Category Archives: Julia

Solid Food and Grandparents in Spring

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This album takes us all the way back to the spring of 2014, when William was a squawky infant; Joe was a carefree second grader; and Julia, our big kid, was all of nine years old.

The photos here cover a lot of ground, including a visit from Grandma and Grandpa Wong, baseball and basketball games for Joe, an overnight trip to the California Academy of Sciences, Julia oozing personality, and a few work-related pictures to top things off.

William was in a developmental phase in which he was getting used to eating solid food and rolling over, but he wasn’t yet crawling or saying even simple words. Those limitations didn’t stop his effervescent personality from shining through, though: even at this age, he was a joyful kid who loved interacting with other people, and that’s plainly evident in these images.

Joe had a busy March: basketball season was wrapping up, and his lone season of Little League at the Farm level was just getting started. A highlight of the month was an overnight stay at the California Academy of Sciences with his Adventure Guides circle, the Grizzlies. We had the run of the museum for the evening and slept in the darkened aquarium section, with the quiet murmur of the water pumps to lull us to sleep.

The gallery also contains a smattering of work-related photos. In March 2014, Airtime had just completed the acquisition of vLine, the startup I’d joined the previous July. To foster a greater sense of cohesion between the original Airtime team, which was based in New York City, and the vLine folks from California, the company set up an all-hands offsite in Miami. We stayed in a very nice hotel and worked through strategy discussions and team-building activities. I was especially taken by the outdoor bathtub on my patio, though I never got a chance to use it.

There are also a few pictures of our first post-acquisition office, which we rented for a few months while our more permanent home was being renovated. It was basically a long walk-in closet with doors on both ends and no exterior windows. We only spent a few months there but it was a startup experience to remember.

Gallery: Solid Food and Grandparents in Spring

Easter 2014

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This week, we’re going nearly eight years into the past to bring you a set of previously un-published photos from Easter 2014. As old as these images are—and bearing in mind that William was barely six months old at the time—their personalities shine through to an impressive degree. In particular, William’s expression of sheer joy at the experience of playing with empty plastic Easter eggs is a favorite of mine.

In more timely news, Joe and Julia are both preparing for the next school year, even though this one is only halfway complete. Joe has signed up for no fewer than five AP classes in his junior year, while Julia is still waiting to hear back from some of the colleges she applied to. She remains very happy that she was accepted by Santa Clara University, as the idea of staying close to home—and Felix—is strongly appealing to her, but it’s always nice to have choices.

For his part, William is very excited to have a very small speaking role in his school’s production of Peter Pan Jr.. He had actually planned to try out for a bigger part, but he somehow didn’t hear when the second graders were called in to audition. He was upset at the time—tears were shed—but he’s happy to have a role in the play.

Baseball season has started up again, and William was glad to learn that he’s on the same team as a bunch of kids he knows from school. It will be hard to top the experience he had last spring, but he’s having a great time so far. My only gripe is that we had a practice at 9:00 this morning, the first day of a long weekend. William didn’t have any trouble getting up for it, but I certainly did. I may have taken a nap when we got home.

Gallery: Easter 2014

Late 2021 Odds and Ends

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As we were going through photos for the fall post, I realized that we’d missed a few gems from the November/December timeframe. Because my personal quirks make it impossible for me to tolerate leaving a gap like that unfilled, we’ve put together a collection of odds and ends covering the second half of November and the first half of December.

As it turns out, quite a bit happened during that time. In November, Julie and Julia flew down to Los Angeles to visit colleges (and do a bit of sightseeing while they were there), including Scripps and Occidental, and William finally got his second dose of the COVID vaccine.

In December, Julia played the role of Lloyd in the UPA production of Noises Off. As it turns out, she didn’t get a role in the spring play, so this was her high school drama swan song. I’m told that opening night was a little bit bumpy—apparently there was quite a bit of improvisation—but by the time I saw it Saturday morning, things had settled down quite a bit, and it was a delight to see her on stage.

The next week, Joe performed in the winter band concert. Because of the pandemic, the performance was held outdoors in the early evening. As you can see from the photos, this made for a somewhat chilly experience for the audience, particularly as the evening wore on. Of course, Joe, flaunting his teenage metabolism, sat on stage in short sleeves, seemingly unaffected. He’s happy and proud that he’s been getting a chance to play the first chair parts of during these shows; it’s a testament to the hard work he’s put in during practice and his weekly lessons.

Finally, Joe passed the written driver’s test and picked up his learner’s permit. He is strongly motivated by his goal of being the first among his group of friends to get a license. Unfortunately, actual driving lessons have been on hold, first because of the holidays and later because of the Omicron surge, which saw case rates jump more than tenfold here in the Bay Area. He’s eager to get started again once things settle down. Our numbers seem to be falling just as quickly as they rose last month, so we’re looking forward to returning to a more relaxed posture in a week or two.

Gallery: Late 2021 Odds and Ends

Soccer, Halloween, and Fall Fun

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We had a busy fall in 2021: the school year was in full swing; William played on a soccer team for the first time; Grandma and Grandpa Wong came to visit; and, on a bittersweet note, Julia had the once-in-a-lifetime pleasure of applying to colleges. We’ve collected and posted some pictures that capture some of these experiences.

William had played soccer before, of course: starting in preschool, he took classes from Kidz Love Soccer and really enjoyed them. The teacher, Coach Scott, worked hard to make learning basic soccer skills positive and fun.

Until this year, however, he had never played in an actual soccer league, and now that we were settled back in at home, it seemed like as good a time as any to give it a try. He was fortunate to end up on a team with a number of his friends from school, baseball, and other activities, including his best buddy, Kai. Most of the other kids on the team had played before and were a little more comfortable than William with competitive games, but he adapted well. He tried his hardest, kept a positive attitude, and showed clear improvement as the season progressed. His coach adhered to the stereotypical I-yell-because-I-care philosophy, and I was initially worried about how William would respond to that style of teaching, but it didn’t seem to faze him.

In mid-October, Grandma and Grandpa Wong paid us a much-anticipated visit. If memory serves, this was the first time we saw them in person since the middle of 2019, thanks to the pandemic and other factors. They stopped by en route to their home in Texas, after first visiting Bill and Leah in Colorado Springs. Of course, San José isn’t exactly on the way to Georgetown, so we were very happy they took the extra time to stop in; we only wish they could have stayed longer.

Because Will has always been a big fan of dressing up in costumes, you might guess that Halloween is one of his favorite holidays, and you’d be right. This year, he celebrated with no fewer than three costumes: he wore his astronaut costume to school on Friday, and he switched to his Minecraft costume for late afternoon trick-or-treating on Sunday. Later in the evening, as it started to get dark, he switched to a light-up stick figure costume that garnered multiple compliments from neighbors as we went from house to house.

Julie and I split trick-or-treating duty—he was very diligent, collecting more candy than Julia or Joe ever did—and Joe spent the evening with his friend Lucas. Even they, at the advanced age of fifteen, got into the spirit of the holiday and did a spot of trick-or-treating, making sure to visit one of the nearby houses that was known to hand out full-size candy bars. As I write, at the end of January, we’re still working our way slowly through the hoard of candy they accumulated.

This fall finally brought something we’d been waiting for through most of the year: the opportunity for William to get the COVID-19 vaccine. He’s been extremely careful and conscientious throughout the pandemic, even switching to less comfortable (but more effective) KF-94 masks as the Omicron variant became dominant, without raising a fuss. Early on, we had to clarify to him that he didn’t have to wear his mask in the car as we drove from place to place: he was worried that the virus could get in from the outside and infect him.

In that context, he saw first Julie and Julia, followed by Joe and me, get our shots and feel the powerful sense of relief that came with knowing we were largely protected against severe illness. At the same time, we had to explain to him that doctors and scientists were taking the time to be extra careful to be sure that the vaccine was safe and effective in young, growing bodies.

When the Pfizer vaccine was finally approved for kids in his age range, he and Julie were almost the first in line to get a dose. The county converted a section of the vaccination site at the fairgrounds to make it more kid-friendly, complete with toys and a scavenger hunt, and William was pleased as punch to finally be vaccinated. The ice cream treat he got after the fact probably didn’t hurt, either.

Gallery: Soccer, Halloween, and Fall Fun

Christmas 2021

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We just wrapped up our trip to Nebraska for Christmas 2021, and it was something of a welcome return to normal holiday routine after two years of relative isolation. In fact, it was my first time going anywhere since February of 2020, which made the whole experience a bit jarring: I’d forgotten many of the petty indignities of air travel.

There was a flurry of activity before we left, which made the week we spent in Nebraska feel all the more relaxing. We put up Christmas decorations in and on the house for the first time since the remodel, including icicles on the second-floor eaves. We weren’t quite sure how to accomplish that, so we paid a team of folks to take care of it, and they made short work of the project. On the whole, they did a pretty good job—the lights look great—but they did leave the exposed end of our triple-trap extension cord in a place where it could slide into the gutter in the event of rain, which naturally, it did a few days later. After we realized the lights weren’t working, Julie and I spent the better part of an hour trying to figure out how to reset the GFCI for the circuit, which happened to be inside the garage, not obviously connected to the outlet the lights were plugged into.

We also added a light-up pig to our front yard ensemble—something that Julie has long desired—and we put electric candles (gifts from Grandma and Grandpa Wong) in the windows of Joe’s bedroom and the play room. When everything is turned on, it seems almost as bright as day in front of the house, but our setup pales in comparison to some of the neighbors’. We noticed this at Halloween, as well: it seems like many people have channeled pent-up energy from being stuck at home into creating ever more fantastic holiday displays.

We set up our Christmas tree at home around mid-month so that we’d have at least a little time to enjoy it before we left town. We debated whether to put it in the family room or the living room and ultimately opted for the latter, right in front of the picture window facing the street. That way, it’s visible from outside when we have the drapes open, and it feels a little more special because it’s in a room we don’t use that often otherwise.

Due to quirks in the San Jose Unified and UPA academic calendars, William’s holiday break started almost a full week before Julia and Joe’s: their semester didn’t end until December 22, while William was released on December 17. With that in mind, Julie made arrangements to fly to Nebraska with William ahead of us, giving the two of them time to bake cookies and otherwise prepare for Christmas while the big kids wrapped up their final exams.

Julie and William left the Sunday before Christmas, leaving the rest of us to fend for ourselves for a few days. Things went relatively smoothly, other than the fact that by mid-day Monday I was experiencing some mild sinus congestion and other low grade cold symptoms. After not having been sick—not even a sniffle—for twenty-two months, my mind went to the worst case scenario: what if we were stuck at home for Christmas while Julie and William were in Nebraska? Fortunately, Julie had picked up some rapid antigen tests for Covid-19 a few weeks earlier, and I came up negative both Monday evening and Wednesday night. A PCR test on Tuesday confirmed the negative result Thursday morning, so I felt OK with flying later that day.

Of course, feeling OK with flying didn’t make the process any less unpleasant than it always is. And flying in the middle of a pandemic made it that much worse. We saw the full spectrum of people’s inability to follow simple directions during our trip: people who “forgot” to put on their masks when they entered the airport; people walking around with their noses hanging out, uncaring or oblivious; people who took off their masks to talk loudly on the phone; and much, much more.

At the departure gate in San José, an older couple sat down a couple seats away from us. The woman was clearly unwell: she was bleary-eyed and sniffly, and looked as though she would have much rather have been in bed. That would have been fine—I wasn’t feeling great, either—but as she started a coughing fit, she pulled off her mask. We just got up and moved at that point; I have no idea what she was sick with, but there didn’t seem to hang around nearby.

Beyond those annoyances, things went smoothly. We were very fortunate that our flights weren’t affected by the wave of cancellations that swept through the industry over the holidays, and we made it to Omaha with no complications more serious than a bit of moderate turbulence heading into and out of Salt Lake City.

Julie picked us up at the airport in Omaha, and it was a nice change of pace to arrive during daylight hours rather than near midnight, as we have in the past. We made a quick stop at a Runza drive-though for dinner and headed up to Norfolk.

The kids were excited to see Grandma Flack and their uncles Bill and Andrew, and it was comforting to participate in Julie’s family traditions. We had roast beef on Christmas Eve and decorated the tree after dinner. On Christmas morning, we opened presents at 8:00 sharp—Julia and Joe are old enough that they probably would have been happy to sleep in, but William was having none of that—and, borrowing a tradition from Grandma and Grandpa Wong, had cinnamon rolls for breakfast. That night, we roasted a turkey that Julie had started brining the day before, and there were plenty of leftovers for soup and turkey sandwiches in the days that followed.

The rest of the visit was even more laid back and relaxing than usual: because of concerns about Covid, we didn’t go out much except for near-daily curbside pickup runs at the grocery store. This gave Julia and Joe some time to slow down and relax after finals, while William was happy just to have so many people around to entertain him. Julia made vast quantities of bacon for breakfast nearly every day, and all three kids ate prodigious amounts of Spaghetti-O’s at lunch throughout our visit.

Our one big outing was to visit Aunt Julie at her nursing home in Madison. To accommodate families who want to visit residents as a group, the facility allows you to book the dining room in the assisted living wing so you can enjoy a private family meal. You can choose between whatever happens to be on the menu that evening or bring your own food, which really didn’t feel like much of a choice at all. Julie and Grandma Flack ordered a hot pulled pork meal, throwing in some brownies as a treat, from the HyVee in Norfolk, and made plans to pick it up on our way to the nursing home.

Unfortunately, things went sideways from there. When we pulled into the marked pickup spot at HyVee and called the number posted on the adjacent sign, we were sent straight to voice mail. We tried a few more times over the next few minutes and couldn’t get through to a person; worse, we discovered the the voice mailbox was full, so we couldn’t leave a message even if we wanted to.

Frustrated, Julie called the main number for the grocery store and spoke to a very nice woman who told us she would put us through the kitchen. We then sat and listened to grocery store sounds for what seemed like an eternity before Julie gave up and called the main line again. This time, the nice woman told us she would walk over to the kitchen to make sure we got through and, to her credit, she did just that. Julie chatted briefly with someone on the other end who assured us that our order would be out promptly.

“Promptly” means different things to different people, but finally, after what felt like a pretty long wait, someone appeared at the car window with brownies and… nothing else. Julie pointed out that this wasn’t right—she had the original order confirmation on her phone—and the person disappeared back into the store leaving us to wait still longer. Finally, the store employee reappeared accompanied by someone from the kitchen who explained their systems didn’t show anything in our order except brownies; the rest of our items seemed to have vanished into the ether.

Out of patience and time, as we’d spent more than twenty minutes sitting in the parking lot, and Grandma Flack and Uncle Bill had already arrived at the nursing home, we took the brownies and audibled: instead of pulled pork, we would have delicious Arby’s roast beef sandwiches for dinner. We zipped off to the drive-through, put in an order for a pile of sandwiches and various types of fries, and finally started on our way to Madison. Luckily for us, they couldn’t start dinner without us because we had all the food.

All the drama aside, we had a very pleasant visit with Aunt Julie; because we had the dining room to ourselves, we could relax and move around without feeling rushed or like we were in the way. Aunt Julie and Julia really hit it off, as Julia regaled her with stories of cute things Felix has done over the last couple years, illustrated by pictures from her phone. Our one major regret is that, after all the excitement, I forgot to take pictures while we were there.

Our return trip on December 30 was blissfully uneventful. Getting home before the start of the new year left us with plenty of time to wind down and re-acclimate to life at home before William’s return to school on January 4 (the older kids, having finished later in December, don’t start again until January 10—this left us plenty of time for Julia to work on college applications). It also allowed us to enjoy one final holiday tradition: Big Fat Pancakes for dinner on New Year’s Day.

Gallery: Christmas 2021

Fall 2020

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Now that we’re finished posting pictures from our year-long remodel project, we can return to our slow-motion processing of regular old family snapshots. In that vein, here’s a large-ish collection of photos from the fall of last year.

In this timeframe, we’d been cooped up due to the COVID-19 pandemic1 for more than six months. And, because we had moved out of our house and into the rental, we were feeling a bit restless and untethered. With that in mind, we set out to to try some new activities, just to keep busy. We went on a few hikes, including a pleasant walk on the Los Gatos Creek Trail on Thanksgiving; we went for a scenic train ride on a narrow-gauge rail line in Felton; and Julie, William, and I took a road trip up to Alameda to visit a drive-through Dinosaur Adventure exhibit.

The trip to Felton was a hoot—and a little poignant—because it took us back to the railway where we took Julia for a Day Out with Thomas all the way back in 2007. It’s hard to fathom how much time has passed since then; sometimes, it feels like it was just a few weeks ago. To commemorate the occasion, we tried to take a comparion shot, but toddler Julia was a bit more interested in having her picture taken than the teenage version.

The set also includes a number of photos that highlight our year of distance learning. There are a few shots of William in class in Willville—he was often cold in the morning, so he loved to wear the Grandma Wong’s handmade sweaters—and a fun series of pictures of Felix waiting somewhat impatiently outside Julia’s door while she took an exam.

Finally, the album also covers Julia’s and William’s birthdays. Because kids weren’t really able to see their friends socially at the time, the trendy thing to do was rent yard signs to make their special days feel more festive. The installers do their work under cover of darkness the night before—you have to make sure to water the lawn so that the ground is soft enough to allow the signs to be staked down—and haul them away the next evening. You can even customize the iconography in the displays to match the recipient’s interests. We had done this for Joe over the summer, so Will (naturally) and Julia (perhaps a bit surprisingly) were both looking forward seeing to their signs. It gave them something new and different to anticipate amidst the blur of days blending together at home.

Between the pandemic and the move, it was a strange and occasionally surreal time for us all. The one clear upside was that I got to see a lot more of everyone, both after work, when we sat down for dinner together, and throughout the day: I got to watch William at the start of school every morning as I ate breakfast and chat with Joe and Julia when they took breaks for lunch. It’s better for everyone now that they’re back in school in-person, but I do miss having them around.

Gallery: Fall 2020

  1. Still going strong, with more than five million deaths worldwide and more than 750,000 here in the U.S.↩

School Pictures 2021

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Just as school is back to a more normal routine this year, school pictures are more or less back on a normal schedule. This means we have them now, rather than at the end of the year, and that we have proper, posed portraits for all three kids instead of the snapshots we cobbled together at home last spring that left me thinking about dropping a not insignificant amount of money on light boxes.

William and Joe’s pictures are more or less your bog-standard school photos, and they did a pretty decent job of capturing each kid’s personality.

William - Second Grade

Joseph - Tenth Grade

William’s picture doesn’t convey the unbridled glee you can see in some of his earlier portraits, but you can still pick up on his carefree and slightly silly bearing. Joe seems a little more self-conscious and guarded in his picture, but that’s who he is in real life, too.

Because Julia’s a senior, we took her in for a longer photo shoot way back in July; we’ve only now gotten around to picking the shots that we liked best from the proofs the photographer sent us a few months ago.

Julia - Twelfth Grade

Julia - Cap and Gown

Julia - Cap, Gown, and Sign

The longer session allowed the photographer to work with Julia to create shots that are a joyful and fun celebration of her senior year. But they also brought a startling (to me) realization: these are the last school pictures she will ever take. It seems like only yesterday that we posted her kindergarten picture. I expect this is just one of many “lasts” we’ll face over the next few months, along with a few firsts.

For example: she submitted her very first college application yesterday afternoon, after a great deal of consternation and worry. With one under her belt, our hope is that she’ll find the remaining applications comparatively less intimidating and easier to face.

The photos embedded in this post are small, low-resolution copies of the kids’ portraits. You can find the full-size pictures in the dedicated galleries.

Galleries: Julia, Joseph, William

Back to School 2021

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After a summer that felt all too brief, August saw all three kids return to school in person at the same time for the first time in seventeen months. Julia and Joe started surprisingly early, on August 9 this year, with Julia attending a sunrise breakfast for seniors while Joe got an extra couple hours to sleep in. After the breakfast, Julia returned home with her friend Blain to collect her brother, and the three of them were off to start the year.

Julia and Joe on the First Day of School

William started more than a week later, on August 18. He felt a little trepidation at first—he hasn’t had that many first days of school, after all—but he’s much more at ease now that he’s back into the swing of things. It helps that a number of his friends from previous years are in his class, and as an added bonus, the little boy who moved in across the street is as well. Compared to Julia and Joe at the same age, he has a veritable bonanza of kids in the neighborhood to play with.

William on His First Day of School

All three kids have had busy starts to the year. Joe is focused on staying organized, as he’s taking two AP classes, including AP World History, which is infamous for generating a large amount of work. Julia is also taking a number of AP classes, though she’s debating whether she wants to stick with one of them, and she’s won a part in the fall play. She’s faced with balancing those requirements with preparing for the SAT and applying to colleges.

William’s schedule is comparatively simple, though he’s started on a new soccer team and continues to take virtual piano lessons.

There are a few more pictures in the photo gallery, including a couple from the inside of William’s classroom, which we’ve never seen in person due to COVID-19 restrictions. The schools are working hard to keep the kids safe, especially at Booksin, where the student population is largely unvaccinated. Back-to-school night was virtual for all all three kids, with all the technical challenges that entails: I think we missed four out of fourteen of the older kids’ class sessions due to problems with Zoom. But the overall sense I have is that the teachers and administrators are committed to making the school year as engaging and enriching as possible under the circumstances.

Gallery: Back to School 2021

School Pictures 2020-2021

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Among the least important effects of the pandemic of the school year was the dislodging of school picture day from its traditional slot on the fall calendar. William’s school, Booksin Elementary, actually gave up on it entirely: they sent a message out to parents asking them to take pictures of their kids for the yearbook, perhaps fearing that they wouldn’t be able to get them on campus for professional portraits. Julia and Joe’s school, University Preparatory Academy, has, for better or for worse, more freedom to make (and change) decisions on the fly, and they decided to simply delay picture day indefinitely in the hope that they could pull something together in the spring, and their bet paid off. Hence, Julia and Joe have professionally lit and composted portraits this year, and William… does not.

In truth, I was happy and excited about the opportunity to take William’s picture. I’m always grateful for an excuse to pull out my camera and try something a little different, even if the camera itself is hardly top of the line: there are high school graduates younger than my camera. Of course, you can tell at a glance that William’s portrait was taken by an amateur: there are shadows on his face that no professional photographer would accept; the backdrop is overly distracting; and it took an ungodly number of shots to for me to be confident that the focus was correct. That said, I thought it turned out reasonably well for a first effort, and was making mental plans to improve and streamline the process for Julia and Joe’s pictures.

First Grade

Alas, it was not meant to be. When UPA announced their plans to reopen this spring, they also announced their plans for school pictures, which included separate days for kids in each of the cohorts that were to split time on campus, as well as distinct days for kids, like Julia, in cohort C, who had opted to stay home full-time. In truth, I was a little disappointed, even if it did save me from buying a couple hundred dollars’ worth of lights, and the results were better than I could have produced even given an unlimited budget.

Eleventh Grade

Ninth Grade

The versions embedded in this post are small, low-resolution copies of the kids’ portraits. To view and download the full size versions, you can check their dedicated galleries.

Galleries: Julia, Joseph, William