Merry Christmas

We are getting ready to go to Atlanta for Christmas.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all!

Christmas cookies

At time to decorate Christmas cookies.  The kids love it and have been looking forward to it.  Although the cookies are very yummy, it is a lot of work to make and decorate.  I use the package sugar cookie mix, but cutting them into the shapes require multiple steps to refrigerate and roll out the dough, and baking.  The icing for the cookies is very sticky and hard to handle, and sprinkles are normally everywhere by the time we are done.  We got about 3 dozen cookies, and now that they are done, I'm glad we did it.

Winter Show

Kids had their winter show last week at the Broomfield Auditorium.  It was very nicely done and choreographed by their music and dance teachers.  Audrey's class went first with the other pre-K and kindergarten classes.  Then Mason's 1st grade class performed with 2nd and 3rd grade classes.  Audrey went up again with her ballet class to dance to a Nutcracker song.  The older grades performed the next night.  

Locator

This is so true!  I'm the locator of everything lost in this house.  I know where most things are at all times, or where they should be, and losing things absolutely drive me crazy!

Freezing!!

It's been very cold (negative and single digit temperatures) this week!  We got about 3 inches of snow on Wednesday, but otherwise sunny and still freezing!  Note that these temperatures are in Fahrenheit not Celsius.

 

Lovely sibling moment

Mason reading his book to Audrey, a lovely sibling moment captured...

Nutcracker

We went to see the Nutcracker on Saturday afternoon.  I had gotten tickets a couple of months ago, hoping it would be a fun event for us on Thanksgiving weekend.  I was hoping the kids would be old enough to enjoy, specially with Audrey taking ballet and dancing some to a couple of the same songs.  

We got dressed up and took pictures for Christmas cards.  Audrey was a little tired during the second act, and Mason got bored in the last 20 minutes.  His comment to Bill was "I'm bored, they are doing the same moves at the same places."  

Overall, we enjoyed the performance.

Thankful

We stayed here for Thanksgiving this year since we will be going Atlanta for Christmas.  Bill's sister Heather is in Africa with Bill's mom and stepdad.  It was just us and my parents, who had just got back from Brazil.  

We started with some pre-Thanksgiving festivities with dinner on Tuesday night with our nephew Edward and his girlfriend Johana.  The kids had school on Monday and Tuesday, and there was a Thanksgiving lunch on Tuesday for the parents and kids.  The kids wanted to come home after seeing us at lunch and they ended up getting their wish.  On Wednesday we went to see Frozen after both Bill and I had early release days from work.  

We had been thinking about running the turkey trot 5K, but decided last minute on Wednesday to sign up.  I didn't mind the run, but was concerned about the cold.  We did great in the first 2 miles, under 10 minute miles, but the 3rd mile was hard for me.  We ended up with a time of 32:08 which is a little over a 10 minute mile for the 5K.  It was fun and we would do it again.

With the race done, I started the turkey and cooking the side dishes, while my parents decorated the gingerbread house with the kids, and Bill got our Christmas decorations and tree up.  We had a wonderful meal.  I'm surprise we didn't all fall asleep watching Arthur Christmas after eating all that food.

Looking forward to the rest of the weekend.

Difficult weeks

It has been a couple of difficult weeks following the Dave's health decline, one of Bill's biggest site launches of the year, I've been managing our team through work transitions to another division, and travel (cousin's wedding, visit Dave and Dave's service which I will attend next week).  All with kids schedules (activities, play dates, birthday parties, fund raisers, parent teacher conferences all in the last week) and without my parent's help who have been in California, Las Vegas and now are off to Brazil for 2 weeks.  I will give thanks when Thanksgiving arrives this year and we get a few days to relax with no travel and parents will be back.  Need a spa day!!

Driving to another field trip

Audrey's class had another field trip.  All the fields trips for her class seemed to end up in the Fall, her next one is in March.  We went to Children's Museum, a place the kids love and always ask to go, but I feel it is a big germ exchange fest, so try to avoid it.

On this trip, in the middle of the week, the amount of kids were manageable.  The kids seem to enjoy it.

Ironman Dave

Bill and I worked with Dave Harless at Rioport, and kept in touch through FB and our visits to the Bay Area.  Three years ago, Dave started training for the Ironman Louisville to raise awareness and donations for Leukemia.  His after had died from Leukemia a few years before.  Dave finished the triathlon and became an Ironman after swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles and running 26 miles in 16 hours and 15 minutes.  Truly amazing...

But his heroic journey truly started last year when he himself was diagnosed with leukemia!  Here is a summary in his own words: "One year ago, on September 8th 2012, I was diagnosed with Leukemia (A.L.L.). It was a complete shock. I began chemotherapy treatment immediately and was in remission by December 2012. On January 17th, I received a bone marrow transplant from my sister, Tatia, and began my new life with all new bone marrow ready to grow new immune system cells.  Everything was going according to plan, until April 24th, when, out of the blue, a vein ruptured from a deadly fungal infection (Mucor Fungus) which my immune system had not fought off. That infection took lots of blood, one of my kidneys, and most of my colon, and nearly took my life... but I survived it."

Dave was released from the hospital this Summer after nearing dying and flatlining twice during one of his surgeries.  He even went back to work.  But few weeks ago, he was back in the hospital with pancreatitis, had to go on dialysis, and had too much iron in his blood.  His doctors tried many drugs to help his liver and they are on the last one with 15% chance of working.  Friends and family have been asked to come visit sooner rather than later on Sunday as we got back from LA.

We decided that Bill should go to represent us.  I couldn't go because my parents are traveling and we had no one to watch the kids in such a short notice.  He went for a 24-hour trip leaving Wednesday abd and coming back today Thursday.  He went to visit Dave at Stanford hospital with other Rioporters Charles and Mark.  It was a quick 30-minute visit, but very worthwhile.  We won't know if the new drug will help him, but he is a fighter and a true inspiration.  We hope he proves the doctors wrong again, beats the odds and walks out of the hospital soon.  We pray for him, his wonderful and courageous wife Tina and their 10-month old son Christian. 

__________
Updated 11/14/13

Dave Harless passed away at 11:35 PM on 11/13/13.  He will be forever in our hearts.  He will never be forgotten.  Rest peacefully in Heaven Dave!  Until we meet again...

From Fall back to Summer

This year, we are enjoying a proper Fall in Colorado.  The last few years, Summer seemed to transition directly to Winter.  But not this year, we see all the beautiful Fall colors and temperatures in the 50s.

We went to my cousin Will's wedding in LA.  I had a double take when I saw it was 90 in Irvine!!  It was like flying back to Summer.  It was a beautiful wedding aboard the Queen Mary followed by a Chinese 10-course wedding banquet.

Although I hadn't seen Will in many many years, we have been in touch with his parents.  They have seen the kids at least once a year or more.  They wanted all of us to attend (my parents, us and kids), so we were happy to go.

I saw some family members I had not seen in more than a decade, and Bill got to meet tem for the first time.  There were other kids there, including my cousin Doris' 3 sons.  Evan (7) and Mason (6) got along great and hang out the whole reception.

It was Bill's first Chinese banquet.  The kid asked for cake at the 3rd course...  "Sorry, 7 more courses to go..."  It was a lot of food, and much of it wasted on us (5 kids, 2 adults that don't do seafood/shellfish).  I hope someone enjoyed the leftovers!

We also got to see Diana and John again (who were just here in Colorado 2 weeks back).  We stayed with them and ate some great food.

Pictures of the bride and groom are on my dad's nice camera.  Here is one of us dressed up and ready to go.

Halloween

Halloween seems more like a season than a simple holiday this year.  The kids had 2 school field trips to pumpkins patches, trunk and treat at school last Friday and will again have a parade and Halloween party on Thursday.  I'm helping coordinate Mason's class party and then we expect a busy night of trick-or-treaters that night (we have often over 100 kids come by).

We didn't go to a Fall festival this year because the weekends have been busy.  But the kids were happy to just decorate and carve the pumpkins they brought back from school.

I would like time to slow down a bit because after Halloween, things seem to aways move full steam ahead towards Thanksgiving and Christmas, and I am not ready for that yet!!  

Zucchini chocolate chip muffins

The kids school is having a bake sale to raise money for a new playground. This is my first bake sale and my contribution is 2 dozen zucchini chocolate chip muffins. They came out pretty yummy!

Rock'n'Roll

Last year, Cindy (Diana's friend from business school) came to Denver for the Rock'n'Roll half marathon.  She signed her husband David for the bike ride of the full marathon course.  John and Bill also did the bike ride and we all had a lot of fun!  So much fun that we signed up shortly after to repeat it in 2013.  This year, Cindy signed up for the half marathon, but felt unprepared (she had a baby just 3-4 months ago).  Instead she ran the mini marathon (3.7 miles) with me.  Everyone else (Diana, John, Bill, David and Cindy and David's 13-year old son Mattie). 

It was cold!!  But I had a lot of fun and it was great to have a running mate.  I have been running a few times a week, but not nothing more than a couple if miles, so this last week I kicked it up a knotch and ran 4 times for over 30 minutes.  Although I couldnt have done the half marathon and was happy to see the finish line, I fell I could definitely have ran longer (10-12K).  

Diana fell after crossing the finish line, trying to avoid people passing out the medals and stopping to fast.  But nothing is broke and we all had a good time.

We may do it again next year, but we are not jumping to sign up yet.  We selected Vancouver BC to be our next's years meeting spot.

Aside from the run, we had a great time eating at great spots (cholon, über sausage, root down, dae gee, etc).  

Field trip for the pumpkin patch

Audrey's preK and the younger preK explorers classes went to the pumpkin patch.  I volunteered and drove Audrey and two of her classmates.  The driving part was easy, carrying 3 pumpkins around was not as easy.  

The field was a little muddy, one kids asked: "why is there so much dirt here?".  I asked myself why I showered that morning.  But the kids had fun.  

It's too early for the first snow

We got our first snow of the season on Friday Oct 4th!!  Way too early and I'm completely unprepared.  The kids have jackets, but most of the hats, gloves and boots are too small.  The stores don't even have them yet.  

Considering our last snow was on May 1st, we only had 4 months without any snow.  The saving grace is that it warmed up over the weekend and no new snow expect in the next 10 days.  Hope by Halloween, we will be better prepared for colder weather.

Another play date with Matthew

It is good to be home and have a couple of "normal" weeks and weekends.  Bill and I have both been sick all week with a cold that won't let up.  Cough, cough, sneeze, sneeze...

On Saturday Mason had another play date with his friend Matthew.  We took them to Boondocks, which is overwhelming when 3 kids want to go in different directions and play different games.  Next time, we will definitely find Audrey a play date too.

More Homework

I though my days of homework were over, but I was wrong!  I have all new sets of homework from Audrey and Mason.  

Mason does his own homework (which is about 20 minutes a day), but it requires a lot of "reminding" from us (which ends up taking an hour) and we are the ones who track his homework deadlines.  

Audrey has less homework, and most of her homework is really our homework.  We have to "write" her show&writes, create her star student posters or at least come up with all the pictures she will glue on to it, do/help with the homelink worksheets and math IXL online practices, and take pictures, print them and write in the journal to document her week with Coco the classroom monkey!  

On top of it all, there is a lot to keep up with on their schedules, between when to send dance, swim gear, pack lunches/snacks, out of uniform days, field trips, planning  classroom parties and events...  Don't they know we work?  I am looking forward to a break! 

SF weekend

For the second weekend in a row Bill and I went out of town without the kids.  This time off to SF to celebrate my cousin Diana's 40th birthday.  It was a surprise weekend planned by her husband John.

After landing in SF, I saw that Diana had checked in on FB at a few places in SF.  I texted her and said I wished I was in SF, told her to eat some good food for me while there, etc.  Needless to say she was very surprised when we met her just an hour later.  

Each event, high tea, sailing and dinner brought more surprises and friends she didn't expect to see.  Sailing the SF bay was my and Bill's gift to her.  After living in the Bay Area we had done almost everything, but sailing was one thing we had not done.  We had an amazing experience aboard a private sailboat with a very experienced captain, who took us beyond the golden gate and back.

We had a great short weekend hanging out with Diana and John, staying and catching up with Yvette, and seeing other friends.  I wish we had a whole week to catch up with all our friends in the Bay Area (from Cal, from Rioport and FICO days, etc).  

We went to the last Giants home game of the season, which happened to be at the same time as the Broncos game.  Bill was able to stream the whole game on his phone using the high speed wifi at the AT&T park.  It was funny watching him cheering at all the wrong moments.  The kids in front of us, clearly big Giants fans were not amused when Bill ask (during a commercial in the football game) "What is the score?  Where is the scoreboard?"

Kids at home also had a great time with Gong gong and Bu bu, clearly getting spoiled, eating out at places of their choosing and going to a party where they met 7 other kids around their age.  

Julia and Glenn's wedding

One of my oldest friends got married this past weekend.  Julia and I have known each other since 6th grade and I remember the day she started at our school.  She lived a blocked from my building, so we often walked together to and back from school.  Through the years we kept in touch, meeting every few years in various cities around the world (SF and LA shortly after college, Chicago during her MBA, many trips to NYC, CO for my wedding, and London while we both had business trips there).

After finishing college in Brazil, she lived in Chicago, NYC, Hong Kong, London and has settled back in NYC in the past few years.  That is where she met Glenn, originally from Virginia, and someone who has also travelled the world.  I'm so happy they have found each other.

Bill and I had a great weekend in Richmond, and got to reconnect with Vivian and Gege both from old days in Brazil.  Viv moved to Toronto at the same time I moved to the States and we have kept in touch, she was with Julia and me on my of these trips we took together and I've seen her and Jon in Toronto a couple of times.  But Gege I hadn't not seen in over 20 years, and only been connected through FB for the past couple of years.  After studying and working in Europe and the States, Gege lives in Brazil and made the journey specially for the wedding.  We also met Gege's husband Andre, who we instantly liked.

Gege and I, along with Julia's sister in law were the bridesmaids.  Julia's sister would have been the matron of honor, but she had just had a baby, making the long trip from Brazil not possible.  But with technology, I was able to share pictures and videos throughout the day, and her cousin Skyped the whole ceremony.

What a fun wedding and weekend!  I wish some other friends, like Iris and Lin could have been with us, and hope to have future occasions for another reunion.

Congratulations Mr. & Mrs. McClanan!

Crazy weather

Colorado is known for some extreme and quick changes in weather, but the past few days have been beyond crazy.  After a week of very hot 90+ days, I came back from  a quick trip to SF to rain on Wednesday.  I made it home on time and safely and Bill tells me it had been raining since I left Tuesday morning.  And the rain didn't stop, totaling more than 10 inches by Thursday night (equivalent of a year's worth of rain in 2 days) with more that came down on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  As I write, it is still raining outside!

We are lucky to work from home, live on top of a hill, so Thursday started as a pretty normal day for us.  We watched the news and heard stories from friends in Boulder and Longmont, where creeks were starting to overflow and streets to flood.  Then I found out that our friend Emma from DC who comes to CO for work from time to time was in Longmont.  Her longtime boyfriend, Gaston, is a good friend of mine from college.  And he was flying in that night to spend the weekend.  

As road closures and news stories got scarier, I called Emma to find out where she was.  Gaston's flight was delayed due to unrelated issues at the Baltimore airport.  Emma, now in Boulder, tried to pack up and venture out to our place.  We ended up on the phone with her as she braved the flooded streets with he Ford Fiesta rental (small and low to the ground).  After 30 minutes of turning around due to flooded streets, driving in heavy rain and running over medians she couldn't see, she finally turned back to the hotel.  She was stuck in Boulder.  

Gaston's flight was now delayed until 11 pm, and we directed him to come to our house and there was no way he could reach Boulder.  We tried to see if we could go get Emma with our 4runner, but after researching the street closures and hearing the warning not to go near the flooded areas, we decided to stay put.  Her hotel was near Boulder creek, the reason getting there was impossible, but she was on the 3rd floor.  

Gaston's flight ended up getting in after 1 AM and he got to out place after 2 AM.  We heard him get in and go downstairs.  We picked up Emma Friday morning, after dropping off the kids (our school had normal operations on Friday).  There was one road open into Boulder, as the highway and most main roads were still close.  Even on that road, we could see how close the water in the creek was from rushing in and debris on the streets from the previous night's flooding.  It was a scary drive, but in daylight and with good clearance we made it.

We spend the rest of the weekend at our place, and ventured out to Denver downtown (mainly unaffected).  Our neighborhood was also unaffected, thank goodness.  We even had a Sunday afternoon party to watch the Manning bowl (Broncos and Giants football game), first party in our theater with a few friends.  One couple couldn't make it because the main interstate I-25 near them was closed.  The Forsbergs came from Longmont, their first venture out since the storm started.  They were stranded in Longmont with no roads to get out Thursday and Friday.  Their house was also unaffected, although there was massive flooding blocks from their house.

So far 6 people are dead, hundreds unaccounted for, streets and bridges washed away, lots of homes destroyed in mudslides, thousands of homes flooded, thousands evacuated in many cities in the foothills and plains.  It will take a while to recover from this one.  We are lucky!

There are many more shocking pictures of the storm in the news.  This one is not as dramatic, but taken on 120th and federal (we are on 112th and federal) on our way back from brunch on Sunday.  This place has a 6-8 feet creek that is often dry.

Audrey's Field Trip

Audrey's Pre-K class had a field trip to the Jefferson Country airport not too far from us and the school.  Because kids in grades below Kindergarten cannot ride in school buses, they had many parents volunteer to drive the kids.  I took Audrey and her friend Nate.  It was a tour of the facilities followed by lunch on the lawn where the kids watched the small planes land and take off.  Everyone had a great time.