Category Archives: Joseph

Christmas 2014

Posted on by

Here at long last are our photos from Christmas of last year. I feel like I should have a few amusing anecdotes to share, but it’s been so long, and the intervening months have been so hectic, that I can barely remember what was happening last December.

There was a band concert—I remember that much. Joe was on better behavior in band during the spring semester, so he actually got to play with the advanced band this time. We’re definitely not out of the woods on that front yet, however: he continues to have intermittent (actually, that might be overly generous) problems managing his frustration when things don’t go just right, whether he’s having trouble with his clarinet, working on math problems, or playing baseball.

After Christmas proper, our college friend Mason swung through town with his wife Kathy and his kids Dylan and Ava. Joe and Dylan really clicked at our Rice get-together last summer in Texas, so Joe was really excited to see him again so soon. Dylan even asked his dad to buy a bag of barbecue potato chips to share with Joe on the way into town; if that’s not a real friend, I don’t know what is.

The Harts crashed at our place for the night, and we headed down to the Monterey Bay Aquarium the next day. The aquarium has added a number of computerized, interactive activities, so the kids were enthralled. They even seemed to enjoy the fish, as well.

Gallery: Christmas 2014.

Shidles in San Francisco

Posted on by

In March, we had the extremely good fortune to get a visit from some of our oldest and dearest friends, Joe and Erica Shidle, along with their two daughters, who are among Julia and Joe’s oldest friends as well. On the occasion of their visit, we took a rare trip up to the city (via Oakland, since we picked up the Shidles at their hotel in Milpitas) to give the kids a chance to experience some of the popular tourist spots. Naturally, there are pictures.

We started out at Fisherman’s Wharf, as one does, and then made our way on foot to Ghirardelli Square. From there, we decided to hop on a cable car, as neither the kids nor Julie had even been on one, and visit the San Francisco Cable Car Museum. This was especially exciting for our Joe, as he had long been a fan of the excellent book Maybelle the Cable Car by Virginia Lee Burton (personally, I prefer Katy and the Big Snow by the same author, but The Little House is also great if you’re sentimental like me).

After the museum, things took a bit of a turn: a blackout hit the block where the museum sits, which would have been fine—we had just left, after all—but for the fact that the museum doubles as the powerhouse for the line that ran back in the direction of our car, leaving us more or less stranded. Situations like this one might go a long way toward explaining the enthusiasm for phasing out the cable cars back in the ’40s.

Luckily for us, there was a bus route vaguely in the vicinity, so after a pretty good hike—you can imagine how the kids felt about traipsing uphill in San Francisco—we were able to get a ride back to the car, grab a quick dinner, and visit the Golden Gate Bridge, which the older Joe once characterized as the site of the nastiest bathroom in the world, around dusk.

Despite the forced march, the kids had a great time and were thoroughly pooped when we arrived home. Hopefully the Shidles will come back for another visit someday, seeing as this one took place way back in 2011, and I’m only getting around to posting the pictures now.

Gallery: Shidles in San Francisco.

Fall 2014

Posted on by

Only a few months behind schedule, here are a bunch of photos taken during fall 2014—that’s right, just last year. Most of the pictures are from soccer, with a few other snapshots thrown in for good measure.

Julia had the same coach, Jim Dueltgen—father of Phoebe and Zoe—as last year, and she had a great time playing with a bunch of other girls from Booksin. This was the first year the girls were playing in a U12 (under 12) league, so they were largely smaller and less experienced than the other teams they played against; in fact, Julia was still eligible to play in U10, but she opted to play up a level to stay with her friends. The team hung together through some ugly losses early in the season and put together a nice string of games at the end (albeit after the customary league–wide rebalancing halfway through to make things more competitive) to wrap things up. In the end, they were in a position to earn a trophy on the last day of the season–ending tournament, but things just didn’t go their way. Julia was disappointed, but she is already looking forward to next year—after some of the soccer–related drama we’ve had in the past, it was nice to hear her express that sentiment.

Joe also moved up a level, to U10, so he was often the smallest kid on the pitch. His team was very strong all year—if I recall correctly, they only lost one game during the regular season—so expectations were high going into the tournament. Unfortunately, the wheels more or less came off the wagon during the tournament weekend, and they ended up losing all three of their matches. Joe showed good improvement throughout the year, and mostly brought a positive attitude and healthy outlook, with only a couple of episodes of the pouting that has plagued him in his other endeavors over the last few months.

William loves being outside, so soccer season wasn’t any great hardship for him; we just had to make sure that he didn’t run onto the field when he saw the bigger kids chasing the ball around. He did get bonked on the head by an errant kick at one point, but by and large, he was happy sitting on the sidelines, playing with the equipment, and making friends with dogs.

In fact, the first time I personally saw him walking well was the morning of October 14, while we watched Joe’s team warming up for their game. I managed to capture the moment on video, which I’ll try to post sometime soon.

Gallery: Fall 2014.

Early 2011

Posted on by

We expect to have more recent pictures to post in a few days, but I wanted to kick things off with a set of photos we’ve had lying around since early 2011.

Julia received a perfect score on her science fair project, which I think was well–deserved considering the amount of effort she put into it. As a reward, we took the kids to the Winchester Mystery House for the first time and followed that up with dinner out and ice cream. I had the honor and privilege of carrying William through the tour, because he decided he didn’t want to ride in the Baby Bjorn, and most of the time he made it quite clear that he really wanted Julie to hold him, but everyone made it through intact.

Both kids have been spending a great deal of time learning to program at /code over the past few weeks—possibly in part because I (perhaps foolishly) decreed that time spent there wouldn’t count against their small daily allotment of screen time. The tutorials offered there are remarkable in terms of their accessibility and breadth, and Julia and Joe have picked up quite a bit very quickly. I’m hoping I can start bringing my work home and have them do it for me.

Gallery: Early 2011.

Halloween & Thanksgiving 2010

Posted on by

Happy 2015! To celebrate the new year, we’re posting our very last retro–photo update from 2010. This collection covers Halloween and Thanksgiving, plus a bit extra in the form of a few snapshots from Julia’s first grade Christmas party. There are still some videos to work on, but this should be it for pictures, I hope.

That halloween, we took the kids to Uesugi Farms in Morgan Hill to pick out a pumpkin, which was miles beyond the level of effort we normally put in. There were hayrides, ponies, carousels, multiple trains, and thousands and thousands of pumpkins. It’s a little hard to tell from the photos, but there had been a tremendous amount of rain in the days leading up to our visit, so much of the farm, including the parking lot, was basically mud. This made it a little challenging to get everyone back into the van without wrecking the upholstery, but we managed to make it without completely overwhelming my compulsive tendencies (there may have been sulking involved, however).

The kids were both Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that year. For reasons I don’t recall, they developed a brief fascination with them around that time without ever having seen any of the films or television shows or having read the original source material. They did have a picture book or two that featured the characters, but that’s just about the extent of their exposure, apart from the influence of friends. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, this probably near the beginning of the end of our ability to exert complete control over what both of them were exposed to.

Gallery: Halloween & Thanksgiving 2010.

Fall 2010

Posted on by

Moving right along, here’s another set of pictures, this one from fall 2010. Though a bit smaller than the last batch, this set covers broad ground.

For Joe, it includes his first day of real school in Junior K and his first soccer team, which some might argue wasn’t actually a team, per se, because they didn’t play games against other teams, but the kids had tons of fun regardless.

It also covers Julia’s second season of soccer, which reunited her with Molly Gosling, whom she knew literally from infancy, since Julie and Molly’s mother were in the same Las Madres group; the first grade field trip to Pizza My Heart, which seems to have had dubious educational value, but would probably rank at the top of her list of favorite field trips to date; and her trip to a Sharks game with her teacher, Mrs. Peters, which she won in a drawing at the Booksin Walkathon. She still remembers that trip as well, and when it comes up, she rarely fails to remind me that the Sharks beat the Blackhawks that evening.

Note that the pictures in this set come from a variety of sources: some were taken with my old phone; some are scans of prints; and some were taken by other parents and sent out in compressed form via email. As a result, the quality is a bit uneven.

Gallery: Fall 2010.

These Aren’t the Pics You’re Looking For (Spring and Summer 2010)

Posted on by

I realize that our readership (by which I mean: grandparents) is probably vastly more interested in photos and a blow–by–blow (in some cases, literally) description of what transpired over the holidays here in San José this year, but there’s an really good reason they’re not ready: they’re not over yet. In fact, I have the week between Christmas and New Year’s more or less off this year, so there should be plenty of opportunities to shoot more pictures and video and, if previous years’ patterns hold, get them posted sometime in August.

In the meantime, we’ve had a giant pile of pictures from spring and summer 2010 sitting around, un–sorted, un–reviewed, and un–published for the last four years. This is my attempt to rectify that oversight. Note that while this may seem like a ton of photos to drop on you all at once, rest assured that these constitute less than half of the original set: believe it or not, this is a carefully curated selection.

There was a lot going on that year, including Joe’s fourth birthday and his first ride on the Junior K bus, but in going through the pictures, one particular memory jumped out at me: the ceremonial walk around the field at at San José Giants game for the kids in the Fearless Baseball program at Primary Plus. The march itself was unremarkable—just a bunch of kids in baseball uniforms wandering around a minor league ballfield, albeit with some classic Mason–and–Joe horseplay—but, following on the heels of her legendary meltdown at PAL soccer night at the San José Earthquakes, it did feature Julia expressing what can only be described as unbridled terror at being confronted by a large crowd (and probably mascots), even with Julie there to hold her hand. As we face down various manifestations of her forceful personality going into adolescence, it’s helpful to remember that it wasn’t so long ago that she was just a scared little girl who wanted her mommy.

Gallery: Spring & Summer 2010.

William Turns One (and Halloween)

Posted on by

It’s been a busy month or so since our last post. The kids wrapped up their soccer seasons; Julia started doing Girl Scouts again in earnest; William discovered the joys of emptying cabinets and drawers; Joe was accepted into advanced band and then kicked out; and, of course, Halloween came and went. We’ll get to much of that in due course, but first there is the matter of William’s first birthday to attend to.

We’ve uploaded a boatload of pictures covering his birthday celebration, which ended up happening the day after his birthday due to his tendency to fall asleep at 6:30 in the evening. He had a delicious dinner of grown–up food—he’s largely grown out of baby food at this point—topped off by chocolate cake, which he attacked voraciously. He then had a great time opening presents, and his older siblings had an equally great time helping him.

Since he started walking, William has been romping around the house enthusiastically, much to the cats’ dismay. He’s a bit more adventurous than Julia and Joe were, and he likes to climb into and onto things, as you can see in some of the pictures. In fact, as I was writing this, he climbed up onto the Ottoman in our bedroom and promptly pitched over the side, bonking his head on the floor. Hopefully this is a phase that will pass quickly.

You’ll also note that William has decided that the best thing to do with his soft toddler blocks is to stick his arms through them and wear them like bracers. I honestly have no idea where that came from.

For Halloween, we returned to a favorite haunt to pick up our pumpkins: Giordano Farms here in San José. The last couple years, we’d gone to pop–up pumpkin “patches” set up in parking lots, where Julia and Joe could jump around in bounce houses and slide on inflatable slides. This year, for William’s first real Halloween, we decided (or, rather, I insisted, over the older kids’ objections) to do something that felt a little more real, so we went back to the place we used to take Julia and Joe when they were younger; you may remember this as the pumpkin patch with the model volcano / geyser that scared the pants off of Joe back in 2009.

Lingering fears aside, everyone had fun at the pumpkin patch, especially William, who just loves being outside: when we’re in the garage, he’ll climb into the stroller on his own and demand to be taken for a walk. You can clearly read the excitement and joy on his face in the pictures from the pumpkin patch and the afternoon Julie set up the Halloween decorations outside.

As I mentioned earlier, Joe auditioned for and was accepted into advanced band this fall. We were very proud of him, as he was one of only two third graders to make the cut, and he had only started playing the clarinet this summer. He’s worked very hard practicing at home, and really seems to have a measure of talent for it. Unfortunately, however, his temper and difficulties dealing with frustration got in his way once again, this time with real consequences. Last week, as the band was working on Christmas songs in preparation for their upcoming winter concert, Joe had a epic meltdown because he was having trouble keeping up with the tempo: he stalked off to sulk away from the other kids (and cry); he threw his clarinet in frustration; and he hit his sister when she—according to her—went over to make sure he was OK.

This was too much for Mr. Reed, the band director, to take, and he let Julie know via email that he couldn’t deal with that kind of disruption while he was trying to teach the band all–new material in the few weeks remaining before the concert. He let Joe down relatively easy, telling him he could be in “intermediate band,” a construct that doesn‘t really exist, and re–audition after the holidays. We’re sure he can pass the audition, as he’s technically proficient enough to play the songs, but we’re on the fence about whether he’ll be up to it emotionally. The one advantage of trying again in the spring is that there will be a little more time before the next performance, so there might be less pressure to pick up the new songs quickly. We’ll have to see how things go.

Gallery: William Turns One (and Halloween).

School Pictures and Pediculus humanus capitis

Posted on by

It’s been a busy couple weeks here in San José since our last post: the kids did their annual school walkathon; Julia has started doing Girl Scouts in earnest once again; Joe has been practicing his clarinet like crazy in the hope of being promoted to advanced band; both of the older kids and Julie came down with head lice; and I’m trying a new brand of shampoo, because the kind I’ve been using for the last thirty–odd years has been found to cause cancer.

It was Julia’s sixth and final walkathon, and rather than go all-out in an effort to finally hit the 25-mile award level, she decided to take it a little bit easy and enjoy her last time around the track with her friends. Of course, many of her friends were going all-out, but Julia cruised to the 15-mile level and called it a day.

Joe made it all the way to 20 miles (including the 5-mile bonus for playing soccer during the day), albeit with a little extra urging from yours truly. He was ready to stop after about 17 miles—his feet hurt, which was unsurprising considering his gym shoes were falling apart—but he changed back into his soccer cleats and kept going, at least as long as William and I kept him company. He got a snazzy stainless steel water bottle for his trouble; I feel like should have earned some kind of prize for carrying William around for at least half of that distance, but alas, my only reward was a very deep sleep Saturday night.

We’re unsure where the kids picked up lice, but we suspect it may have arrived in our little home on the head of William’s babysitter’s son. Regardless of how the little bugs got here, it was probably our turn: lice have been running rampant through the classrooms at Booksin for at least the last five years. Things have been bad enough that the kids have been urged to bring their own headphones to use in the computer labs. Somehow William and I have avoided the scourge thus far, though dealing with the treatment process (hours and hours of repetitive combing) has been no walk in the park. Julia was especially disappointed, because her infestation resulted in her missing her first-ever day of school.

With head lice hopefully behind us, Julia has joined a new Girl Scout troop and is diving headfirst into earning badges. This weekend, she worked on her basic cooking badge, which involved creating two delicious meals: for brunch this morning, she made chocolate chip pancakes with bacon and apple slices; and for dinner, she made a Nebraskan staple, runzas. Sometime in the next couple weeks, I’m on the hook to help her with the digital photography badge: we are supposed to spend a few hours reading and watching videos about photography online. Given my paucity of knowledge and skill, I’ll probably learn nearly as much as she does.

As alluded to by the title of this update, the kids’ school pictures came in this week, and we’ve updated their albums. Julia’s turned out very nicely, as did Joe’s, with the caveat that he had a pretty nasty case of dry, irritated skin around his nose and mouth on picture day: he had a cold that week, and had spent the previous several days fighting a running nose and licking his lips. In a very rare move for me, I’ve actually retouched his picture a bit, because the original was physically painful to look at.

We’ve also updated William’s vital statistics from his one-year checkup last month. He’s tracking around the 75th percentile for height and the 55th percentile for weight, so he’s a healthy, growing boy. We’re still waiting on a definitive first word, though.

In uploading this year’s portraits, I noticed that we never added last year’s class photos. I’m not sure what happened there, and will do some digging to see if they turn up.

Julia’s Birthday & Back to Booksin

Posted on by

It’s been a busy fall since we returned from our trip to Texas. The kids started school in mid–August—which seems awfully early to me—and Julia had her tenth birthday at the end of the month. As she has pointed out on many an occasion since then, she is no longer a “little girl”: she is in double digits. To celebrate, we have pictures.

Both of the older kids are gradually acclimating to their new classes. Julia seems to have clicked with her teacher, Mrs. Kammann, and has been doing a reasonably good job of getting her work done in class and at home: so far, there have been many fewer battles over homework this year than last year. Of course, some of that may be down to the fact that there seems to be less homework than there was last year, but a positive step is a positive step.

Joe got off to a bit of a rocky start the first couple weeks of school with his teacher, Mr. Alderette, and threw several of what we unaffectionately call baby fits; the name comes from one of his preschool teachers, which should give you a pretty good idea of what kind of behavior we’re talking about. One such incident was bad enough that the school actually called me at work to let me know what had happened: Joe got frustrated that he hadn’t finished a particular project when Mr. Alderette told the class that time was up, and Joe flatly refused to comply. Eventually, the office was called, and the assistant principal had to take Joe out of the classroom to give him a chance to calm down.

That was about a month ago, though, and Joe seems to have adjusted his behavior in the weeks since. We’ve been checking in with jim on a daily basis to see how he’s been doing, and it seems as though things are slowly getting better. He has always had a bit of a hard time dealing with situations in which things go poorly, whether it’s getting problems wrong in class or striking out in baseball, and we’re focused on helping him learn how to deal with those kinds of truly inconsequential failures.

In the meantime, Joe has been working extremely hard to come up to speed on the clarinet. We’re just a few weeks into his first year of band, and he has already progressed to the point that Julie has been encouraging him to try out for the advanced band as soon as tryouts begin. He derives a tremendous amount of pleasure from learning how to play the notes he needs to get through each of the songs, and he keeps pushing ahead every time he practices. He has made a tremendous amount of progress in a very short time, and it’s been delightful to see him working so doggedly to achieve his goals.

Finally, at some point in the last week—it’s hard to say exactly when, because the older kids have been at home for fall break, and things have been chaotic around the house—William took his first, halting steps on his own. He first did it for me yesterday, at Joe’s soccer game, and I managed to capture a few seconds on video, which I’ll edit and upload later. He still has a ways to go before we can really say that he’s walking, but this is an exciting development nonetheless. He remains pretty quick on all fours, so that somewhat reduces his incentive to get up and walk, but I’m sure he will be very happy to be able to chase his big brother and sister around more effectively.

Gallery: Julia’s Birthday & Back to Booksin.