October 2019

I got home from Ireland in time to celebrate my birthday with take-out and six or seven (no joke) slices of Cheesecake Factory cheesecake courtesy of Jim, who picked it all up on his way home from work. (It was a Wednesday, and he had a half day.)

I requested a hike for my birthday. We ended up not having much time, so we tried to squeeze in a little walk on a new trail off Oceanside Boulevard that Jim wanted to check out. We pulled off the road by the gate and saw that it had already closed for the day. We were discussing hopping the fence when Ever became completely hysterical in the backseat. At first we didn't know what was going on, but Jim figured out that it was because she was so freaked by the prospect of breaking the rules and going somewhere we weren't supposed to go. He tried to talk her down, but she could not be reconciled to trespassing. Jim was really not happy with her but finally gave up. As he started to drive away, Wren began to cry because she was so sad about not being able to climb the fence. Jim promised to find another fence for her to climb and took us to the new soccer fields, where we tried to find another way onto the trail. It was very cold. I was freezing. Tiny was incredibly underdressed (and, I suppose, overdressed) for the occasion. 

We couldn't find a way to get onto a real trail. We walked along the outside of the soccer field until we couldn't go any farther and called it.

Before we left, the girls got their fill climbing on a fence by the parking lot.

The littles and I rode down to the end of the cul-de-sac. They collected sticks and played in the tree.  

Then they went for a drive.

We went to the fall carnival at Palmquist. We hadn't figured out costumes yet, so Ever wore last year's Princess Buttercup costume. She charged up the climbing wall, and I was proud. I think this was as high as she went. For some reason, she wouldn't go the last foot or two. 

Ever's dance studio, Cadence Dance Project, came and led the kids in the "Thriller" dance. I had a great view of Ever, and then some giant kids went right between her and me.

Ever has had wonderful Primary teachers. 

Morning snuggle fest:

Anna took Ever to Legoland with Leela and Rafi. This was probably the last 2019 visit.

Wrenzy read Tiny a story over lunch. So animated and so precious. 

Another day, I did the reading. When I came to the word "inconspicuous," I asked Wren what it meant. I was shocked that she knew. The importance of reading to children cannot be overstated, in my opinion. 

Don't remember why I took this picture because October was too early for cookie selling, but Ever was (and is) a Brownie.

A friend, Courtney Woods, texted and told me Ever had just gotten an award at the school assembly. I knew nothing about it; hadn't been notified by the school that it was happening. Apparently the kids wrote essays about saying no to drugs as part of their DARE week, and Ever's essay was one of the winners. Anna happened to be at the assembly for a different reason, so she and Courtney both took and sent me pictures. 

I had this text exchange with Jim about it. He's the best.

Tiny wanted to be Pippi Longstocking for Halloween. Ever said she wanted to be a ghost, and Wren followed suit. For the ward trunk or treat, I tried to make old-fashioned ghost costumes for the biggers from a sheet (Ever) and pillowcase (Wren). They were a disaster. They wouldn't stay in place so that the girls could see out the eye holes, even though I had pinned the sheets to hats to help with that. I couldn't even get the girls to keep the sheets on for the very brief duration of the trunk-or-treat portion of the evening. 

As I helped clean up that night, the girls went to town on cupcakes and made a gigantic mess. That was not helpful. Then they topped it off with more candy. (The party was Harry Potter-themed, so somebody there applied zigzag scars to the kids' foreheads.)

Ever was going through a huge Go-Go's / Belinda Carlisle phase, so we were listening to that all the time. I'm not sure if this was during a timeout or before a nap, but I heard Tiny singing part of the "Circle in the Sand" chorus on repeat: 

Later that day, Ever tried to comfort Wrenzy while she was in a timeout.

Derrick had us over for dinner when Mel was out of town. I texted Mel this picture and said, "Our kids' idea of a party." MFEO.

JoAnn took the littles to some Halloween festivities at the library. They really struggle with pictures. Tiny is extraordinary.

We scrambled to get some semblance of costumes together the morning of the preschool Halloween party. Good thing Tiny's regular choice of clothing counts as a costume. 

Somehow carving out time to carve pumpkins is the hardest thing every year. I bought the pumpkins in advance, but then it was the 30th and approaching bedtime. Jim insisted it get done, though, and busted it out. They are doing a spooky "ooh" here:

On Halloween afternoon, I hurriedly cut head holes out of the ghost costumes and applied face makeup on Ever and Wren. They turned out sort of Beetlejuicey, but if sufficed. In keeping with tradition, we went trick-or-treating with Leela and Rafi and Nathan and Noah. Surprisingly, Nathan, Noah, and Scott were dressed exactly like Ever and Wren - sheets, white makeup, and black makeup around the eyes. When Jim came home and saw us all, he assumed we had coordinated, but it was totally unplanned. Leela and Rafi were ninjas.

Since Tiny's pigtails weren't really visible in the group pics, I made her pose by herself against a white background. Her posing was inexplicable.  

Trick-or-treating:

When it was very late and the kids all had tons of candy, we walked back to Subrebosts' house and ended up hanging out there for a while. Ghost monkeys on rings:

Lastly, in honor of my life, I found this picture from an October get-together hosted by Mariah Koehle a year or two ago:

Back, L to R: Melanie Karner, Amy Thompson, Heidi Hawkins, Amber Sorenson, me.
Front, L to R: Mariah Koehle, Deb Moffat.

And Bags told me that people posted on my Facebook page for my birthday. The shout-outs were pretty much negligible (I don't have any friends, and I don't use Facebook), but my old gym coach, Mike Spiller, posted this pic:

Oh, to be bendy and athletic again! How the mighty have fallen.

San Diego Overnighter, Fun Run, and Bake Sale

Jim had a work event in San Diego in October, and we decided to make an overnighter out of it. Madison Sorenson came over Friday evening to babysit, and Jim and I stayed the night in a not-great hotel in a really ghetto area by Mission Bay. But first we went to La Jolla, walked around, and found a place for dinner. It was lovely.

Saturday morning, we went for a run around the bay, which would be a beautiful spot if the island in the middle had not been developed with a (now-abandoned) trailer park and the rest of the surrounding area weren't similarly undesirable. The trailer park was an eerie ghost town - broken windows, tipped-over furniture, wine glasses still scattered around inside and outside mobile homes. It was very odd. We would have liked to explore further and run a whole huge loop, but it's over 10 miles and would have taken forever even if my knees and I been in good enough shape to handle it. Someday we'll go back.

We cleaned up, checked out of the hotel, and headed down to La Jolla. It was a beautiful day.

We walked around some areas we haven't seen before and checked out the Sunny Jim Sea Cave. To get to the cave, you have to pay $5 to descend from a souvenir shop (The Cave Store) down a long set of stairs in a tunnel that was completed in 1903. I believe it's the only sea cave in California that is accessible by land. The tunnel was dug to allow visitor access but apparently was subsequently used by bootleggers and smugglers of illegal immigrants. There's not a ton to the cave itself, but it was a fun stop, and the tunnel was cool.

Of course we saw tons of seals and birds as we explored. 

So much bird poop. So much stank.

I've always known that I have freakishly long arms, and I feel that this picture confirms it:

We saw some people snorkeling, and Jim really thought we should rent gear and go. I knew it was the adventurous thing to do, but it seemed very time-consuming and hard, as we'd have to get to a Y to shower and clean up before the Kaiser party. He finally gave up the dream, and we just walked some more and had a late lunch at Duke's.

We went on a nice walk at Sunset Cliffs at sunset (appropriately). It's a very popular area to which we'd never been.  The stretch of cliffs is long, so at least the hordes of people can spread out a little bit.  We walked pretty much as far as we could go, and it was lovely.

We parked in a residential area to change into our party clothes. We killed some extra minutes watching a show on Jim's phone and then ended up hurrying to the Kaiser thing, having missed most of the early mingling portion. Shortly after we arrived, there was a motivational meeting/award ceremony. Then came dinner. It was very fancy, and Kaiser hired people to dress as flappers and help at the dinner party. We weren't hungry yet, thanks to our late lunch at Duke's (complete with giant dessert), but we ate anyway. Then, since socializing isn't our thing, we took off pretty early. We figured it would be nice to have some fun tims (show watching) after we got home.

In the day we were gone, Ever read this stack of books:

She did not inherit my slow-reading gene, and I'm so happy about that.

The following week, Ever had her school fun run. She got very generous donations from Tutu and Jim, and I took the littles to watch her run. Running is not her favorite thing, but she ran hard and gave it her all. I was really proud of her. 

Tiny collected dandelions. 

The super runner and the medium-sized sister.

Tiny held us up on the way out of school because she had to climb on all the things.

The stake did a Rise Against Hunger event on Thanksgiving weekend, where we packaged dehydrated meals to be shipped around the world. The Meagan and Pete Bunnells weren't going to be around for the packaging event, so Meagan organized a bake sale to raise money to donate to Rise Against Hunger. That way, her kids could still participate and contribute. Bake sales are my dream, and I got way too excited planning what to make.  

The bake sale was the Saturday morning before Thanksgiving. I texted friends to tell them about it. Anna promptly called with a question. Her brother-in-law had just passed away, and they were going to Orange County Saturday morning for his memorial. She wanted to contribute to the cause and wondered if we could spare some stuff for her to pick up and take to the memorial; then it would be like she was making a donation in his name. I talked to the other bakers, who agreed to make a spare pan of something to send. I ran around Friday night collecting baked goods and serving platters from the other bakers to give Anna. 

For our part, we made many cookies and pumpkin bars and I forget what else. We baked and baked. So much baking. Meagan and I were both crazed baking ladies late into that Friday night. It was fun before it became a little much.

We set up shop outside the Bunnells' and were open for business from 9:00 A.M. to 12:00 P.M. on Saturday. The kids held signs and waved at people driving by. We learned that 9:00 A.M. is too early a start time. Things picked up around 10:00. At first it seemed as if we had way too many goods, and I was concerned. I sent a couple mass texts to friends and acquaintances to drum up some business. But then a few really generous people came and bought a ton, and friends who got my texts showed up to find we had run out. We sold out of pretty much everything and raised over $400, I think, not including what Anna donated.