Tonight, after I had just said "island view" (code for "I love you") to Bear, she said, "Guess what my favorite thing is that you say?"
"Island view," I guessed.
"Yes," she said. "I also like 'wing na.' And 'egregious and Kathie Lee.'"
"Wing na" means "why not" and was originally inspired by the actress Ming-Na. I've been saying it for decades.
"Egregious and Kathie Lee" means "agreed." "Agree" became "egregious," which suggested [Live with] Regis and Kathie Lee.
After I wrote this, Jim said he invented the whole "Egregious and Kathie Lee" thing, so maybe I don't get all the credit for the quirky sayings being passed down to our offspring. But I love it.
Jim was gone on his surf trip Thursday, November 7 to Tuesday, November 12. Ever had her last regular-season soccer game Saturday morning; the Littles had had theirs the week before. The Littles had two free Menchie's yogurts coming to them via these things they'd gotten at school for reading a bunch, and we could only redeem them at certain locations - including San Marcos but not including our Carlsbad location. So after Ever's game, we got sandwiches at a nearby Jersey Mike's and then went to Menchie's. That afternoon, the girls did their weekly jobs (vacuuming upstairs, vacuuming the car, and cleaning a bathroom). Ever wanted to play pickleball or soccer at the courts, but Ella was gone. So I invited all the Henie Hills kids in the ward. The Pete and Meagan Bunnell kids went, along with Maggie and Norah Gustafson and Alina Karner. Wren didn't want to go but ended up joining after I told her Norah was there. Tiny was playing with Nathan Cikanek at "The Tribe," but after he had to go home, I ran her up to the courts for the last little bit. Things didn't go super smoothly, largely because I couldn't find our courts key. (Ever thinks Jim put it on his key chain, so it was in Mexico.) Ever can reach through the fence and open the gate at the upper courts, but she can't get into the lower courts without the key. But it was lovely to see a bunch of neighborhood kids playing together up there, being sporty and being outside. I want to take advantage of our amazing neighborhood and do that more often.
Because of the impromptu gathering, the girls and I started our planned slumber party festivities late. I made pork chops and cheesy potatoes for dinner (between running people up to the courts). Ever really likes pork chops, and Jim hates them; it seemed as if we should eat them while he was gone. Then we watched the movie Eight Below while eating popcorn and muddy buddies. Traditionally, our living room slumber parties conclude with my reading to the girls while we're all in our beds. I thought maybe we should skip that part since it was so late, but when all else was done, Tiny said, "Now, reading time!" So I read On Fortune's Wheel (one of our current "family reads") until we discovered that Ever had fallen asleep, about 11:00 P.M.
Sunday afternoon, I asked the Gustafsons and Nearents if they could take my kids home so they didn't have to hang out during my Relief Society presidency meeting. The Nearents took Tiny; Gustafsons took the other two. (Too many extra kids for one car.) The Nearents didn't want to leave Tiny home alone (she arrived before the other two), so they took her to their house. Then Gustafsons picked her up and took all three girls to their house until I got home. They fed them and everything. It's so amazing to have nice friends in the neighborhood.
Ever wanted to nap when we got home and asked me to read her to sleep. I loved so much that my nearly 13-year-old wanted me to read to her. We went up to the guest room, where she has been sleeping (with sisters) a lot of the time lately. Ever got in bed, and I lay down next to her and read to her until she was asleep or nearly so. I read the part she'd slept through the night before, plus a few extra pages, which I then had to read to Wren and Tiny separately to catch them up. I've been sad that we haven't been doing much family reading lately, and it's something I never want to end. So my heart was warmed by the whole thing.
She also turned her bunk bed ceiling into a bizarre storage area.
General conference weekend, Saturday night at 6:30 P.M., Berry and I were the only conscious ones.
On Sunday, the girls made Halloween sugar cookies.
I stumbled upon somebody's tooth (Tiny) because why wouldn't you just leave it lying around the house?
I got a sweet birthday card from Goosey. I think I went out for a birthday breakfast or two but don't remember much else about my birthday. Based on Ever's card, it's probably safe to say I didn't do much else.
I did, however, get a lovely birthday bundt cake from Coco, over which Tiny salivated.
We had soccer first thing on a Saturday morning at the SoCal Sports Complex and found fog so thick you couldn't see anything. It was actually really hard to find your field. Pretty cool.
We continued making our way through all the eggs we had gotten / were getting from the neighborhood chickens.
They moved their nest from the top of the driveway to the bottom of the driveway.
During a couch rest, Jim was transformed by the littles.
Tiny and I went to SeaWorld on a Saturday with her Girl Scout troop. It was so incredibly crowded. Lines were SO long. Really, the day was a bust. I would never return on a Saturday. But Tiny's cute.
We spent $50 on a very subpar salad for me and chicken nuggets for Tines. Super upsetting.
Ever won student of the month at her new school (nominated by Ms. H, her science teacher and the ASB teacher). Super nice.
The girls did a little afternoon soccer camp at the Wave training field with Wave personnel. It was underwhelming.
I dropped my flour container, and the mess was far-reaching.
We let Tiny graduate to a booster. Her car seat was absolutely filthy, stained with slime and many other things, and she had collected all sorts of trash (or treasures?) in the cup holder.
Ever loved playing volleyball at the middle school and went to a number of open-gym nights. Pizza was provided, and lots of snacks and other junk food were awarded.
Ever is in the front on the floor in a white t-shirt (third from the left). Alina Karner is third from the right in front, and Chloe Bunnell is in the middle in the back.
In case I forget to write about this later, the last open gym culminated in a raffle for an e-bike. Ever had been begging for an e-bike for a long time; I had said absolutely not because I think it's so unsafe to ride them on the street, and kids get hit by cars all the time around here. When Ever heard they were going to raffle off an e-bike, she was intent on winning it, even though I never gave her permission to ride it anywhere outside the neighborhood. For many weeks, she talked about how she was going to win the e-bike. She and Chloe decided to pool their raffle tickets and split time with the e-bike if they won it. And win it they did. It is crazy how lucky Ever is. It was as if her saying she was going to win it made it so. I was dying when she called from the school and said, "We won. Pete's coming with the truck to bring the bike home." It's a really small e-bike that doesn't go that fast, which is fine by me. For the first couple weeks, she and Chloe took turns with it. Before long, though, it became just Ever's because Bunnells had a (bigger) e-bike already, and Tyler was driving (a car) all the time so Chloe didn't need have to share the e-bike with him anymore. (Side note: It was one of Ever's raffle tickets that won, so the pooling with Chloe was unnecessary.)
Tiny played a game at school with shoes. (Kaia and Maya are directly behind her.)
Mrs. Shimizu took Tiny's class on a field trip to the Cannon Art Gallery.
Kaia, Tiny, Maya
Courtney Johnson (Kaia's mom) took this picture of Toby, Kaia, and Maya at school. Tiny is one of Toby's best friends, and their love is adorable.
Maya did this depiction of her with her two best friends, Kaia and Tiny.
Ever went on a youth temple trip to the Newport temple.
Cikaneks came with us to the trunk or treat at church. This year it was combined with another couple wards.
I don't think Wren and Cora Sorensen ever interact, but somehow a picture was taken of them together.
Over time, the girls have become about as low-key about costumes as their parents. For Halloween, Ever recycled witch stuff, Wren put black electrical tape around a yellow shirt and black pipe cleaners on a headband and made herself a bee, and Tiny recycled Hermione. Amazing for me.
Ever was highly interested in being scared and wanted to go to the haunted corn maze in Carlsbad after the trunk or treat. Ella Rondo couldn't go, so Ever had the idea of asking Ellis Martindale, with whom she had not hung out in many years. (They're in a different ward.) I texted her mom, Errin, who said Ellis was bringing a friend to the trunk or treat but could go if it was OK for her to bring this other friend. It seemed as if we had no choice but to make it a threesome, and that made for a very weird and awkward outing. We waited in a ridiculous line for over an hour before even getting to the buying-tickets part. Ellis used her phone to facilitate a game for part of the time, and that was helpful. After we got the tickets, I went to the car and the girls waited another while to get into the maze. (I learned that you have to go when it first opens or right before closing or else it's ridiculous.) When they made it back to the car after the maze, the girls were laughing and energetic (so that was good), talking about how absolutely terrifying it had been - to the point that they would have aborted if they could have. So... mission accomplished, I guess?
On Halloween night, Ever wanted to do about 10 minutes of trick or treating to get a little candy and then watch a move. Because she was obsessed with fright, she asked to watch the scariest Halloween movie that I would allow - like right on the line between what I would and would not permit. I spent a lot of time researching movies, trying to figure out what I could be OK with her seeing, and I made a list. When we sat down to decide what we would watch, I went through the list with her, showing her trailers and describing the movies that I had picked as options (including Gremlins, The Watcher in the Woods, The Others, Poltergeist, and A Quiet Place). She immediately said they were all too scary and she didn't want to watch any of them. It was pretty hilarious. The desire to be scared was officially dead. Anyway, this is the only shot I have of Halloween night.
After we trick or treated on our end of Henie Hills up to about the Rondos' street, Ever was ready to go home and watch our movie. In an effort to make it a fun night for her, I had made muddy buddies, so she ate a truckload of those and candy (and maybe popcorn, too? I can't remember). While driving to gymnastics class the next day, she said, "Mom, thanks for watching a movie with me last night. It was really fun." I agreed, and then she said, "Can we do it again next year?" That warmed the cockles.
Wrenzy had to make a video for school about herself and her summer.
The first week or so of school, Ever came home a couple of different times saying her math teacher, Mrs. Wagner, had made a comment that day about how smart she is. Ever also said one day that they had worked on a problem in class, and she got a different answer than Mrs. Wagner and most of the class (although one other student got the same answer as Ever). According to Ever, Mrs. Wagner shut her down quickly without letting her really explain her answer. Jim looked at the problem with Ever that night and confirmed that her answer was correct. So Ever went back the next day and told Mrs. Wagner, who acknowledged that Ever was right but didn't give her the big public apology she and Jim thought she deserved. Then on September 3, Jim e-mailed Mrs. Wagner about school supplies she requested for the class. In her response, she said, "Wow, Ever is very intelligent:). She and I will be sparring partners this year. She challenges mine [sic] and her own thinking. I am really looking forward to the level of academics being raised by her input in class!" Super proud of Goose. That's high praise. But also kind of funny in light of the above-described incident. Ever is keeping Mrs. Wagner on her toes, I guess! (P.S. I can add that by the end of the year, Mrs. Wagner was unabashedly calling Ever her "opp" [slang for "opponent"], and it was a very love/hate relationship - probably more hate than love. So that was unfortunate.)
I saved this picture (Kaia Johnson beaching with Tiny) on the night of September 4th. Can't tell when it was taken or if I posted it before.
I learned a lesson in early September - don't bake with parchment paper unless you have an oven rack above the pan to keep the parchment from touching the heating element. I was going to make brownie ice cream sandwiches, but instead, I started a fire.
Maggie Long texted Katie Gustafson and me on Wednesday, September 11, and asked if we could cancel our weekend plans to stay at a beach cottage with her on base (Camp Pendleton). She'd booked it for a stay with two college friends Thursday-Sunday, but they'd had to cancel at the last minute. So Katie and I made ourselves available, and Hilary Lawrence came also. We convened around 7:00 P.M. Friday evening and just talked for hours and ate brownies and ice cream. Hilary and Katie slept on air mattresses. I slept on a folding twin bed supplied by the cottage, and Maggie took the bedroom. Saturday morning Maggie slipped out for a run, and I was super bummed we hadn't planned ahead so I could go with her. I didn't want to make noise until I was sure Katie and Hilary were awake, so the three of us weren't up and at 'em until close to 9:00. Maggie returned soon after we got up, and we ate muffins and fruit and chatted for a while. Hilary left to go to her girls' soccer games and do some other family stuff. Katie, Maggie, and I finally got moving around 12:30 or 1:00 and blew up my kayak. Maggie and I went out first (in the harbor by the cottages) and could not stop going in circles. It was funny, but also I could not figure out what was going on. Jim suggested afterward that maybe we had forgotten to insert a skeg. Whoops. Katie and Maggie went out briefly after Maggie and my attempt. That concluded our rather pitiful outdoor adventures for the day. Hilary returned, and we arranged to meet Tara Nearents and Shanna Warr, who were going to join us for fire-pit time. We picked up some food on base and then ate and hung out around the fire pit. Super nice, fun, good people. It's really nice to have lady friends in the gospel. Tara and Shanna took off around midnight. Hilary headed home, too, and then Katie, Maggie, and I realized it made sense for us to head out that night, too, instead of getting beds ready again and crashing, only to hurriedly pack up and get out in the morning before church. I got home after 1:00 A.M., worked more on my Primary lesson (Jim and I were subbing), and went to bed about 3:00; then I couldn't sleep.
Katie, Maggie, and I all have night guards, so that was discussed on Friday night. I mentioned my history with TMJ but said my locking jaw hadn't really been a problem for a while. Then Sunday morning I woke up with my jaw locked, and I couldn't unlock it. I could barely open my mouth the width of two fingers, and it was very painful move my jaw certain ways, like when I brushed my teeth or used my tongue to get food out from behind my teeth. Eating was very difficult, and I couldn't eat hard things at all. Jim suggested I use it as a diet opportunity since I had been wanting forever to finish losing the weight I gained during pregnancy. But I was so angry about not being able to eat, and I just ate despite the pain. When I was treated for TMJ during law school by some bigwig specialist, he finally said to stop wearing my nightguard because it was either my jaw or my teeth, and the only thing left to do was Botox injections into my jaw (which he sort of dismissed out of hand as an option; I assumed because it was too experimental or extreme a treatment at that point in time). So when my jaw locked and I couldn't unlock it, I thought I should get Botox. Susan Oddou did some Googling trying to help me and discovered that Matt Packard, Kristi Rondo's brother, at Packard Dental in Carlsbad did Botox. So on Friday, five days after my jaw locked, I had an appointment with Dr. Packard, who prescribed seven days' worth of a muscle relaxant to take before bed. I also scheduled Botox injections into the masseter for a week later. After a total of 10 days, before my Botox appointment, my jaw finally opened. It was a terrifying 10 days. I had begun to fear that it was permanently locked (which apparently can happen) or that I would need jaw surgery. As I am finishing this post in July 2026, I can add that I started seeing a TMJ specialist recommended by our dental office. I spent thousands of dollars there on Botox injections and new nightguards. He explained to me what was going on and seemed to know what he was doing. (I did realize, upon seeing this specialist, that Matt Packard probably took a weekend course on TMJ and learned how to do Botox injections and really knew nothing about it. Matt and a lady in his office said I would notice an amazing difference after my injections; it would just be life-changing. It was super nice.) Anyway, after visiting the real specialist, my jaw stopped locking, and I thought I was cured. In recent times, it has started locking again in the night sometimes. So far, I've been able to unlock it pretty quickly. But I live in fear.
Tiny rode her bike on a lovely day.
The defrost on the Chrysler Pacifica continued not to work, making me crazy. I took this picture in case I decided to try to go back to the dealer with evidence.
Simone Biles came to Oceanside (the new Frontwave Arena less than ten minutes from our house) on the first stop of the Gold America Tour, and Ever asked if she could go if she paid for her own ticket. They were super expensive - and Ever decided to shell out a lot extra for a close seat. I had to buy myself I ticket so I could take her, so she really stuck it to me. Once there, we learned that the arena is really small and cheaper seats would have been totally adequate. It was a fun date night with Goosey, though. Besides Simone, the biggest draws were Jade Carey and Jordan Chiles, whom we had also watched compete at the Paris Olympics. There were also some male Olympians and a big supporting cast. It was fun, with music and dancing. The gymnasts didn't do anything crazy because, of course, they don't want to get injured in an exhibition, so that made it a little anticlimactic for me. Although one guy actually did get injured upon landing a tumbling skill. It was devastating to watch. He had to get carted off. I was so sad for him.
I think this is Simone Biles doing nothing exciting on the beam.
Goosey got a picture with Delphine Cascarino after a Wave game.
Berry explained her cereal retrieval method: "Then it falls, and I catch it, and ... done!"
Tiny does a fun thing with her mouth. It reminds me of a horse, but it's more cheeks, less lips. This isn't the best example of it, but it's all I've got recorded.
Wrenzy showed me a presentation she prepared for school.
Wrenzy did a video tour of her Lego creation, but the rest of us in the background sort of ruined it with our yelling.
The Paul and Susan Oddous and the Karners were over for dinner when Tiny came in holding an egg that she had found outside and said there were more. I was so confused about where it came from and wondered if it were fertilized, and I told her to put it back outside because it freaked me out. But Jim said, "Bring them all in!" So Tiny returned with an armful of eggs, plus grass and sticks and stuff. There were a total of 14 eggs in a nest in some tall grass next to our driveway near the garage. Turns out the chickens from four houses up had decided to start nesting by our house.
We scrambled one, and some people tried it. Not Ever, though. She was very opposed to the homegrown egg.
Wrenzy carried Tiny, who is the same size, up the stairs "wedding style." Cutest.
We learned to leave a couple eggs in the nest and bring in the others so that the chickens knew it was a safe place to keep laying.We got free eggs for weeks. Wren and Tiny enjoyed them for scrambled eggs. Ever remained terrified of them, so she only got them when I baked them into things. The crazy lady who owns the chickens came down and discovered the nest on our property. She tried to talk to me about it once, and I got away quickly to run to a soccer practice. It was a weird situation because I felt like if she was letting her chickens roam all over and lay eggs on other people's property, then she didn't get to go onto other people's property to look for eggs and claim them. But I also felt sheepish about secretly getting free eggs for a long time.
Tiny had a playdate at Kaia Johnson's with Kaia and Maya (and Kaia's sister, Stella).
Ever, Alina Karner, and Evan something-or-other signed up for after-school volleyball. It's a minimally invasive, six-week commitment. The after-school sports meet right after school, 3:00-4:30, three days a week. After the first couple weeks, they assign teams; over 100 kids are on the novice team, 15 kids are on JV, and 15 kids are on varsity. Ever is loving it, but she she wanted to quit if she didn't make JV. She's never played before, so I was nervous, but she found out she made it! She is supposed to fundraise for choir by selling Otis Spunkmeyer cookie dough (they take a trip to an amusement park, where they perform and play), and she's also supposed to raise money for volleyball. The day the volleyball teams were assigned, she came home and told me about it. She also looked up her math grade and discovered she had gotten 4/4 on a test that the teacher said everyone had done really badly on and not to worry. After a snack and discussion of all the good news, Ever said, "I'm going to go sell cookies." She didn't even ask if I'd come with her, and she had no hesitation. She asked if Wren wanted to go with her, but she didn't. So Ever got change and took a clipboard and the cookie dough order sheet and went out to knock on neighbors' doors. What a great lady!
On the way to gymnastics class, I got to hear a conversation between Wren and Tiny that I imagine is how they always chat when they're alone, while lying in bed before going to sleep or while trailing behind on a walk, when Jim and I wonder what they're talking about. For some reason, they just talked in normal-volume voices as if I weren't there, and it was so great. First they debated which one of them is shier. (Shyer? Merriam Webster says either).
Tiny: "I'm afraid of all adults. Except Rebecca. I'm not really afraid of Rebecca."
Wren: "I'm afraid of Rebecca. Are you afraid of Miss Susan?"
Tiny: "Yeah."
Wren: "Me, too."
Then they talked about dreams. Wren said she'd had a dream that Susan (Oddou) hit them with metal pipes and locked them up forever. She'd also had a dream about flying, and she thought it was real and tried to fly by jumping off "Ever's ladder" (the bookshelf ladder in the triple bunk that leads to Ever's bed). She also said she'd tried to be invisible, and it didn't work, but she knew she couldn't be invisible. Tiny said she'd also had a dream about flying, but she knew it wasn't real. They wondered aloud how they'd gone "from adults [the fear thereof] to flying."
We passed a purple car, and they both said, "Purple car, good luck." Wren said it first, so she said Tiny was going to have bad luck. Wren said, "When I see pink or purple cars, I store them up. Then when something really bad happens, I bestow on myself all the pink and purple cars." Tiny agreed: "When I see a pink or purple car, I say [in a whisper], 'Save.'" Tiny said, "We should both drive pink cars so we can give little kids luck." Wren said, "I know, I told Mom on a hike earlier, like a long time ago, that I was going to have a pink Jeep." Tiny said she wants to have two cars, a pink car and a purple car, so "everywhere I go in one of my cars, and even on my driveway, everyone gets good luck."
There was much more to the conversation, but those are the highlights I remember. It's hard to capture just how cute these people are.
Jim got up from the couch and went to the downstairs bathroom before heading up to bed. He found Tiny in the dark bathroom asleep on the mat in front of the toilet.
4/24/23
I was hearing movement upstairs, probably in the ten o'clock hour. I went to see who was up and why. The light in the girls' bathroom was on and the door closed. When I tried to open the door, it was blocked by Tiny's body. Again, she was asleep on the bath mat in front of the toilet. I couldn't open the door to lift her up, but she awoke when I said her name. She got up quickly and said, all squinty-eyed and confused, "What's going on?"
The next morning, I asked her if she remembered what happened. She didn't remember but had seen on the floor of the bathroom the red panda stuffy with which she'd been sleeping the night before and figured it out.
Around 5/8/23
Tiny got out of bed and came downstairs while Jim and I were watching TV. My instinct is to hurry her to the bathroom because I assume that's why she wakes up. She said she didn't need to go. She came up onto my lap and hugged me, and then I took her back to bed. She just need a late-night snuggle, I guess. It was quite nice. She had no recollection of it in the morning.
6/26/2023
Dawn came for the weekend to visit Grandpa. We got up at 4:00 A.M. to leave for the airport Monday morning. When she flipped on the kitchen/family room light, she discovered Tiny asleep on the couch. Nobody knows when Tiny relocated herself in the night. She, of course, did not remember going downstairs.
9/12/24 (tacking this on way later because we just had another funny incident)
Jim and I were on the couch around 10:00 P.M., and I heard footsteps coming quickly. As I was getting up, I caught a glimpse of Tiny rushing around the corner by the bathroom. I called to her, but she just flung open the door to the garage and rushed out. I made it to the garage door right as she reentered the house. I asked her if she needed the bathroom and pointed her to it. After she used the restroom, she came out, waved to us when we said goodnight, and went back upstairs. The next morning, she said she had awakened with an extra t-shirt on. In her sleepwalking, she had put a tie-dyed t-shirt on over the one she was sleeping in. When she got up in the morning, she wondered why her shirt felt heavy and discovered an extra layer.
The Olympics were still going after we got back from Hawai'i, so we continued our support of Simone Biles from home.
Ever celebrated Ella Rondo's thirteenth birthday.
The Homers stayed on the Big Island a week after we left, and then they took Tutu back to Virginia with them. They laid over in California for two nights, and we planned Tiny's baptism for when they were here. The girls got fried at the beach right before the baptism, so they are very tomato-reminiscent in the photos. But hooray for getting group shots this time! (And notice Tiny's super bling.)
Sweet Tines with her beloved Daddy.
The Cikaneks came, which made it really super extra special. We had invited them to baptisms (I think both Ever's and Wren's) before, and they hadn't made it. But they seemed excited to be there. Rebecca said she'd been wanting to baptize Nathan, so she was excited for him to see someone else's. (They have a new-age version idea of Christianity.)
Tiny asked Coco to give the (only) talk, and it was absolutely perfect. She talked about names and the importance of names, and she even worked in a mention of "the tribe" - the fort thing behind our house headed up by the Cikanek boys. It was very thoughtful and I'm sure made the Cikaneks feel so much a part of it all. I wish I could remember more about the talk and Jim's blessing, but alas - my memory (and lack of contemporaneous record keeping).
We set up a treat table outside near the church's kitchen and had a bunch of treats of Tiny's choosing afterward. Tiny had been SO looking forward to her baptism for a long time, but I think it was mostly the treats she was excited about. We had lots of chocolate chip cookies and snickerdoodles. (I won - Snickerdoodles were the last thing finished off, despite Jim's telling me that everyone loves them.) The girls also made cream puffs, but the recipe makes very few, and they were taken immediately. Tiny only got half of one. Cikaneks hung out a long time outside with everybody, and all the ward members were so nice to them. Cikaneks know a lot of ward friends at this point from the neighborhood, from sports, from prior ward parties they've attended, from Henie Hills pickleball headed up by Kristi, etc. It's lovely. They are honorary members of the congregation.
The day Tutu and the Homers flew out (Thursday, August 15) was the day Ever started seventh grade at MLK. This was the year she switched from JCS to our regular district middle school, MLK (aka "King" according to the cool people, but I never call it that). I don't know if I ever wrote about our decision to switch. The middle school at JCS struggles a bit; a lot of kids leave for or during middle school. Ever had kind of been wanting to go to a big school for a while, where they have after-school sports and more options. Jim and I called Mel Karner once from the car when we were stuck in Saturday morning traffic coming back from the Newport Beach temple. Mel told us about her kids' experiences at MLK and mentioned the accelerated math class that is available to seventh and eighth graders, and by the end of that car ride, we had decided Ever should move. It took some getting used to, but within probably a month or so, Ever didn't regret the switch. I'm writing this in May 2026, so with that perspective - I think it's been good for her overall.
Musical beds. Tiny on the window seat and Berry in Tiny's bed. (And the room a mess, as always). These girls move around every night.
Berry got out the old foam blocks, which I loved.
She and Tiny worked on some magic tricks and performed them for me. The white gloves really take it over the top.
Monday, August 19, was the first day of school at JCS. Tiny started third grade with Mrs. Shimizu, and Wrenzy started fourth grade with Miss Scher.
Happy reunion with besties Maya Phillips and Kaia Johnson.
Sweet snuggles at home. Tiny is the best snuggler in all the land. And look at those bleached-out little hairs around her cute face.
Tiny had a homeschool project where she wrote about events from her summer on these three flowers - the event in the center and then the details on the petals.
Berry is super into acai bowls as afternoon snacks. Judy Blume hasn't been read that much around here, I don't think, so I was happy to see her reading a Judy book while eating.
It's hard to see in this picture, but Tiny came home from soccer practice soooo dirty.
I took this picture of Tiny on the way into school one morning just because I thought she looked so cool. Like a skater chick.
Wrenzy (far right) had a beach practice with her soccer team. (A lot of this soccer stuff probably happened before August, but this is when I saved the photos.)
Another photo from a different day.
Tiny's team took this cute photo at a tournament. She's the cutest little goalkeeper in town.
Tiny's team had a pool party.
Anna, Reba, and I went to the Rose Cafe to celebrate Reba's birthday. Reba got the server to take some blurry photos of us.
Lastly, Tiny finally learned to ride a bike! She was old, and no one had ever taught her. She got fed up and initiated bike riding practice. Jim helped her a bit. This first video was her maiden voyage.
