted to visit some friends on the way back and Thursday was a school night for them so we really needed to swing by there on Friday. It retrospect, it probably wasn't our best choice. This was our driveway on Friday morning.I hurried to clean up the cabin and feed the kids breakfast while Daddy went out, excavated the van, reinstalled the chains he'd been able to remove the previous day and packed the car. Still, we weren't out of there until just after 9 o'clock. The road wasn't looking so good.But CalTrans' website said the highways were still open and we'd already been told the next renters would be coming regardless and we had to get out. So we left. The road up to the main freeway was dicey and by the time we actually reached the freeway, they were turning traffic around. We were stuck.Stuck in McDonalds. Turns out there are worse places to be. McDonalds has cheap coffee and free WiFi. We hung out for an hour or so. Daddy's iPhone went off with a Facebook update from one of his friends.

She wasn't going skiing because they'd closed Alpine Meadows. It was going to be a lazy day at the cabin for her. Oh, really? I thought. "Think she'd let us crash with her if we need to?" I asked?

I hastily composed a quick message asking if her cabin could be our emergency backup. She replied. "ABSOLUTELY!" They weren't far away either, so we readied to leave McDonalds, which was getting crowded, and head to her cabin. The storm was still pretty ferocious as we left.We ran into a long line of cars waiting for the freeway to open and couldn't get past to the road we needed, so we turned around and headed for another street that would connect us with where we wanted to go. Should have known better, of course.

The road to hell, I'm convinced, is paved with steep, snow-covered hairpin turns.

We reached the uphill hairpin, but had to slow too much for an oncoming car and couldn't make it. The van wouldn't move. We backed down the hill, so a four-wheel SUV could get past us. It had a hard time making it too, but cars kept coming and we had to keep moving back and back and finally into a snow bank where we couldn't get out.

Fortunately, people in the mountains seem to be pretty nice and very helpful. A good samaritan in a big red truck came by and offered to help. He also had a shovel. He and Daddy dug us out of the snowbank and having had enough of the hill, we turned around and went back to the main road.

This time, we made it to the turnoff we needed and slowly made our way to our friend's ski rental cabin. The snow was so high in her neighborhood, it was hard to find, but we made it sometime between noon and 1 o'clock. And there we stayed, learning that the friends I'd hoped to visit had stomach flu plaguing their house and keeping an eye on the highway webcams and the CalTrans road conditions pages for hours...partaking in our generous hostess's tea and hot chocolate and feeling thankful for saving our leftover pizza from a few nights before and bringing it with us...for just this occasion.

Right about 3:30, there were signs that the main highway was open again. Cars on the webcams appeared to move and as soon as the CalTrans page said 80 was open, we packed up our stuff and left, with Daddy's friend and her boyfriend blazing us a trail in their GMC Denali.Although it started snowing like crazy again by the time we made it to the highway, we got there without incident and started the slow trek through the mountains towards home. By now, it was 4 o'clock and we were just leaving Tahoe.

It was a long drive into Auburn, but it was nice to finally see the sun again, hitting the snow-covered trees. (If you look carefully, you also be able to tell that our drive probably wasn't nearly as long as the drive in the other direction.)We stopped for dinner around 6 and arrived home around 9:30, exhausted but happy to be here...where there was a reported chance of snow while we slept.

Ski Week

2011-02-26T10:07:00.000-08:00

Ah, Winter Break. After the rush of Smunch's birthday and his big Jackie Robinson presentation, the break from school was most welcome. If you live around here, you've doubtlessly heard this week called "ski week". It starts with President's Day weekend and goes for the rest of the week.

Since I'm one of those inflexible kind of moms who don't believe in pulling my kids out of school for something like a ski trip, we go to the snow during ski week. I've figured out a way to make this work for us. We leave on President's Day and come back on Friday, missing the entirety of the weekend traffic. I'd booked our cabin back in October, I think, so we were set.

I love the little cabin we've found. It's old and shabby, but warm, incredibly well stocked and with enough bedrooms for the kids to each have their own. Oh, and it's cheap. Did I mention that?

So, we headed up on Monday. There was no traffic to speak of. We made it to the cabin before the cleaning crew was even finished. So, we sat outside for a minute or two and then moved right in. We went into Tahoe City and picked up all our ski rentals. The kids had reservations for a private lesson at Squaw on Tuesday and I was planning on a group lesson while Daddy cruised around the slopes freely. Although we were staying about half an hour away, we got there without incident, negotiated the rather huge resort and found all our lessons on time.The kids went off with Celeste, their very awesome instructor. I joined a Level 2 class and we took off up to High Camp where we had our skills assessed before learning anything. There were four women in my class. I enjoyed them all and Curtis, our instructor, seemed good, but the class wasn't really what I'd hoped for. Instead of learning anything new, we rehashed all the stuff I already knew how to do. It meant I got some instruction on how to refine the "skills" I arguably possess, but not much more.

And it was COLD up there at High Camp. I'd purchased nice ski pants and a new ski jacket before leaving. I was wearing four more layers of clothes under that, but I was freezing and traveling the lifts was particularly painful. Despite my nice new ski gloves, my fingernails felt like they just might pop right off. They hurt.

The kids arrived at High Camp shortly after I did. I saw them several times as I skiied down the beginner slopes.I didn't enjoy myself very much even though I was in good company, but I agreed to go back up with Daddy and the kids after lunch. It was windier and colder. I was with Mam and she'd been trying to tell me something about being bored, but truth be told, I'm scared to death of ski lifts and I was barely listening to her. I should have.

It turns out what she meant was that her lessons about making big S-turns were boring and she planned to take off like a shot from the top of the run. And she did. I sent Daddy after her, but she was already at the bottom.

I took a couple of runs and then left them all up there...while I went back down the mountain, grabbed my laptop and found myself a cushy chair and a $6 mocha at Starbucks.

Half an hour or so later, I got a call from Daddy. He'd overshot the Funitel that would have taken them down the mountain and ended up on an intermediate slope. The kids had done a good job negotiating it for a while, but finally gave out. Ski Patrol was coming to pick them up. They'd be late getting back. I laughed. I was so comfy at Starbucks that I didn't mind if they were late and obviously Daddy had it handled. He called me again when they were down.

I met him and a couple of hysterically sobbing kids on the way to the parking lot. They were totally fine, but Daddy had had to ski down the mountain while Ski Patrol whisked them away on a snowmobile for a lonely trip to the bottom on the Funitel. Daddy met them there, but their little hands were so cold that they really hurt. And the sobbing went on and on for at least 15 minutes. Given my general love for skiing (which, for the record is still non-existant) I tried really hard not to laugh as they sobbed.

Despite the slighly traumatic end to our day on Tuesday, the kids were rarin' to go again on Wednesday and I was game to take another stab at enjoying skiing. We headed to Homewood...which is smaller, shabbier and a whole lot cheaper. It also happens to have beautiful views and some nice, long beginner runs, all the way from the top of the mountain.As expected, Mam has become a fearless little skiier while her brother, so much more like his mom, is ever-so-cautious. But Daddy helped them along. And I followed them around the mountain. I think we hit every beginner run there was. The kids seemed to have fun. But I most certainly didn't. I'm clearly not cut out for this stuff. I don't like being cold, I don't like going fast, I hate ski lifts, I don't like people coming up behind me at 50mph. Oh, and I'm not a fan of wiping out.

My overdeveloped sense of self-preservation, I'm afraid, will forever keep me from enjoying skiing. I quit at lunchtime and spent a couple of hours reading in the car...because Homewood is too shabby to have decent indoor places for those who aren't skiing and certainly no Starbucks! The van was comfier. And after skiing for the morning, I was pretty convinced that this is going to be my last ski trip. Daddy can take the kids, but this is such a monumental waste of money for me...

Jackie Robinson...only shorter and paler

2011-02-17T21:09:00.000-08:00

It was a big day in the life of our dysfluent little baseball lover today. Third grade at our school includes a big Famous Americans unit. The culmination of this unit is for each student to pick a "famous American", then research that person and do a five-minute presentation for the class and parents. It's a VERY. BIG. DEAL. The kids come in costume, their presentation must be memorized and it has to include props.So, it's a very big deal for most kids. But you have to understand that this is my kid. The one who stutters...sometimes severely. When we started this project, his ability to speak was so poor that he struggled just to read the words from the page, even though his reading skills are just fine. His teacher wasn't initially so willing to cut him any slack with the time limit. So, I've been kinda stressed.

Generally speaking, I don't consider my kid disabled. I don't consider him "differently abled". He's just a kid who happens to stutter. And until now, it didn't seem to make a whole lot of difference to him.

I talked to his stuttering specialist and she's been seeing him twice as often since we started this project. I talked to the speech therapist at school who got the teacher to cave just a little...tell him he had no time limit and put him last in the day so she'd have more leeway on that.

We worked on memorizing places to use his "speech tools" in addition to memorizing all those words. We all worked hard. Smunch wasn't always thrilled with all the practicing. I wasn't thrilled either. We practiced while I worked out, we practiced in the car, we practiced with sound effects, with props, with projection, with a nice slow pace. We practiced and practiced. I think I had it almost as well memorized as he did.Today was the big day. And #42? He may have left out a line here and a word there, but he never needed prompting, he was one of the few kids you could understand. He was engaging and the kids laughed at his singing coffee can. Not once did they laugh at the way he spoke.I didn't cry. But it's not because he wasn't awesome.

In the Meantime

2011-02-16T22:46:00.000-08:00

The title of this post suggests there has actually been a "meantime" in the past couple of weeks. Sometimes there is only time when you make the time. I wanted to create some of that time on Smunch's birthday to do something he really wanted to do. I picked him up directly from school that day, dropped Mam off with a friend and headed to a somewhat nearby city to...well...stand in line with a bunch of other orange-and-black-clad people. Why not, right? Apparently, that's how Smunch and I roll these days.

Of course, our initial spot in line was nowhere near where I took that picture. It was all the way down the street...and around the corner. After standing in line for five on ten minutes, Smunch said, "Maybe we should go." To which I said, "You wanted to come and I drove you all the way here, so we're going to stay here for half an hour and see how fast this line moves." It was roughly 3:30 in the afternoon...time for the line to start moving.

The line moved quite a bit and although I was sensitive to making my newly minted nine-year-old stand in line for his birthday, I knew this was something he really wanted to do...and O.K., I kinda wanted to do it with him. Oddly, I spotted the guy I sat next to at the World Series ahead of us in line. I wish I'd said 'hi', but it seemed weird. We stayed in line and took little trips up to the front to catch a glimpse of our ultimate goal.The line was going to close at 5:30 and it was starting to get late. It was right about 5:25 when we finally reached the front. Yay!In approximately 10 seconds, we were shuffled along, out of the line and headed home.

Was this worth it? You bet!

On the way home, we stopped off by Kara's Cupcakes and Smunch got to choose his festive dessert for the evening. Then we zipped over to his favorite restaurant, where we met Daddy and Mam for a birthday dinner...which was cut short by the ill-considered need to get to a Mavericks team meeting...which ran totally late.

We got home around 8:30 (half an hour past Smunch's bedtime). He'd been gone from the house since he left for school that morning. He scarfed a cupcake, brushed his teeth and went to bed.

I'm not sure that made for the most fabulous birthday ever. I'll have to see what he thinks when the photo of us with the World Series trophy arrives in the mail!

Nine

2011-02-16T10:58:00.000-08:00

Today, my little boy is nine years old. Gosh. Nine.

I'd love to try and describe Smunch at nine, but he defies explanation in so many ways that I'm not sure I can do him justice. He's so well behaved at school, that I think he spends a lot of time "under the radar". He's smart and cute. That gets him a long way. At home, he's impatient and often grouchy after school. He can't stay up late on any night of the week or we all pay dearly for it.

He still loves sports, although he's lost some of his patience for watching them on TV. I guess we've spoiled him by taking him to too many live games. Obviously, he loves baseball...and the San Francisco Giants. The love was nurtured long before the Giants won the World Series. He went to his first game in 2008 and even though the Giants lost, he's been hooked ever since. He wants to be a Major League ball player when he grows up and when it comes to baseball, he's at his very most competitive. He's a little guy and he's not out there hitting home runs, but I think the coaches like his genuine interest and enthusiasm for the game.

He still likes me to come in and say goodnight before he falls asleep. He'll come out and remind me if I'm remiss in my duties.

Although speaking is a real challenge, he has yet to let it faze him. Tomorrow, he has a five-minute presentation that he'll be giving from memory, in character as Jackie Robinson. When he started practicing it, he could barely read it off the page. I don't think anyone except us will appreciate how hard he's had to work on this thing...memorizing not only the words, but the strategies he needs to get through the words that are hard for him to say. He's going to be great. I hope I don't cry.

Last weekend, the day after my birthday party, we threw Smunch a birthday party. He wanted to play laser tag.He's not the kind of kid who has tons of friends, so there were only six other boys there. But he said he had a lot of fun...and secretly, when I was in there playing with them, I did too!And, of course, I went all out to make him a cake he would love. He's becoming appreciative of these things, which makes it more fun. And this wasn't one of the most labor intensive ones.Smunch's teacher asks the kids to bring in mementos of the day they were born on their birthday. They're to tell the class where they were born, how much they weighed, how long they were...that stuff. I guess she couldn't be expected to understand that some parents find this information traumatic to dig up. Fortunately, the reality of a baby weighing just three pounds is lost on him. The fact that he's taking a picture of his hand, so much smaller than Daddy's wedding ring. Well, that's lost on him too. And the fact that his birth announcement has both his birthdate (and statistics) and the same information for the day we brought him home...97 days later...I think that's all lost on him too. Good.

And, if someday, he begins to realize what all of those things really meant to us, I hope he'll be super proud of how far he's come since he was a frail little preemie with meningitis. Goodness knows I already am.

40

2011-02-16T10:29:00.000-08:00

Last week, I turned 40. I'm not one of those people who spends a lot of time dwelling on my age, but something about 40 in particular makes you stop and take stock of your life. Am I who I wanted to be? Am I where I hoped to be? Because all of a sudden, it's abundantly clear that there's no going back.

I know there are plenty of people still molding their lives at 40, but there is also so much water under the bridge. I have few regrets and those I do have, I've managed to set aside for the most part. There's too much to do to be worried about those things I can't change.

I've had my share of tragedy, of marriage counseling, of uncertainty. I can't say that there haven't been hysterical tears, pain (both physical and mental), screaming and yelling or that the 'D' word was never thrown around in my house...but I can say that was a long time ago and things were so very difficult and different then. These things pass. So many things pass...

When my husband asked if I wanted to have a party for the big birthday, I said 'yes' and provided him with a short list of some of my oldest and dearest friends. Most of them, I went to high school with. Some, I went to elementary school with. One, I went to preschool with.

I was glad that it was scheduled after my actual birthday. I admit I dreaded the day itself. But it was just another day. Another day of school, speech therapy, basketball practice and a not-so-celebratory dinner at Chili's. And once it was over, it was just that. Another day.

But as the party approached, I wasn't so sure I'd made the right choice. Now I'm 40. Why celebrate that?I bought myself a new dress...the first really nice dress I've bought in many years...and new shoes. I was overdressed, but I figured it was my birthday, so why not? And, it turned out, a party was the perfect thing for me to do for my birthday. Many things may have passed me by the in last 40 years, but the best of friends are always there. And it was so nice to see them all...all except the one who had a baby the previous day...and know we were hosting them for dinner.Honestly, I don't love being photographed with these girls that much. Talk about a bunch who are aging well!

The food was good, the cake was awesome and the party was fun. It lasted much longer than anticipated...which I took as a good sign.

In the end, most of what I learned from turning 40 was that I may not be enamored of all the paths I took to get where I am, but it's good to be here. My parents may have given me life, but there's only so much they could do beyond raising me to the best of their abilities. I made a few mistakes as soon as I was out of their grasp. The rest, I owe to one person to whom I'm forever grateful.Thank you, husband. I could not have asked for more.

Lots of Fans, Not so Much Fest

2011-02-06T11:06:00.000-08:00

For two or three years now, Daddy has taken Smunch to visit the San Francisco Giants at their annual FanFest event. This year it was a bigger deal for him since it meant bailing on his team for basketball, but he really wanted to go. And Daddy delegated the responsibility to me for the first time.

I've rarely made a worse parenting decision than choosing to go up there. I suppose, in some way, it was a nice bonding experience for Smunch and me, but mostly, it was a lesson in misery. I packed up some brand new baseballs for autographs and Smunch's World Series baseball cards. We got there an hour before the gates were to open. This was the line to get in.This is at least a quarter of a mile to the entrance. See how the people are walking away from the park? They aren't leaving, they're looking for the end of the line...and they've got at least a quarter mile to go.

When we got to the end of the line, we were misinformed that this wasn't a line at all and that we should go across the street...by a well-meaning traffic director who probably hadn't realized that the line had gone all the way around his very large parking lot and come back his direction. We ended up at the park and in the line to see the World Series trophy. It wasn't that long, so I thought it might be a good way to get in.I was wrong. We waited and waited in full sun in near 80-degree February weather. We got in line at 10:30. Around noon, I scored Smunch a Sprite for $5. There was no food. He was hot, grouchy and hungry. I was sympathetic. I was all of those things too. And the line wasn't moving. So at 12:30, we left to find a line to get into the park. I made Smunch wait there until 1 o'clock, on the off-chance that the line would move enough to give him hope of getting food inside.

But at 1, he said he wanted to go home. Realizing that we'd have to wait at least another half hour or more to get into the park and that we'd be in line for at least another hour after that (and probably more) if we wanted autographs, I decided to grant Smunch's wish and we left. FanFest was going to end at 3 o'clock anyway.

Three hours waiting in line and we left with my broken camera lens, that refused to focus, and a fuzzy picture of the back of this guy. The best moment of the day was when a woman saw this guy and said "Wow, there's Willie Mays!" Smunch scoffed under his breath. "That's not Willie Mays. That's Willie McCovey..." I love that kid. (The number 23 actually belongs to Ron Wotus, the bench coach. This doesn't look like him, so I dunno what was up in this picture. I doubt it was really Willie McCovey, somehow.)

There was still a line all the way out to the mommymobile and then some as we left.

So, thanks Giants, for the wonderful World Series memories, but geez, I think you're going to have to find a better way to thank your fans for their support. We'll be back at FanFest when you stop winning so much and your fair-weather fans are gone.

Memorial Day in Manteca

2011-01-31T09:23:00.000-08:00

They cut seven boys from the Mavericks team after the tryouts. Gosh, that's a lot! I like to think some of them (or their parents) reconsidered after being reminded how much the club team expects from you. I don't like to think of seven crushed little boys who didn't make it. I saw those kids play and I know some of them personally.

None of them, however, is my kid. I don't know that he'll be pitching, but he will definitely be playing his heart out for the Mavericks. My little boy...the one who can barely string a sentence together right now because he stutters so badly and has a big oral report looming (he seems undaunted), the one I still take for physical therapy because he walks like a ballerina, the one who's probably one of the tiniest third graders at school. He likes school, he does well, but there is nothing at all in his life that comes close to his passion for baseball. And, yeah, I've fostered that passion, but it was there without my prodding.

And that means we'll be spending Memorial Day weekend in Manteca this year...at a baseball tournament. I can't wait! (Hey, I even have a friend or two in Manteca...I hope you'll be around so we can visit!)

Congratulations, Smunch! You earned it...and I couldn't be prouder.

Getting Serious

2011-01-22T21:41:00.000-08:00

Tired of seeing the same ol' photos of my kid playing baseball? Uh...tough?

Today, he tried out for the "club team" in his division of the PONY baseball league. This year, the team is called the Mavericks. Tryouts were kind of a big deal. Daddy and Grandpa had made a point of practicing with him for the last couple of weeks since the "evaluations" for the Mustang 1 division. Lots of focus on catching fly balls and grounders...his two weakest areas at the evals.Smunch had a basketball game this morning. Basketball is not really his sport. The game got him all wound up, even though he touched the ball just once the whole time. Then he had to watch Mam's game. We had a couple of hours before the tryouts started, so we tried to make him chill out. But he was still kinda wired. It took forever for him to get dressed for baseball. I yelled and threatened to be really angry if he blew the tryouts because he didn't focus and do his best. And then we casually walked to the tryout venue.We got there right as the kids were going out to warm up. There was a parent meeting where it was impressed on all of us that the club team is a big committment and if we want to do a lot of traveling or play other sports in the spring, we'd best be on our way. Of course, I'd already had these discussions with Smunch. Smunch was committed and now, we may be too...if he makes the team.

The boys were a familiar cast of characters...as are the coaches at this point. He's played with many of the boys in camps, on last year's club team or on the all-star team. The head coach for the team is a guy I really like and have a lot of respect for. I think he's really good with the kids.I hope Smunch makes this team, even if it will be a big pain in the ass on our schedule. The team's first tournament is scheduled for before the baseball season even starts.

When warm-ups were over, catching fly balls was the first order of business. After his performance last time, I was nervous for Smunch. But this time, the fly balls were being launched by one of the coaches, using a bat instead of a pitching machine, so they were less consistent, but not as fast.The coach launched four balls in Smunch's direction and Smunch caught.. Every. Single. One. It was awesome!

He went to the batting cage for the batting evaluation. It was far less stellar. They had him bunt, but he's so short that the balls coming from the pitching machine were really to high for him. He got one decent bunt down out of three. He whiffed the other two. The rest of the hitting wasn't great either. I think he whiffed at least one and probably would have popped out on most of the others. Oh well. No pictures because shooting through two layers of netting is such a waste of time.

They evaluated his base running. He ran well, but had a lousy slide into second. Oh, well.

Next, he was back on the diamond fielding grounders.The idea was to field each ball from between second and third base and throw to first. He fielded four balls cleanly (a marked improvement over two weeks ago) and threw pretty accurately. Then he moved over to first and caught a couple balls from the other kids trying out...their throws weren't so accurate though.

Last order of the day was to play a "scrimmage". It wasn't really a scrimmage. Some of the kids were evaluated on pitching while others were evaluated on batting and fielding, I guess. There wasn't much fielding going on. Smunch did O.K. He made some pretty good moves on fielding, even though he didn't have much hit his direction. He hit the ball one of the other kids pitched to him...even though it was a kind of wimpy hit straight to the first baseman. And he did a pretty passable job of pitching. He's certainly not the strongest pitcher out there, especially as a little guy, but he's pretty accurate.More than two hours after the tryouts started, the boys were done. I believe he did his best, but I don't have a feel for whether he made the team. I'm hoping it's a plus that the coach knows him, but I'm not sure about that either.

By and large, the kids who show up for this tryout are good. There were about 20 of them and no one ever said how many they were planning to have on the team. I figure they might not cut any, or they might cut as many as eight.

I didn't really watch all the other kids. I was too busy watching my own kid.

I know there were a few kids who really stood out for their skills. Smunch wasn't one of them. I know there are some kids who will make the team because their dads are really involved...or their dads have volunteered to coach. Smunch isn't one of those either.

For those who make it, practice starts in a week or so. I guess we'll see...

Say What?

2011-01-22T21:33:00.000-08:00

A couple of nights ago, I was stuck picking Mam and a friend up at a birthday party and Daddy made dinner...a yummy dinner with grilled chicken. In hopes of being all wonderfully healthful, I stirred up some Swiss chard with garlic and dried cranberries. I never expect my kids to eat such things, so I made peas too.

Despite some complaints about "chicken, again??!!" the kids ate pretty well. They polished off their food and then a funny thing happened.

"Is there any more Swiss chard?" Smunch asked.

Uh, well no. Daddy and I had polished that off. Gosh, did he really want some? He did and I was shocked into getting up from the table and stir-frying him up his own batch.I'm still kinda flabbergasted.

Snowflake

2011-01-22T21:23:00.000-08:00

Somewhere on the drive home from the tidepools the other day, I remembered that I'd meant to get Mam started on her snowman project over the four-day weekend. When I asked her when it was due, I found it was the very next day. Awesome! So, we had less than an evening to come up with a way to make a snowman with things from around the house and to get Mam to write a story about said snowman. Smunch did this project a couple of years ago, but I felt compelled to come up with something different this time.

So, as soon as Mam got home from basketball and dinner was done, we started in on a little origami with hot glue, confetti, ribbon, puff balls and googly eyes. Mam named her snowgirl Snowflake and wrote a story about how Snowflake made herself a snow dog and a snow fort, had a snowball fight with her friends and then had her dog scare them all away. Very first grade.

Crystals

2011-01-22T21:08:00.000-08:00

Some time ago, Gram gave Mam and Smunch a crystal growing kit as a gift. It seemed like a cool little project. But that just meant we didn't get around to it for a long, long time. But one of the first days of the holiday vacation, we set the little kit up.

I didn't have high hopes. Had I been more hopeful about this project, I would have taken photos every few days to show what was going on. But I didn't. In fact, I was shocked when Mam made me come look at the little tank a few days later and there were some pretty little crystals growing. We'd started with a couple of rocks and a scary yellow solution.

I made her wait a couple more weeks before draining off the liquid. By then, it looked kind of like this:The big, clear crystals had sprouted a sparkly, yellow tree of tiny crystals. And then there were other, more classic-looking crystals around the sides of the rocks.As soon as school was back in, Mam was begging to take the crystals to school for "sharing". So the yellow "tree" is gone now, but having done a successful scientific experiment at home was pretty darned fun...a lot more fun than all those unsuccessful science projects I did when it was my job!

Free Time at Low Tide

2011-01-19T17:07:00.000-08:00

For years now, I've been wanting to visit Fitzgerald Marine Reserve at low tide and check out all the critters there. But tides are quirky things. When we had free time, the tide wasn't sufficiently low, or it was super low, but only at 4 a.m. More often than not, I just didn't think to look.

But on Monday evening, I happened to check a blog I sometimes frequent and there was an invitation to go tidepooling...for earlier that day. Of course, I'd missed that opportunity, but it just so happened that the kids had Tuesday off for a teacher in service. Not only were the tides nice and low, but they were even lower than they'd been on Monday. And what a fabulous place this is!It was a beautiful day. It's January, so it wasn't exactly balmy, but beaches in Northern California are rarely balmy, so it was lovely. My mom joined us. Admittedly, I was a lousy caretaker, often forgetting that she's not so stable on the slippery rocks...getting far ahead of her and then going back to get her. Each time, she seemed pretty happy with whatever tidepool she was looking at...only reinforcing my lousy daughterness.There were all kinds of critters to see...and parts of critters. This must've been one mighty crab before it became someone's meal.And it's always exciting to find an intact sea urchin shell or two.I got to watch for a few minutes while this great blue heron fished in the shallow water. He was pretty successful!And then there was this thing:It's not one of my prettiest pictures, but I'm glad I managed to capture it. It looked like a long, pink centipede with a pointy head and when I touched it, it disappeared in the blink of an eye. I asked the ranger about it and her best guess (not having seen it herself) was that it was a clam's feeding tube. If anyone out there has better information, I'd be curious to know!

We ended up running into some good friends from school...a big surprise since I didn't think tidepooling would be on their list of family activities. And you know what they say about assuming. Yup. That's me. I'd even thought about asking them to go earlier, but decided that a quiet afternoon with the four of us would be nice. It ended up being the seven of us having a lovely time in the late afternoon sunshine and thankfully, my friend did a better job of helping my mom out than my mom's own daughter was doing.Mam had basketball practice at 5 and it was getting chilly, so we forced ourselves out of the tidepools and trudged back up to the mommymobile to dry off and eat some cookies. I really need to make a bigger point of doing these things more often. I'm still not convinced that tidepooling is my friend's bag, but getting wet and looking at cool critters? I'll take a while suitcase of that, please!

Back to Hoops

2011-01-17T17:37:00.000-08:00

As you may or may not remember, only Mam opted to play basketball last year. Neither kid had played before that. It was fine with me. It made for a nice winter lull in youth sports before baseball season started back up. But after watching Mam play for a full season, Smunch decided it looked like too much fun for him to pass up this year.

Fortunately, the YBL program, through the local Y, isn't particularly competitive and is perfect for my newest hoops player.That's him, number 2. Uh-huh. Not a lot of dunking gonna be goin' on, you know?

Fortunately, Smunch has an awesome coach, as far as I can tell. I don't know how old he is. I'd guess 24 or or 25. He's on active duty for the Navy and has a two-year-old at home. He's coaching two of this year's YBL teams, Smunch's team and a team of 7th graders. Oh, and he's about 5'7"...in tall shoes. He's perfect for these kids.

Last weekend was the first weekend of basketball games. Naturally, Smunch and Mam had back-to-back games in different locations. So, I only got to see the first 20 minutes or so of Smunch's game. It reminded me of the way he plays soccer. He's not really in the game, even though he's obviously happy to be on the court. He bopped around happily, never once touching the ball.I think his team was losing 4-0 when I left for Mam's game.

As luck would have it, Mam's team is almost identical to the team she had last year. Having played together before, they're pretty awesome for a bunch of first grade girls.And Mam, being Mam, is right there in the fray, often with the ball. She made some nice assists...because she's familiar enough with her team to know who can shoot it in if she passes to them...and she scored three baskets on her own. I don't know why this sport seems to suit her so well, but it does. She seems significantly happier than she did playing soccer this year, but maybe it's the coach. She loves her basketball coaches, especially "Coach Dan", the dad of one of her friends from school. He is a terrific coach, but gosh, I swear she tries extra hard just for him.I have it on good authority that Smunch's game actually improved quite a bit. He even took a shot, I gather. His team rallied and they won their game. Maybe this season will be more fun that I'd expected!

Deficient

2011-01-17T16:59:00.001-08:00

It's no great big surprise to feel exhausted when you have a couple of kids. Life seems like one big, long series of chores, especially when school is in session and my brain is usually fried at the end of the day...not from all that intricate thinking I've been doing, but by all the machinations needed to keep chldren engaged...or at least out of my way.

I'd complained to my doctor about feeling exhausted before. This year, I also complained about the raging PMS that takes over once a month. Blood tests and more blood tests. Turns out I have a pretty signficant vitamin D deficiency and I'm anemic as well. So, just in time to make me feel truly old before the big 4-0 hits, I now have a pill box with three or four pills to take every day. Oh, and one of those pills is iron, so cue daily doses of extra fiber as well.

Of course, I'm not particularly good at taking pills. So, now my body is on some kind of iron, vitamin D, fiber rollercoaster. Makes me wonder how big a favor I'm doing myself.

I went off all the pills a little while ago, when I developed an irregular heartbeat. I called the doctor, got an EKG, got diagnosed with PVCs and referred to a cardiologist, despite being told that they're totally benign. Of course, the PVCs, which had been bugging me day and night, were gone before I had a chance to call the cardiologist, so I didn't go. And I begrudgingly went back on all those pills.

Of course, it's not just my blood that's deficient these days. I've got way too many things on my plate. So many, in fact, that I have to remind myself to breathe and not think so much about it when I'm looking at the latest things we've signed ourselves up for. Today, that was the club baseball team. Sure, I can secretly hope that Smunch won't make the team at tryouts this weekend, but it doesn't seem altogether likely. And when he makes it, practice starts in early February. Eek. He won't be done with basketball for a month after that.

I've spread myself too thin with things I enjoy doing. And that's kind of O.K....except when you interject birthdays and other things that upset my very delicate balance. Then I end up with insomnia and trouble remembering not to stress about things. Silly me. I like my job. I like volunteering at school and being on the PTA board, I like having the kids play sports. I'm looking forward to giving up my PTA board position next year. It's been a worthwhile job, but I need my time back. I need to take better care of myself.

I'm to the point where I make it to a yoga class and a pilates class weekly, but I don't have time for more than that and my yoga schedule has to move around every week because no single class fits in my schedule every week. I feel better, but it's not enough. I used to make it out to the elliptical trainer in our backyard "studio" several times a week. No more.

So, I'm not really doing a great job of anything, but doing a passable job at a whole lot of things. Not a great place for a perfectionist to be.

Still, I imagine the pills and increased exercise are helping me feeling better. Except for a couple of days a month when PMS now just makes me exhausted, I have more energy and I don't feel such a burning need for a nap all the time. (A need that was almost never met regardless.) But gosh, it's just the beginning, isn't it? My pill box is nothing compared to my mother's.

Let's hope I get a whole lot better about taking pills...and saying 'no' to additional jobs...before my life depends on it!

Evaluation Day

2011-01-08T16:18:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year! I'm back! Well, almost back. All that cleaning and laundry I caught up on after the holidays is already starting to get away from me again. Ugh.

At the dawn of the New Year, I've discovered that Borders is perhaps one of the best places to stock up on birthday presents for birthday parties throughout the year. The stock all kinds of interesting kits at Christmastime and they're crazy cheap as soon as Christmas is over. Origami, friendship bracelets, paper airplanes, painting, clay, drawing, you name it. Unfortunately, most of these kits seem more appropriate for girls than boys. And naturally, my daughter was invited to two boys' parties as her first parties of the year. Go figure.

I also need to stay out of sporting goods stores these days. The kids play so many sports and Daddy does so much working out that there's always something to buy...usually something expensive. I just went back to weekly yoga as well, so you know how many cute little yoga tops are out there for the purchasing. Well, I do anyway.

So, the holidays are over, as is the first week of 2011. You know what that means? Baseball!

But then, what doesn't mean baseball in our family?

Today may have meant two boys' birthday parties for Mam, but for Smunch it was Mustang evaluation day. After his stint in Pinto 2 last year, he's ready to move on to the next level, Mustang 1, but that means that he actually has to "try out" for the first time in his short baseball career. It's not so much a tryout as it is an evaluation. They evaluate all the boys who want to play and rank them for a draft next month. I guess the top 40 players are drafted. The rest are otherwise assigned to teams. I have no idea if Smunch could make the top 40. Maybe. Maybe not.

They timed him running.He's short, but I don't think he's particularly slow.

They evaluated his batting skills. I didn't take pictures because he was in a batting cage where I'd have to shoot through chain link and netting. Besides, I didn't want to distract him. I learned that he can hit really well off a tee, which I didn't think he could do to save his life. And he did a passable job at hitting pitches from a pitching machine, even though the PONY league he plays in never uses them.

He waited patiently, in the 48 degree weather, for the fielding evaluations.They had him field grounders...standing at shortstop and throwing to first. He only fielded one cleanly, but his throws to first were dead on. They had him field high fly balls from the pitching machine.That didn't go so well. He misjudged the ball every time. I'd hoped he'd catch just one of them, but you could tell it was hard. Many of the boys couldn't do it. And honestly, Smunch can. But he couldn't today.

Then Smunch volunteered for the optional pitching evaluation. Daddy said he did well. I was so busy shooting pictures that I honestly can't say. He looked good through my lens, but I couldn't see where the ball went...other than to note that the catcher always caught it. I took that as a good sign.It was a chilly day, but Smunch was proud of himself and we were proud of the way he handled himself, even when he didn't do quite as well as he might have wanted.

It was a good afternoon, but a reminder that baseball season isn't nearly as far away as it seems like it should be!

Squishy

2010-12-31T22:36:00.000-08:00

I'm not a "baby person", but I've gotta say, my new nephew is a sweetie. Well, you know, they're all sweeties when they're sleeping. Aren't they? But when he's not hungry, or eating or pooping, he's really quite charming.As I suspected, the kids weren't particularly interested in their new cousin, except in small, small doses. When they bothered to pay attention to him, it was very cute, but that wasn't often really.Lucas is only four months old, so he doesn't do a whole lot yet. By the time we get to see Lucas and SPENCER again maybe they'll find him more interesting.

And look! It's almost next year already. Tomorrow it'll be time to start packing up the Christmas decorations. It usually makes me sad. But I'm kind of looking forward to getting the holidays behind me...even if they were a lot of fun.

Christmas 2010

2010-12-31T21:22:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas! It didn't feel quite so merry when Lucas woke up at 3am. And it was even less merry for Aunt Karen when Lucas proceeded to puke all over and need a full clothing change. It didn't feel quite as merry as I would have liked when my own kids got up at 5:30 either. We convinced them to go back to bed. At 7:30, my parents, who had decided we must be to busy to call (or something) just showed up and everyone had to get up...for the old people. Huh.Naturally, the rip-fest started shortly thereafter and didn't end 'til every package was open. In a big shocker, Smunch got a lot of San Francisco Giants merchandise, including World Series videos, a framed photograph or two and a throw blanket. He even got a life-sized Tim Lincecum sticker for his wall...and a more-than-life-sized sticker of himself batting. I was happily suprised that Mam was overjoyed to get a few Zhu Zhu pets. I didn't know she even knew what they were! She also loved her new ladybug-themed bedding.A neighbor of mine had dropped off about a pound of fresh pecans that he'd gotten for the holidays. Oh gosh, how awesome. And they were even more awesome when used in our Christmas cinnamon pullapart. I always make this when Aunt Karen is here, but it's so darned good that I've taken to making it for Christmas even when it's not.Since we had nine people eating this year, I made some cinnamon roles too.Yeah, I kinda drowned them in cream cheese frosting, so you can barely see them, but they sure were yummy! We had a nice almond coffee ring, scrambled eggs, bacon and sausage to go with that. Once breakfast was over, it was time to try out the new toys. SPENCER! had a new Big Wheel from Santa and my kids, of course, had their giant guns.I think these great big guns look especially menacing when wielded by a little blonde-haired ragamuffin in a pretty green Christmas frock.

Daddy got a new toy for Christmas too...a Parrot AR.Drone quadricopter that he can fly with his iPhone. Its first flight wasn't super exciting, but I hear it's been a blast to fly outside.It rained for the rest of the day, so there were no more trips outside and that's just as well. We did NOTHING. And that was nice.

Family Frenzy

2010-12-31T20:23:00.000-08:00

Christmas 2010 was one of those special ones where Aunt Karen's family joined us for the holiday. As far as Mam and Smunch are concerned, that means SPENCER! Each day, Mam would ask how many days were left until Christmas. As soon as I told her, she asked, "How many days until Spencer??"

I sent Smunch to baseball camp for most of that first week that they were out of school. It served dual purposes. He was out of the house, so he couldn't fight with hs sister and he has evaluations for spring baseball on January 8th, so I figured he could brush a little rust off while he was there. Mam was supposed to have three days of cooking camp, but only made it to one after coming down with a fever.

No sooner was baseball camp over than SPENCER! arrived with his mom, dad and new baby brother, Lucas. And the holiday free-for-all began. I'd forgotten just how nuts things are with a baby around. There's not a single unusual or bad thing about Lucas, but gosh, he's a BABY! He has to eat and sleep and have his diapers changed. He gave me a nice perspective on my older children at least.

For the most part, my sister and her family stayed with our parents, but the whole crew stayed over at our house on Christmas Eve to wait for Santa. We had a low key dinner with spiral-cut ham, fresh, homemade bran rolls, sweet potatoes and veggies...with cookies for dessert, of course. The kids joined Grandpa on the sofa for The Night Before Christmas before bedtime.Each kid picked out a cookie for Santa and they left a carrot for the raindeer...a really big carrot.All the kids went to bed and my sister and parents unloaded their cars of all the presents they had brought. Soon, the living room was awash in gifts.Fortunately, we arranged for the adults to open their presents that evening or I'm afraid Santa would have had a hard time finding a place for those giant Nerf guns.

My Little Chickadee

2010-12-31T17:08:00.003-08:00

Just because I can't keep myself from taking photos of my favorite little backyard birdies.

Holiday Haze

2010-12-31T16:53:00.000-08:00

I routinely bite off more than I can chew, but when the holidays roll around, I'm compelled to take things on in a way that might be the equivalent of trying to shove an entire cow in my mouth. I do this by choice, although I always feel like I "have to". I send Christmas/holiday cards, I write a yearly letter to go with those, I make chocolates for all the kids' teachers and speech therapists, I make cookies for all the neighbors and a few lucky friends. And this year, like last year, I hosted a cookie exchange. Only this time it was a fundraiser for the school in addition to being a social event. But that meant I felt compelled to have the house decorated Thanksgiving weekend for the cookie exchange a week later.

It was a lovely little cookie party and the cookies themselves were delicious. I love to look at the photos because all those cookies in one place are just awesome. And I've been led to believe that just looking can't add inches to my hips.I nearly forgot to take the kids to see Santa this year. Hopefully, they wouldn't have let me do that, but you never know. Smunch's faith in the big red man is sketchy at best, so he might not have bothered. And honestly, they didn't want much. They both asked for BIG Nerf guns. Not like the little puny Nerf guns he supplied last year. I hope my sincere (oh, so sincere) lack of enthusiasm for said items made their arrival on Christmas proof positive of Santa's powers.I don't know how I manage to have more friends and neighbors than I have cookies. There were several people I would have loved to give cookies to this year, but they missed out because...I just ran out! And by the time they were finally delivered, on Christmas eve, I was pretty much fried on cookie making and needed to get started on other things like Christmas eve dinner and Christmas brunch. So, there was that. But the cookies that were, this year, they were lovely and fun. I wish the kids had helped more, but it seems more authentic than a bunch of prettily decorated cookies, doesn't it?

December Baseball

2010-12-31T16:26:00.000-08:00

Yes. I checked my sanity at the door of the mall, but we all know I lost it earlier than that. Sometime after Thanksgiving I learned that a couple of the San Francisco Giants' players were going to be at a local mall to sign autographs for the first 200 fans on December 5th. I'm not such a psycho that I'd let my kids miss a birthday party or some other important event for something like this, but it so happened that we didn't have anything going on that day. And the guys weren't going to arrive for the signing until 12:30 in the afternoon...after they'd been grand marshals of the San Jose holiday parade.

So, no problem. Get up and go to the mall...at 6:30 in the morning. Right? Ick. That's kinda not up my alley, but then again, this is baseball we're talking about! The kids were up for an adventure, so off we went.We arrived before 7am, knowing that once the Giants Dugout opened, they'd be giving out tickets to the first 200 people in line and we'd be free for a little while. We weren't even close to the front of this line. There were at least 50 people in front of us. We probably would've been fine arriving an hour later. But who wants to miss sunrise from the mall?Not Smunch. He sat on the floor, patiently reading a book about Satchel Paige for school.

Fortunately, this mall includes a Starbucks...which opened sometime around 7:30. Eventually, a security guard came around to move the line in a different direction. You can tell from that photograph above that it had formed in front of doors to all the stores. I thought about trying to move it when we showed up, but couldn't be bothered in the end.The line now went from the Dugout store across the hallway, down an entry hall and all the way into the parking structure. We were given our tickets...4 of them...and we were free to roam about the mall. But we didn't do that for long because it soon became clear that we'd lost our spot in line by wandering. We had our tickets, so we were guaranteed autographs, but we'd have to wait even longer for them. We went back to sitting. Lou Seal wandered by for photo ops. That made a great way to kill a few minutes.We had decided earlier that we probably didn't need all four of our tickets, since we didn't have that many items to autograph. I'd made an unfortunate error in purchasing some things at the sporting goods store, so we had more things than we really needed, but still only enough to need three tickets.

(Did I need a replica World Series ticket...for $20??? Uh, no, definitely NOT. Why in the world do I now own such a thing? Smunch wanted it and I'm a sucker. That's why. Oh, and it didn't have a price on it. I never would have considered it at that price, but was too embarrassed to return it once it was rung up.)

Daddy went on a search for someone who looked worthy of an extra ticket. He went towards the back of the line where the tickets had run out. He finally returned, describing someone he thought looked like she could use a ticket...a woman with two boys and no ticket. I went to scout her out. And it turned out that she was another mom from my kids' school and I knew her a little bit. We gave her our extra ticket...only later realizing that we probably hadn't done her any favors. Now she had to stick around and wait for an autograph!

The guests of honor arrived mercifully early and took their seats for the signing. The line moved swiftly and while it was really fun to see these guys up close, one really has to question the sanity of anyone who would sit there that long just for a couple of autographs and maybe a handshake.I think maybe I've lost it. Maybe it'll come back someday. Until then? Well, Smunch has some new autographs on his jersey and a couple of baseballs signed by Andreas Torres and Sergio Romo, World Series Champions.

Daisies

2010-12-31T16:11:00.001-08:00

This year, I bashfully admit, we sorta talked Smunch out of participating in Cub Scouts. I'd hated his first year and after switching dens, Daddy took him for his second year. Daddy loathed it. Smunch liked it, but when push came to shove, he just didn't like it enough to torture his parents into it. We didn't push him to drop out, he just knew we didn't like it and apparently that was good enough for him. Besides, he wanted to play basketball in addition to soccer and baseball, baseball and baseball. It seemed like a lot more than we really needed to sign ourselves up for.

So, what did I do? I went and signed Mam up for Daisies. For those of you as old as I am, Daisies are now the youngest class of Girl Scout. They start in kindergarten and are Daisies through first grade, after which, they become brownies. I never loved Girl Scouts as a child, but I know how much Mam likes to spend time with her friends and I figured it would be good if she had the opportunity to see what it was like, at least. So, we signed up, even though she'd missed the first year.

For the holidays, the Daisy troop first went to Build-A-Bear at the mall. They each stuffed a bear to give away to a child in need. I thought the idea was lovely, but in practice a bunch of 6-year-old girls were a little confused about why they had to give up the bear they'd already fallen in love with...even though it had all been explained to them. And while I was relieved to find out that Mam wouldn't be bringing home another stuffed animal, I thought the whole thing was a little sad, even if it provided a valuable lesson.

Next, I signed Mam up for cookie decorating and caroling around town. She had a grand time decorating cookies with the guidance of Cadet scouts...or maybe they were just Girl Scouts, but the uniforms have changed so much since I was a Girl Scout that I can't tell anymore.Then they went around town caroling. Thank goodness for the Cadets! Most of the Daisies don't read particularly well yet and I'm not sure there was a lot of singing going on on their parts, but it was a fun afternoon for them. There's Mam, right next to "her Sarah". Remember that? Her Sarah appeared in the very first post on this blog. And what do you know, they're still thick as thieves!

Signs of the Season

2010-12-31T15:54:00.000-08:00

It's taken me a long time, but I've finally gotten to the point where I don't take my camera with me everywhere anymore. When we do something on a yearly basis or more often, all the pictures look alike after a while. And these are no different. In our town, the Festival of Lights Parade marks the beginning of the Christmas season. It takes place on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. It's always crowded and this year it was especially cold as well. But the kids love this event and I just can't bear to disappoint them. I loved this parade as a child too.

The key is to go early and put out chairs to reserve yourself a space. And by early, I mean about 11am for the 6pm parade. You don't have to sit in your chairs. It's the kind of town where you can just leave them there. They'll be there when you get back. Well, we forgot this year and Daddy went down there sometime around 2:30pm and found just enough space for two chairs. And that was good enough. In fact, it turned out to be better than good enough because the kids sat on our laps and kept us warm while we waited for the parade to begin.I looked back at last year's pictures before starting this post and I even took pictures of the very same floats. It's a funny thing, how you can repeat yourself over and over without really realizing it. I guess the same floats are just as whimsical and beautiful year after year.I think a nighttime parade makes for an even better spectacle than one in the daytime. Even the marching bands wear lights on their uniforms and instruments. Everything is sparkly and that much more fun.And then I remember...oh gosh, the holidays are coming and I haven't even gotten started yet. Thank goodness those Christmas photos for the Christmas cards are out of the way!

2010 Out Takes

2010-12-31T15:47:00.001-08:00

It has become tradition in our house to spend a few hours on the weekend after Thanksgiving doing a crazy photo shoot for our Christmas cards. It's always kind of a pain and the kids don't really want to get dressed up just to take pictures, but they were really very cooperative this year, especially when the first set didn't turn out well and I hauled them both outside for more. Poor things.

Anyway, these are some of the out takes of our productive photo shoot morning. Enjoy!O.K., that last one wasn't an out take. It made the card, but at least it looks like they had some fun along the way, doesn't it?

Another Season Down

2010-12-31T15:24:00.000-08:00

Here it is December 31st. I'm coming to the realization that if I don't get to do some blogging here on New Year's Eve, I will have left much of 2010 behind as my blog moves to 2011. And sometimes that makes me think I should just pack the whole thing in. But there were things that deserved blogging. They really did. The kids' last day of soccer is a prime example.

Although the league canceled a day of soccer games during the season because it looked like rain...but didn't actually rain...they apparently didn't have the heart to cancel the very last games of the season, even though they should have. And that was fine because it made for a really, really funny...if very damp...day.

Mam's game was first. It was raining before we arrived and didn't let up the entire time. Although the opposing team didn't seem to mind getting wet, Mam's team opted to play in raincoats. I have a feeling Mam would have been happy to get wet, but since everyone else was in a raincoat, she was too.I guess I might've suggested taking her glasses off...or getting her some windshield wipers. I have no idea how well she could see out there!Her team was losing badly by the time they called the game, shortly after the end of the first half. There was really no reason to continue getting bludgeoned in the rain and calling the game gave the girls time to go home and change before heading off to their post-season pizza party.No doubt, Mam finds that kind of fuss entirely overrated.I only dropped Mam off at her pizza party because I had to jet off to Smunch's final game, where he declared he didn't need a water bottle. If he got thirsty, he'd just stick out his tongue. And so he did.Smunch's team was playing with two fewer players than the opposing team, but the boys chose to keep it that way...making it an official game...rather than have two of the other teams' players switch sides, making it a forfeit game. In keeping with this year's theme, the Silver Sharks were fairly well obliterated yet again. But they were proud of themselves and their acting coach (since the head coach was one of the absentees) was proud of their moxie.The Sharks were done just in time for me to pick up my happy and dry Orange Super Monkey and her trophy from the pizza parlor and head home.

The season seemed awfully short this year...probably because most of their games overlapped each other and I probably only saw half of the games for either of the teams. This seems to be where life is headed. Daddy and I, dividing and conquering.

You know you're not-so-young when...

2010-12-31T15:11:00.000-08:00

you go to visit your old grad school advisor during his West Coast book tour and you find that next to your old grad school advisor, you are easily the most senior alum in the group. Gack. I graduated from the Science Journalism program at Boston University in 1997. There aren't too many BU alums out here on the West Coast. Honestly, I was surprised that there were about a dozen of us and several work for the very same institution that employs me. Still, the oldest of them probably graduated in 2005.But it was so very nice to see Doug Starr again. He's one of those very rare people with an infectious fascination with just about everything. By science journalism standards, I consider my life pretty dull, but he never makes anyone feel dull and even seemed thrilled that one of the grads is now a massage therapist.

His new book The Killer of Little Shepherds has been getting some great reviews. His previous one won an L.A. Times book award. Apparently, his kind of unbridled curiosity, combined with a knack for incredibly detailed and engaging writing, has some advantages!

Adventure

2010-11-20T17:09:00.001-08:00

You know it's been far too long since you've updated your blog when you need to go through iPhoto on your computer to remember what's happened since your last post. As far as I can tell, nothing photo-worthy happened in the week and a half after Halloween. It's quite possibly true, but it's hard to know.

Veteran's Day fell on a Thursday this year, so as a favor to...oh, I dunno...teachers, I guess (because it wasn't for stay-at-home parents) the kids had both Thursday and Friday off. Oh, what to do? They started fighting before I even rolled out of bed on Thursday morning. Fortunately, we were meeting up with some of my old mommy friends in our old stomping grounds where I was once in a mom's group. We met at the park. We had a picnic, then walked to frozen yogurt. It was great to catch up and it took most of the afternoon, so that little excursion was more than worthwhile. I didn't take my camera. I don't know why not.

A friend of mine who is far more organized and apparently far more motivated to keep her kids engaged in cool, outdoor, kid-friendly activites than I am, had made a reservation for a group of kids to play at Adventure Playground, a park at the Berkeley Marina. It's been featured in all sorts of magazines (including National Geographic) over the years as one of the best playgrounds around. It was an easy sell for me. Drive a bit to keep my kids occupied without TV or computers for the day? Sold.

I'd heard that they had materials so the kids could build things in the playground, but I couldn't quite grasp what they meant. Just as well. I'm not sure I would've trusted my kids had I known. And that would have been a shame. This was the view through the fence:Mam happily and very publicly declared that it looked like a junkyard. And so it did.

We arrived at the playground right on time and right at the same time as some of the other kids in our party. It was a suprisingly beautiful morning. The sun was shining and there was only a light breeze...not the stiff chilly wind I'd expected. Only one attendant was working in the playground that day and as soon as we'd all assembled, she went to work explaining the rules of the playground and for using their tools.Not surprisingly, once the kids had been told that they could ride the "trolley" (a modified zip-line-like ride) as often as they wanted, check out hammers and nails and saws and build whatever they wanted with any of the scrap wood available, they all ran through the gate...kindergartners through sixth graders.

The trolley was the first order of business:It was a short little ride, but it was a lot of fun until you hit the damp pile of sand at the end and had to shake it all out of your pants!
It took a while to get bored with that and finally get to picking up stray nails or shards of wood to earn the right to check out a real tool. Then they finally started to get a good look at the place. It's full of amazing old things, old playground bits like slides and swings, racks of scrap wood, old boats, old tires, cargo nets and the exposed innards of pianos.So many things to explore. And, of course, once Smunch and Mam had checked out some tools, neither kid knew what they wanted to do. I ended up helping Mam hammer a small plank onto the railing of a playstructure...for no really good reason. Smunch checked out some paint and started painting random pieces of the existing structures.While he appears to be taking this job very seriously, Mam had a much more artistic flair with her painting technique.Eventually, even I had to try out the trolley.But the sand in the pants made one ride enough.

Smunch and a friend tried their hand at reinforcing a catwalk.It didn't work out all that well, mostly serving to make the catwalk uneven. The attendant came and ripped off their additions, while suggesting they build a hand rail instead and helping them with that. Smunch's small contribution to the playground.

Meanwhile, Mam was sawing random things.Somehow, I doubt this is something they intend for the kids to do, but it's obvious it's been tried in thousands of places around the playground.

After two hours of just playing around...but having a whole lot of fun running amok in a "junkyard", our time was up and all the famlies had a picnic outside the playground and the kids went down to the "beach". I put that in quotations because this is a beach at the Berkeley Marina. There's nothing to suggest that it's particularly clean. I wasn't thrilled, but they were busy, happy and outdoors.

Fortunately, the webpage for Adventure Playground had mentioned the potential need for a change of clothes. The playground was no problem. But Ryder kids and water? Always a problem.This may look harmless enough, but if you click on that picture and look closely, you can tell that Mam's already been up to her butt in the water. She walked right in, shoes, socks and all. Smunch was jealous. He wanted to wade in the water too and started taking off his shoes. I stopped him, not knowing what kids of sharp rocks, shards of glass or needles might be under the surface (there was a rumor that hypodermic needles sometimes litter this beach). So, he too walked in with his shoes on.

I was prepared, but not the least bit thrilled. Stripping Mam to naked in the puddle/pot-hole filled dirt parking lot was a pain. I wasted the two towels I brought by having her stand on one (so she wouldn't get the new clothes muddy) and using the other to throw sopping wet clothes on. I hadn't prepared for needing to dry Mam off after that as well. So, I was grumpy and read Mam the riot act about how I really hate it when she does things like that after I ask her not to. But it was so predictable that I probably should have been better mentally prepared than that.

In retrospect, that was kind of a bad end to a fun morning. But the drive home was eventless and peaceful. I suspect they remember the fun a lot more than the trouble they got in for getting soaked! At least I hope so...

Where's Waldo?

2010-11-05T14:02:00.000-07:00

Epic Win

2010-11-04T21:44:00.000-07:00

After their Halloween game, the San Francisco Giants were up 3-1 in the World Series. Game 5 was on Monday. It was a rematch between Tim Lincecum and Cliff Lee...the two aces (although I'd argue the Giants have more than one). You can bet that our family watched or heard ever single minute of it.

It ended up being just what the pundits said the first game was going to be...a killer pitcher's duel. And it lasted into the seventh inning...which was not all that long really. When two pitchers throw that many strikes, the innings just fly by. Not a single batter made it past first base. And then? Then Buster Posey hit a single, Cody Ross hit a single and Aubrey Huff, the Giants' red-rally-thong-wearing first baseman, bunted for the first time in his major league career. He was out, but Posey and Ross were on second and third. Pat "the bat" Burrell struck out, just like mighty Casey. And finally, Edgar Renteria came to the plate. He's one of the elder statesman of the Giants. His biceps muscle is completely torn, such that it has actually rolled down inside his arm. In his rookie season with the Florida Marlins, he drove in the game winning run in game 7 of the World Series. He was rumored to be talking about retirement. He took a couple of balls from Cliff Lee and swung at the third. It looked so much like a fly ball. And the outfielders ran back and back until the ball slipped over the wall in the left center field.

Three runs. Any Giants fan knows that's all Tim Lincecum needs. He gave up a solo home run to Nelson Cruz in the bottom of the inning, but blew through the 8th and despite looking like he could finish it out, he gave it up to The Beard, who made his job look easy...not something he's known for.

And it was over. I took no pictures, but there was plenty of jumping around in our family room. And a happy, happy little boy went to sleep that night.

I'm having a hard time detoxing from my overexposure to Giants baseball. Hundreds of thousands of people showed up in downtown San Francisco yesterday to welcome their team back home with a "ticker tape" (aka confetti) parade. I was not among them. I wanted to be there...so badly. But I just couldn't convince myself that it was reason enough to pull Smunch out of school again...it seemed like the wrong message to send. And I couldn't fathom going without my little baseball buddy. I watched on TV, tears streaming down my face more often that not. And yes, I realize how silly that sounds. It just got to the point this year that I felt like I kinda knew these guys just a little bit. And this is what they live for. In many ways, it's a silly, shallow thing that they do...going out there and hitting a ball with a stick. But great sports teams have a way of galvanizing people. And it's so much nicer to have that kind of connection with someone than connecting through some kind of disaster.

It's been a fantastic baseball season. I'm going to be so sad to see some of the players leave before next year...as always happens. But the older I get, the more I understand how nothing lasts forever. All I can say is that I'm glad I was there to see these guys play while they were here.

1, 2, 3 Strikes You're Out...Trick or Treating

2010-11-04T20:48:00.000-07:00

Halloween Day was crazy. A while back, I skipped out on my final day of cake decorating class to take the kids up to meet Aubrey Huff and Pablo Sandoval up at the ballpark. Although the teacher of the class is almost comically mean to most of the students. She seemed to like me (as much as you could say she liked anybody) and offered to let me join the last class of her next session. It happened to be in the middle of the afternoon on Halloween.

And since it was the last class, that meant I had to bring a fully baked, filled and frosted cake to cover in fondant and decorate in class. Now, had I known when I started this project back in September, that I'd being making this cake on Halloween, I would have made the base orange or black or something, not yellow. And if I'd known it would be the first ever Halloween where the San Francisco Giants were playing in the World Series, I would have decorated this cake in a more appropriately festive way. But, here you go.I zipped right home after class, thankful not to have to face that particular teacher ever again, but happy to have learned a few things.

When I got home, I went back to work on that pumpkin I mentioned a few posts ago. This was the finished product...done long before the trick-or-treaters showed up this time.I zipped back out when I realized I had nothing quick for the kids to eat, came back, baked a freezer pizza and warmed up some chili from the freezer (for the grown ups). Got the kids all dressed, made up and looking...well...creepy.But, but, but...the Giants game was already on. They'd had a disappointing 4-2 loss to the Rangers the previous night. For some reason, the promise of a truckload of candy was more interesting to the kids than the fourth game of the World Series. Nevermind that their 21-year-old rookie pitcher, Madison Bumgarner, was on the mound. So, Daddy left with the kids while I finished off my dinner, then joined them down the street...where Daddy's iPhone was broadcasting the game from the end of various driveways.On my way out, I left a bowl of candy at our doorstep and as I walked down the street, some kids came up to the doorstep. From my vantage point on the road, I could hear the boys saying, "Wow! It's a Giants pumpkin. Mom, Mom, come look at this! It's Brian Wilson!" Coolest overheard comment. EVER.Unfortunately, we were joined by one of Mam's more obnoxious classmates, who screamed TRICK OR TREAT at the top of her lungs before each door was opened. Smunch complained bitterly about the rude little girl, but I didn't know how to extract ourselves, so we tolerated it. Worse yet, I didn't get to listen to as much of the game as I would have liked because I had to be polite and chat with her mother...who is actually a very nice lady.

We made it home in time for the kids to eat some candy before bed and to finish watching Bumgarner's masterful 4-0 shutout of the Rangers. After all, how could the team in orange and black lose a World Series game on Halloween?

Punkins

2010-11-04T20:07:00.000-07:00

I was pretty jazzed after our World Series experience and I had a hard time going to sleep that night, but that didn't mean I wasn't expected at school bright and early the next morning...not just dropping the kids off, but leading an entire group of third graders in reading. And I hadn't done my homework beforehand...because Smunch hadn't done his the night before. Fortunately he had earned a "Ready Freddy" award that week. It allows him to skip a night of homework. I don't get Ready Freddy awards.

Thursday afternoon, I was slated to go in and help the first graders and their fouth grade buddies carve pumpkins. It was cute and Mam enjoyed herself a lot, despite her not-so-helpful buddy.I was back again on Friday morning, helping the third graders with "pumpkin math". I couldn't believe the group of kids Smunch's teacher gave me. I had Smunch, but the other three...all boys...are some of the least motivated goofballs around. It was challenging, but ultimately, it was fun...estimating weight and size, guessing how many seeds were inside, seeing if it would float.Naturally, Friday afternoon was the big Halloween shindig. I got both kids into their costumes, then helped set up the third grade party. I watched the school-wide Halooween parade, but didn't take any decent pictures. I don't love the kids' costumes this year and Mam's wig was sitting on the side of her head. Both costumes really required makeup, but no time to do that at school. They looked ridiculous. Really.

I made my now-famous cheese bugs for the first grade party (third graders were limited to apple juice and sugar cookies)Of course, the first grade parties always have the cutest stuff!Thankfully, there was no baseball on Friday, so we got a little break. Thursday evening, Matt Cain threw a 9-0 shutout in the Giants victory. Giants were up 2-0 and headed to Arlington, TX.