Category: Holidays

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Happy 12th Anniversary!

Erin once asked me, “why don’t you write letters to me any more?” To which I laughed and replied, “because you never wrote me back.” She laughed also and said “I guess I needed to do that.” I once wrote Erin a love letter to our kids that we did not have yet apologizing to them that I will love their mother more. 

Parenting can be amazing, full of joy and fulfillment watching your kids find joy and grow. Parenting can also be trying, each putting in 110% and yet seeing the house still messy or finding your spouse still asleep at 10 AM,  or passed out on the couch at 8 PM feeling like the other is not pulling their weight, even though both of you are trying to do their best and not everything is getting done. Parenting can feel filled with guilt that you are doing all you can yet feeling as though you are doing nothing well. And even when you forgive yourself for all those feelings, parenting can feel transactional doing what needs to be done and not finding time for each other. 

There are parents who have date nights or weekends away, but we feel so away from our kids when we are away from them that we don’t really do it. There are too many trips for work that we spend away, and time can feel so short. So we find other ways, we sometimes wake up in the middle of the night and talk for two hours like we did when we were dating. We hold hands in the mall as the kids run on ahead of us. We kiss in front of our kids eliciting knowing glances and “ooohs” between them. We laugh at our own foibles and forgive each other’s angers. We step in when the other is exhausted, we pull our weight to get the kids to the bus. We take care of each other when we are sick or tired, or sad. We take the time to say “I love you” every day and talk every day for the past 14 years. We learn to laugh at ourselves and with each other to grow together, and in growing together, we work to fulfill our vows we made 12 years ago. What can be more romantic than that? Happy anniversary Erin. I love you. 

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Halloween 2019

Halloween 2019. Tornado watch now for our area. We are going to the mall. This is Curie and Elia this morning waiting for the bus and for their parade at school.
So Erin was going to be Mommy Shark even before the Nats won, but she conveniently had red and white for her costume. Albert was the out-of-shape Peter C. Parker (not Peter B. Parker because he was not Chinese) complete with sweat pants. We did go to the mall for the first time, and had a really good time. The stores didn’t all participate and they could have taken advantage more by giving out one day coupons or similar (only Roots did something like that). We did get to go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood too.
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Hoagland Halloween 2019

Our friends the Hoaglands put together the most amazing party each year for their daughter and son culminating in a truly remarkable haunted house. They have done insane asylums, castles, haunted hotels and more. We have been going since 2007, and sometimes we have simply responded to the theme, like visiting dignitaries to the castle last year, or the doctors at the insane asylum, but our favorites are the meta costumes which started in 2013 when we came as safety inspectors, then the following year as security for the party. We have been mime entertainment, judges of the costumes, and our favorite in the past, when we pretended to be the caterers. This year the Hoaglands created a crazy ghost ship, and true to form we showed up as the souvenier shop, complete with “I survived the Hoagland Ghost Ship” t-shirts, booth, cash box, and gave out eye-patches, light up rings, and shark hats. This year comes close to the caterer year as people really did believe we were selling souveniers for the ghost ship.
Our costume, the Hoagland Souvenier Shop at the Hoagland Ghost Ship, Julie and Steve joined us later. 
OMG, look at the haunted house this year!
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Curie’s Eighth Birthday Party!

Curie’s eighth birthday party at Scramble. The theme was Under the Sea, but not the in the Little Mermaid way (that was later for Natalie’s party). We wore Mera from Aquaman and decorated the party accordingly – without Aquaman.
Superman, Wonder Woman, the Incredibles, and Mera it is amazing we have not done Batman/Batgirl. Also three of these were for Curie’s birthday parties.
Curie’s birthday party was in the morning, Natalie’s was in the afternoon, tomorrow morning is Chloe’s.
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Elia Graduates Pre-School

Today Elia graduated pre-school, and there will be a separate collage for her day in a while. So when Curie graduated, the preschool sent home a letter saying to dress your child up for graduation. Erin was annoyed that they were trying to make us dress our kids up in fancy dresses and outfits, so she “dressed Curie up!”… As Superman. All the other kids were in little dresses and shirts with ties and Curie is as proud as punch in a Superman/girl shirt complete with cape and snow boots. So today, Elia was all dressed up in her fancy dress – if you don’t know, she always wears a fancy dress to school, so this was not any different except for the Jojo Shiwa bow. She looked so cute, but at the last moment, unprompted by us, she had a meltdown saying she did not want the dress and instead wanted her Wonder Woman dress. SO Curie graduated as Superman/girl, and Elia graduated as Wonder Woman, why is that so appropriate?
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Teacher Appreciation Week

We’ve been telling stories of teachers that have impacted our lives at work for Teacher Appreciation Week. We wrote stories of appreciation and I told of how Mr. Baron, Mr. Antenore, and Mr. Mamer, as a triumvirate molded us to be socially responsible global citizens (and probably kept us out of real trouble since we were rebelling responsibly), and how Ms. Shepard, Ms. Teverbaugh, and Ms. Kenny (from Sierra Vista) led me to write short stories. But the story that PDK International chose to publish on our May 7th, PDK Voices from the Field segment (http://pdkintl.org/voices/  or see below) was about Mr. Patchell who taught me that I was my own person and not someone in the shadows of my sister (and brother, even though he is younger). Please take a read and thank a teacher that made a difference in YOUR life. #thankateacher#teacherappreciationweek #voicesofpdk #makingadifference Continue reading “Teacher Appreciation Week”