Monthly Archives: November 2022

Gold Country and Father’s Day

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Our most recent photo gallery, which isn’t actually recent at all, is another throwback to 2014. This set covers a short trip to Gold Country in the Sierra foothills at the beginning of the summer of that year, just after the kids got out of school.

Julia had completed a unit on the gold rush during the school year, so she was excited to share various historical tidbits about the region. And, thanks to the power of marketing, Joe had been asking to go see Mercer Caverns ever since we visited the Mystery Spot: he kept seeing orange Mercer Caverns bumper stickers around town that bore an uncanny resemblance to the ubiquitous yellow Mystery Spot decals, and logically concluded that Mercer Caverns should be next on (or at least high on) our list of sites to see.

We spread the trip out over a couple of days, starting in Murphys, where the big kids panned for gold while William was content to just splash in the water. Sadly, they didn’t find any, and we then headed into Mercer Caverns themselves. I was carrying William on my back in a hiking baby carrier, which made things interesting: his head stuck out several inches above my own, so I had to be conscientious to avoid braining him on a low-hanging stalactite.

All five of us made it out alive and intact, and we headed next to Calaveras Big Trees State Park, which features the first giant sequoias documented by European explorers. This includes the stump of the Discovery Tree, which was once the largest tree in the grove, but was felled just a year after it was first documented. The stump was then used as a dance floor, and bowling alleys were constructed on the fallen trunk, much to the irritation of John Muir; in response, he is said to have written an essay titled And the Vandals Danced upon the Stump.

We snapped a picture of Julia and Joe standing in front of the Pioneer Cabin Tree, which featured a tunnel carved out in the 1880s to allow it to compete as a tourist attaction with similar trees in Yosemite and elsewhere. Sadly, in preparing this post, I learned that this tree fell during a rainstorm in January 2017, less than three years after our visit.

The next day, we visited Moaning Caverns, which was, if anything, a more impressive spectacle than Mercer Caverns. Once again, I had to be mindful of the risk of decapitating William, but for the second day in a row, he survived.

After we finished spelunking, we stopped at Railtown 1897 State Historic Park and Columbia State Historic Park. The former included the train from the movie Back to the Future III, which may have interested me more than the kids. We toured the area by rail, which was a welcome respite after all the walking we’d done over the last few days, did a little more panning for gold—still coming up empty—and enjoyed some cool drinks in a tavern before we packed up and headed home.

The gallery closes with some pictures from the construction of one of my favorite Father’s Day gifts ever. Julie had the kids make signs calling out something I did for them (William had help) and composited them into a small poster that sits on my dresser to this day.

Gallery: Gold Country and Father’s Day

Joe Turns 8 (and More)

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Although things have been busy the last few weeks, we are still working to shrink our extended backlog of older photos that have yet to be posted. With that in mind, here’s another gallery of pictures, this one covering Joe’s eighth birthday, as well as a few days on either side.

A few things stand out in these photos: William has graduated from eating puffs (or puffies, as we called them) to toddler crackers, which he loved; Joe’s cake topper is fantastic (though I’m biased); the older kids got Nerf swords that Joe and William still play with today; and Joe received a handsome sweater vest that’s now in William’s dresser.

Looking back, it’s a hoot to see our old kitchen and living room in their glorious disorder. Things are a bit calmer and neater now, but these pictures warm my heart, mess notwithstanding.

Gallery: Joe Turns 8 (and More)

Annie Kids and Grandma Flack

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If you’ve met William, you know that he’s always had an active imagination and a flair for the dramatic. He put those attributes to good use last year, when the Assistant Principal at Booksin, Ms. Brush, started a drama program and put together a performance of Peter Pan Junior. William eagerly signed up and nabbed the part of Noodler, one of Captain Hook’s murderous pirates.

The play was a smashing success, and this fall, Ms. Brush decided to stage another musical: Annie Kids. William auditioned once again, and this time he got a bigger part: Rooster Hannigan, the male antagonist. In the play, Rooster, his girlfriend, and his sister attempt to steal $50,000 from Annie’s would-be adoptive father, Oliver Warbucks, by posing as Annie’s real parents and claiming the reward he had offered.

There were two performances of the show with William’s cast: one in the evening, and one during the school day for the assembled student body. The photo album contains photos from both shows, as well as video clips of William’s scenes. As you can see from the pictures, William attacked his role with great gusto. If you’re interested in watching the full, forty-five minute play, there’s a YouTube video I can share privately.

The timing of the performance was fortuitous, because it happened to be scheduled for the week after Grandma Flack moved to California, which allowed her to attend. The move was a culmination of a two-month process that required Julie to make no fewer than four round-trips to Nebraska and back to prepare. On the last trip, she oversaw movers as they packed up her mother’s things and loaded them onto a truck, and then flew back with her to California.

Grandma Flack planned to move into her own apartment in a senior living apartment building, but that wasn’t feasible until her belongings arrived. So, she stayed with us in the meantime, using our bedroom while Julie, William, and I camped out upstairs; we finally had a chance to use the sofa bed we’ve been moving around since 1994.

Grandma’s furniture was delivered about a week after she arrived in San José, and we took a few days to unpack and put everything in order before she moved in. She’s settling in now and has met a few nice people so far; we’re optimistic that it will be a positive environment for her that frees her from some of the day-to-day hassles of living on her own. The fact that she’s just five minutes away, and will be able to come over to visit as often as she wants, is an added bonus.

Gallery: Annie Kids

Soccer Finale; Walkathon; and Goodbye, Bentley

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This time of year often produces busy weekends, but a couple weeks ago, we had a doozy. And we have the pictures to prove it.

The fun started first thing in the morning on Saturday, with an 8:00 soccer game. It was a very successful season for William’s team, the Neon Lightnings, but because schedule conflicts prevented them from entering the end-of-season tournament, this was the last game for this group of kids. William played hard all season, and seems to getting a handle on what he’s supposed to be doing out on the pitch. All that work seemed to be culminating in a clear shot on goal toward the end of the first half—the closest by far he’s come to scoring a goal in a game ever—and he just missed when he tried to kick the ball.

True to form, William was undaunted and kept his spirits up (it helped that his team was winning in a romp). I thought that was likely to be his only chance, as he doesn’t usually get opportunities to shoot, so no one was more surprised than me when, late in the second half, he found himself with the ball in front of the goal once again. This time, he nailed the shot and scored, marking the first goal scored by a Wong kid since fall 2012.

As evidenced by the sheer number of pictures from the game, I had my camera with me. And I was standing near the corner of the field, very close to the goal. But I was too entranced by the unfolding action to even think about taking a photo. As I walked, shocked and elated, back to my seat on the sideline, Will’s friend Kai’s mother asked whether I got the shot, and I just shook my head ruefully. Maybe next time.

After the game, the boys posed together for a quick team photo, and then it was off the next event of the weekend: the 2022 Booksin Walkathon.

This was the first somewhat normal Walkathon in several years. The 2020 walk was canceled due to Covid, and though kids were back on campus in 2021, BESCA and the school weren’t excited about the prospect of having a couple thousand people converge on the school grounds for an all-day event. Instead, they did a smaller, in-school Walkathon with just the students in the spring. Because it had been so long, there was a great deal of anticipation for the return of Walkathon as it had been.

Thanks to the soccer game, we arrived a bit more than hour after the start of the race, and in a change from previous years, kids in sports didn’t get mileage credit for their time away from the school. William was largely unconcerned, however, as he’d asked his friend Kai—who isn’t a Booksin student—to join him for the day. The two of them walked enough to get the first tier of prizes and to earn a cool drink, but they spent most of their time deep in conversation or playing on the playground.

William’s day got even better when he ran into his good friend Kaila, whom he’s known since TK. Kaila left Booksin last year for another school, but she and her family live kitty-corner from the campus and decided to join in the fun. William was ecstatic to see her in person for the first time in ages, and he, Kai, and Kaila spent a long time playing keep-away with another of Kaila’s friends.

After Walkathon, we had a few minutes to rest before Julie had to leave for her flight to Omaha: she was picking up her mother for her move out to California. The flight departed from SFO, as there are no reasonable non-stops from San José to Omaha, which meant a forty-five minute drive each way. By the time I got home, I was thoroughly exhausted; I don’t even remember what happened the rest of the evening.

The weekend wasn’t over yet, however. On Sunday, we were invited to a Navy Change in Command Ceremony, in which command of a naval facility is formally handed over from one Navy officer to another. In this case, the departing commander was the father of William’s very good friend, Bentley; after eighteen months in San José, he was being transferred to a new position in Texas. We were flattered to be invited to the small ceremony, and it gave us an opportunity to dress up, which William always enjoys.

After the ceremony, we stayed for lunch and cake, which the officers’ families cut with a sword—Bentley’s eyes positively lit up when he had chance to hold it. Then Bentley and his family were off to begin their new adventure, starting with a trip to Disneyland, while William and I headed home for some long-overdue rest.

Gallery: Soccer Finale; Walkathon; and Goodbye, Bentley

Late Spring 2014—William Eats

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It’s almost Thanksgiving, so it seemed like the perfect time to post some pictures from, well, eight and a half years ago! This album features snapshots from May and June of 2014, when William was not quite one and Julia and Joseph were still in elementary school.

It includes some pictures from a fun YMCA Adventure Guides outing in which the boys launched homemade rockets; there’s even a video of Joe launching and chasing after the rocket he designed. It also features some photos of Julia napping with Felix; little did we know at the time that this would become a pervasive, recurring theme in our lives.

But the majority of the pictures focus on William’s trials and tribulations trying to maneuver finger food—in this case, Gerber Puffs—into his mouth. As you can see from the photos, he’s making a valiant, two-fisted effort at it, but his tiny fingers aren’t fully on board with the plan. He does eventually succeed, but it’s not immediately clear that the caloric value of the puffs he ate made up for the energy he expended consuming them.

The whole series reminds me of a much older sequence of pictures showing Julia attempting the same feat with Cheerios. Unfortunately, that photo album has vanished from the Internet for the time being, but here’s one sample:

Julia eating Cheerios

And here’s the more recent equivalent:

William eating puffs

The gallery closes with some pictures of William at dinner in a stunningly stylish outfit that’s even older than these photos. Somewhere out there, there are surely pictures of me in the same getup, but unfortunately, I don’t have any to share at this time.

Gallery: Late Spring 2014—William Eats

Disneyland and Fall Break

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It’s been a long couple years, during which we haven’t really had an opportunity to travel just for fun. We’ve had some plans, but Covid and other realities kept getting in the way. It was in this context that Julie hit upon a great idea: a short family road trip to Disneyland over William’s fall break. Here we present the photographic evidence of the fact that we made—and survived—the trek, with a few soccer and pre-Halloween photos thrown in for good measure.

William had the entire week off, which gave us a measure of schedule flexibility. On the other hand, Julia and Joe did not, which meant that if we wanted to take them along, we’d have to leave on a Friday evening so they wouldn’t miss school. With that in mind, we opted to depart on the Friday at the beginning of fall break; Julia chose to come with us, as Disneyland is one of her favorite places in the world, while Joe opted to stay home by himself: the same can absolutely not be said for him.

We got out of town at a pretty reasonable hour, which reduced our exposure to traffic: the last time we drove south, in 2020, it took us nearly two hours just to get to Interstate 5, whereas for this trip, it hardly seemed to take any time at all. We stopped for a quick dinner at Harris Ranch and drove more or less straight through to Anaheim, arriving sometime around midnight.

We spent all day Saturday and most of the day Sunday at the park, giving William a chance to ride all the rides he missed out on the last time we visited, when he was just two-and-a-half years old. He especially liked the Spider-Man ride, in which riders electronically shoot webs at bad guys while the ride keeps score. Perhaps unsurprisingly, William was much better at this than me, as was Julie; I consistently had the worst score in the family on this ride.

He even rode the park’s biggest roller coaster, Incredicoaster, and didn’t completely hate it, though he declined to give it a second go. It’s too early to say that he’s a roller coaster addict like his mother and sister, but it’s also too early to rule it out. He especially enjoyed the water rides: we rode Splash Mountain first thing the second day because the lines were short, and we quickly discovered why there wasn’t a wait: it was more than a bit chilly walking around the park in soaking wet jeans in the cool morning air.

Like many kids his age, William is keenly interested in all things Star Wars, and the ride we spent the most time on was the new-ish Smuggler’s Run, in which you get to fly around in the Millennium Falcon as a team, collaboratively dodging obstacles, shooting at enemies, and trying to keep the ship flying with timely repairs. I remember reading about the ride when it first opened a few years ago, and it was hoot to finally see it in person. Who doesn’t want to fly the Millennium Falcon?

Another Star-Wars-adjacent highlight was the opportunity for William to build his own lightsaber, which he had been looking forward to ever since Julie came back from chaperoning a band trip to Disneyland last spring with one she’d built. He undertook the task with great gusto, and the end result was both uniquely his own and exactly what he wanted.

For her part, Julia was in good spirits for most of the trip. She wandered the park on her own most of the time, meeting up with us for meals and a few family rides. She seemed to really value the opportunity to explore independently and make her own choices.

The only real wrinkle came around lunchtime on Sunday when, in a truly unfortunate accident, Julie’s wallet and phone ended up in the water bordering the waiting area for the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. It was clearly visible in the channel through which the ride travels, but just out of reach. We finished our ride—there didn’t seem much point in not going through with it, as we’d waited in line for nearly an hour and the phone didn’t seem to be going anywhere—and Julie explained what had happened to the attendants when we disembarked. After investigating for a few minutes, they told us that they knew exactly where the phone was, but didn’t have any way to reach it while the ride was running. Our only choice was to wait a few hours and hope that the phone and wallet would be dragged by the current into the boarding area, where they would be able to retrieve it. Failing that, they assured us that they would be able to pick it up and mail it to us after the park closed, when they drained the channel for cleaning.

This was bad enough: in this day and age, being without one’s phone seems almost unfathomable. But complicating matters was the fact that Julie had a trip to Nebraska scheduled for the following Friday, just five days later: if they couldn’t get her wallet back to her before then, she’d be forced to travel without her phone and her driver’s license.

In all honesty, I thought the phone was pretty much a goner. Companies like Apple have made great strides in terms of waterproofing in the last few years, but Julie’s phone was more than three years old, and the gaskets and seals that keep water out degrade over time. And we were talking about it spending hours underwater; as we moved on to our next ride, I was already trying to figure out how we could get her a new phone before her trip.

We planned to check back in at Pirates of the Caribbean toward the end of the day, but as we tried to enjoy a few more rides in the meantime, we could tell that the uncertainty was weighing on William. To allay his concerns, we headed back after just a couple hours to see if the phone had turned up.

And, lo and behold, it had, with Julie’s phone and the contents of her wallet soaked but intact. Just as the Disney folks had predicted, it had made its way downstream to the platform where they could snag it. Even better, the phone still worked. It wouldn’t take a charge until the charging port thoroughly dried out, but otherwise it was none the worse for wear.

Julia had classes the next day, so we didn’t stay too much longer, though we did stop at Portillo’s for a quick dinner before we got on the road for the long drive north. Despite the hiccups, it was a delightful trip, and it was a joy to share the experience with William now that he’s old enough to really enjoy it.

It also felt like something of a bookend to our thirty-month pandemic experience. Way back in February 2020, we road tripped down to San Diego and Legoland for the kids’ winter break. I’d heard from from some co-workers who returned to the U.S. from China at the beginning of the year that things were worse than we in the West knew, but we had no idea what was in store. While we’re not completely out of the woods yet—as I write, Covid cases are starting to tick up here in the Bay Area—this year’s trip, though short, was an opportunity to reflect on where we are and everything that we’ve lived through since then.

Gallery: Disneyland and Fall Break