April 2023

Tiny and Wrenzy went on a run with me, and I loved it. They were very cute. We dropped Tiny at home after a mile, but Wrenzy went a total of 2.5 miles with me. Our pace was about a 13-minute mile. 

We met up with Kaia Johnson's family for a play date at Poinsettia Park. Kaia was Tiny's best friend in first grade at JCS. Her mom, Courtney, and I chatted for a couple hours while the girls played, and I really enjoyed her. 

Ever helped Ella make Easter treats for Ella's family.

We went to the Relief Society Easter dinner with Ella and Kristi Rondo. The Relief Society always invites the Young Women to its activities, which is lovely.

Ever and Ella worked on their back flips on the trampoline and took about 100 videos of themselves. 

Ever wanted to make soccer ball cookies for her class at school. It related to a project or something. She thought it would be super easy. It was very not. Some of the cookies were recognizable as soccer balls, though.

Easter morning! The girls got clothes, kites, and candy in their baskets. The Easter Bunny mixed up Tiny's and Wrenzy's baskets, so they each got a dress that was meant for the other. We were very pleased when Wrenzy professed to like the one that came in her basket. It didn't seem sincere, but maybe the dress has grown on her because she still wears it almost every Sunday more than a year later.

We dyed eggs for the first time. Super overdue. 

There was zero wind, but Wrenzy went out and ran round and round the yard trying to make her kite fly. It was adorable. 

We did a a little Easter egg hunt with the Cikanek boys. 

I left Tiny and Wrenzy home alone while I took Ever to soccer practice. It's too far away to go back and forth, so I'm gone for a long time. Jim gets home from work before I return. Berry got on Facebook Messenger (Ever's account we set up years ago so she could message friends and cousin Betsy) and sent me messages. I took screenshots of our exchange because her professions of love and missing me were too cute. 

Ever put a 13 (Alex Morgan's number) on her cheek using the mirror. She was really proud until I told her it was backward.

I chaperoned Tiny's class on a field trip to Agua Hedionda lagoon, where they got to see and touch various creatures and then get a little lesson on the flora in the area. 

Jim took Ever and Ella to a San Diego Wave game. Ella provided face paint, and they were very cute in matching sweatshirts and T-shirts. 

The Wave was playing the Portland Thorns, so they got to see Sophia Smith up close. (This is the soccer player Tiny dressed as the previous Halloween.)

After the game, Naomi Girma (believed to be the best defender in the league), Sophia Smith, Sofia Jakobsson, Taylor Kornieck, and others signed autographs. Ever and Ella are the blond heads leaning over to Sophia in this first pic. 

Jim's dad and the facility he's living in got sued. He had pushed a lady who had wandered into his room. She fell, and he tried to drag her out of his room. We hadn't heard details of the incident until we got a copy of the complaint, and it sounded really terrible. The woman was in the hospital for about a month and ultimately died. So awful. But Jim's dad doesn't have capacity at all. He'd been repeatedly bothered by people (or at least this lady) coming into his room, and he'd had a number of physical altercations before. The plaintiffs were mainly going after Heritage Hills for being understaffed and not adequately supervising the residents, but since they also named Jim's dad, we weren't sure what to do. I talked to Julie Birkel, a partner at my firm who deals with elder law and other litigation matters, and she recommended that we just not respond. There was no way he could get deposed, and he didn't have any assets. So we didn't answer the complaint. Heritage Hills lost the case, but we never heard anything else about it. 

Ever and Ella did another temple trip. 

Tiny built a little teepee in the backyard.

The first swim of the year happened next door. 

Ever stayed home sick from school, and we played Scrabble. 

I found another workbook of Bear's. She's so studious. 

Jim went on his Mexico surf trip, and Ever texted him this while he was gone. He and the girls had watched Tooth Fairy multiple times, and Jim loved it (because he's the Rock's biggest fan). 

I found this fascinating packet of papers by Bear. 

I made cupcakes for something, and I thought they were pretty. 

Tiny (back left) with her Girl Scout troop.

Nice note from the girlies.

Ever practiced her selfie/photo editing game on my phone. 

Berry and Tiny did the little spring soccer session with City SC. Love this girl. Also she hates physical affection so much that there aren't going to be many photos of us touching, so these are precious. 

Ever got to do another overnight at the theater in San Diego as a reward for selling lots of cookies. No Leela this time.

She was so tired the next day that she passed out on the floor in her dress after church the next day buried under a blanket. 

March/April 2023 Spring Break - Universal Studios, Freezing Joshua Tree, and Big Bear

We did a three-part spring break in 2023: Universal Studios, Joshua Tree, and a Big Bear weekend. Mamo and Pod left in the early afternoon of Monday, March 26. After we got them off, we headed to the Hawkinses' house in Redondo Beach, bearing potato leek soup leftovers that didn't turn out to be as much of a hit with the Hawkinses as it is with the Kringels. The girls watched a spooky show together before bed. 

We (Kringels) got up and out early the next morning, hoping to get to Universal Studios before the masses made it super crazy. We had to detour a ways to get to a McDonald's for breakfast, so that set us back a bit. We ended up entering the park just before 9:00 A.M. 

There was a cute squirrel just inside the entrance, and squirrel sightings always make us think and talk of Tutu. 

The motivation behind the trip to Universal was Harry Potter World; Tiny had finished reading the series, and Ever was still young enough to enjoy it. Jim figured the time was right. Harry Potter World  was very fun and charming.  

We didn't really know where we were going and ended up going to a wand-finding thing accidentally while we were trying to find a big Harry Potter ride. Then at the main Harry Potter ride, the worker at the entrance to the line tentatively agreed that Berry was just tall enough, but he said the workers at the top had the final say. So we waited in line, and the teenagers working at the top (after we had waited in the very long line) said she was too short. It was ridiculous. I don't think you could even fit a credit card between the top of her head and the sign she had to hit to be tall enough. But they wouldn't budge. It's lame having kids who are way older and braver than their heights would indicate. If Bear had stuffed an extra pair of socks in the heels of her shoes, she would have qualified. I tried to convince her to do that later and try that ride again, but she wouldn't. Anyway, Jim and Ever rode that one while the rest of us waited, and then we went on to other rides together. Jurassic Park was enjoyed. 

I thought I had a vague memory of watching the WaterWorld show when I was a kid. Probably I made that up and was actually thinking of the Miami Vice show because I know I saw that one, and the WaterWorld show didn't exist until the year I graduated from high school. Anyway, we saw WaterWorld, and the kids enjoyed it. 

Right after the show, we ran into Anna, Leela, Rafi, and their friend Brooke from Orange County. It was so trippy to run into them; we didn't even know they were going that day.  

As we were chatting, a couple of ladies came up and asked how many kids we had, and they gave us fast pass-type things for the studio tour and some other attractions. It was the nicest thing ever and helped us so much. By that time of day, the line for the studio tour was really long, so the passes saved us a ton of time. 

The studio tour was fun for me. I think it was kind of boring for the girls because they haven't seen any of the movies or TV shows referenced.

Anna taught us about these wands that you can buy for some exorbitant amount in Harry Potter World. At designated spots around Harry Potter World, you wave the wand in a specified formation and say a specified spell, and it'll light a light a bulb or move an item in a window or something. She let us borrow their wand, and the girls were really into it - even (maybe especially) Ever. 

Butter beer.

I loved the view between the upper and lower lots of the park. It's fun and weird to see L.A. and remember my life there all those years ago. 

At the end of the day, Ever and I went on the Mummy ride together since the Littles weren't tall enough. Ultimately we decided that maybe one more trip to Universal is in order when the Littles can ride everything, and then we probably don't need to go back. 

Next stop was Joshua Tree, and it was so incredibly cold. It was in the 50's, I think, when we arrived, and super windy. We backpacked in a couple miles from Keys West and found a place to set up camp for the night on a little side loop off the main trail. All I remember about this trip was that it was excruciatingly cold (like my hands were going numb) and because of that, nobody could really enjoy it. I thought the girls would love scrambling around on all the rocks, but it was pretty much a bust. 

Wrenzy and Ever chatted as they brought up the rear, as always. 

On our hike out, Wrenzy and Ever tried to protect their faces from the freezing. 

From Joshua Tree, we went to the cabin in Big Bear, and Sam and his girls met us there. We went on a really fun walk that started with Wrenzy (and then also Tiny) kicking giant balls of snow up the street and turned into people running and jumping onto the snow banks along the road. This imprint of a torso/arms and a head some distance away from the torso was amazing.   

Sam's imprint on the far left, compared to Tiny. Big fella.