The ides of March // Napa with the VMC crew

 Don’t worry, nothing so ominous :)  Just the misc happenings in the month of March and a weekend trip to Napa.  

First, the little things..

Sora (and Amy, as cookie chairperson) finished the Girls Scouts cookie season!  Her original goal was 160 boxes but she ended up selling over 360!  Mostly by herself too (as we refused to do the work for her).  Their troop ended up selling about 2500 boxes total and, as much as I complain about it being an MLM scam, that does mean about $2500 for their troop so that’s a big plus.  Amy is going to see what the girls want to do as their reward :) 

The troop doing a cookie booth in front of Safeway

I made loco moco a couple of times.  Turned out pretty well and was approved by Kegan and Lester :) The kids liked it too!

Mrs. Wilbanks is Jad’s kinder teacher.  She’s really good but is near retirement so PPP will probably lose her next year.  I had a chance to volunteer with Jad’s class again a couple weeks ago and that was fun too. 

Jad’s teacher made them all Thing shirts for Dr. Seuss day!

Sora is such a performer.  She often will stage these dance shows or signing productions, sometimes involving Jad or the neighborhood kids.  Hopefully, she continues to enjoy this as she gets older, even though I am cautious about the idea of having a “drama kid” later.

A dance show, complete with spotlight 8)

Amy had a chance to go out with the other moms from LSCC.  I hope that I can help her do more of these things as she always puts family first and sometimes, isn’t good at taking care of herself.

She’s as pretty as ever!

Jad has been practicing/playing with his soccer team.  He’s really enjoying it as he has several kindergarten classmates there (Colton, Nicholas and Orion).  He’s our most sporty kid.  Unfortunately, his first game was canceled because of a team mismatch.  We played a team from a visiting league and from the get go, we thought that they were much larger than our kids.  This has happened in the past with Kai and we took it in stride as we know our kids are on the smaller end but this did seem a bit extreme.  The other team quickly scored 2 goals, blowing right through our team, and then one of their players collided with ours, knocking him down. The referee started asking more questions and it seemed like some of their players were 8 years old (possibly older as they were a bit coy about answering) which is not supposed to be for the U8 league.  The ref called the game off after a bit of confusion but then our team (oh, they decided to call themselves Team Rocket) just played a bit of a scrimmage.   Hopefully, the next game will be better.

Running lines at practice

Jad being silly on the field, as usual

Kai has also been playing with his new team.  This season we had about half the team return with Kai, Anthony, Adrian, Hakeem and Eden.  Eden’s dad had actually intended to be the coach but he got too busy so Coach Michael is doing it instead.  The other boys on his team are Aiden, Eli, Ben and a few more I can’t recall right now.  I still have to memorize all their names :P  They did great on their first game, winning 7-2 or 8-2 maybe.  Kai did a great job as a defender and kept the ball on the offensive side.  One goal was scored by a one of their defenders who accidentally knocked it into their own goal!

Kai is definitely getting better at soccer

A double rainbow over the soccer field

Amy had a chance to go with Jad on his field trip to the Palo Alto Junior Museum.  I like these pictures of Jad and his classmates.  He has been telling us about his “crush” Olivia who he hangs out with all the time.  I think it’s silly and cute and wanted to write it down so we didn’t forget about it. 

Jad and friends

Very close to Olivia :D

I went with Sora and her class to the San Jose History Museum.  It’s basically a collection of old or recreated historical buildings that they moved to this area in downtown SJ.  I was never really impressed with it but I guess there are some neat old buildings there, like a recreation of an old Banco D’Italia which eventually became Bank of America.  On this particular trip, the kids learned about fruit packing/migrant labor, the hows and whys of canning and how the bank worked.  They learned how to write checks too :)

Sora and her friends “picking fruit”

In front of a recreated Chinatown Meeting hall

Not to miss out on Kai, Amy also took him to the CA Academy of Sciences.  He’s been there a bunch of times before but it’s always more fun to go with your classmates on a bus!

Micah and Kai, who is giving mom the side eye..

The aquarium there is really nice

Sora had her piano recital this past weekend.  She played “Under the Sea” from The Little Mermaid and another song as well.  She did great and I’m glad she is enjoying it.  She also enjoyed dressing up too :)

Very cute, this one

After recital pic with everyone

Now for the Napa trip!  Usually, we get together with my intern friends from Valley Medical Center (The VMC Crew) at least once a year.  Normally, it’s for a ski/snow trip to Tahoe but with two of the families having young babies currently, we thought we’d take it easier this year so we went to Napa instead.  We always try to look for a house rental but with our numbers being 25 we couldn’t find anything so we stayed at the Meritage Resort.  It’s not the same as cooking together and playing poker in the living room but the best we can do for the moment. 

Rooms at the Mertitage were very nice and newly renovated.  Unfortunately, the pool was closed for the renovation :(

Our room did look out over the small hill and vineyard behind the hotel

Amy went out for runs in the morning while I got the kids breakfast and watched them (watching TV, mostly).  Amy is up to 85 days on her running streak (at least 1 mile a day) so far this year! 

A nice bystander took a picture of me and the kids

Kai was happy to participate in some photo comedy

Sora has her own little camera and loves taking pictures

People asked what the kids did in Napa but while it’s true that much of the industry is catered for adults and wine centric, the kids did find spaces they could hang out in.  The kids from all the families spent time together and, considering they have seen each other over the years, were somewhat familiar with each other.  We went to V. Sattui for their nice picnic grounds and market and while the adults did a tasting, the kids hung out and had lunch.  We then splurged on the tastings/tour of the Castello de Amorosa. Amy and I had always seen it before but never ventured all the way in because of the high cost of admission.  Napa has gotten ridiculously expensive and tastings are often $40-60 at the normal places and even more at the higher end places. I remember (just showing my age here) when these tastings were free or $5-10 tops.. Sigh.

We had our first nice dinner at LASO for Nepali food.  It was ok but honestly, our Nepali friend Anu cooked better food for us just a week prior so we were not impressed.  His food was less fancy but much more flavorful. 

Most of the Valley Crew

Picnicking at V. Sattui.. Lots of cheese, cured meats, bread and wine European style!

Kai at the Castello.  The structure itself was cool

but the tasting was not memorable

We also had Sunday brunch at Bear @Stanley Ranch.  The food was good / pricey but the best part was the games and chicken feeding around the hotel grounds.  This place costs $800-1000 a night!

Hula hoopin'

A photo of all the families together.  We miss you Minh/Denise and Viet/Dina.  Maybe next year!

That’s all folks!  I’ll leave you with this picture of Jad lying down on the top of the couch.  Sesame likes to sleep in this position so I guess it’s pretty comfortable.  Speaking of that cat, he has been bringing lots of fleas to our house.  We’ve tried various treatments and collars but it’s an ongoing issue, but I guess that’s the downside of the indoor/outdoor cat.  Oh well, we’ll do the best we can and at least we aren’t getting bitten too much.  Til next time!