Last Saturday, the boys from across the street invited us to a birthday party for a friend of theirs. The party was being held at their place, and the kids have been good company for Neil and Kelly. I went over with them since it was a pool party, and while Kelly loves being in [...]
On Tuesday evenings, a Buddhist couple who live not far from my home host a Buddhist “toso” meeting so we local Buddhists can get our evening chant on together. A few weeks ago, Neil was away at science camp and Peter was working late, so Kelly and I stayed on after the chanting was over. [...]
On Saturday, we went to Morgan Hill. The occasion was a birthday party for their four-year-old daughter, but more than that, it was an excuse to invite friends (parents as well as children) to hang out and have fun together. The “let ‘em just play” approach works just great, BTW: the children have more fun [...]
Last evening we went to a luau at Loretta’s place to celebrate her birthday. We felt like quite the popular family, because Neil had one of his own friends having a sleepover birthday celebration himself, so technically the Bickfords had 2 parties to attend that night.
It was quite a rainy night, so the outdoor luau [...]
This year, I thought I’d reached the heights of Christmas crafting by making our own Christmas crackers. For most of my life, I’d been intrigued by this peculiar British Christmas delight, and I’d read many a story in which children pulled their crackers on Christmas day. But I’d never seen one, so when Michael’s (the [...]
Although we’re avid The Next Great American Band fans, for the last month we haven’t really had a chance to put our votes in. Despite my banal lifestyle, we’ve always had something better to do on Friday night, whether that was rocking out ourselves with Rock Band, or having an actual party to go to.
For [...]
It really doesn’t seem all that long ago that I was grumpily waddling around in pregnancy. But yesterday, we celebrated 4 years of Kellyhood.
All of Neil’s birthdays have been a big occasion. I think I celebrated his fourth birthday with a room full of park-met toddlers following an elaborately planned home party that involved following [...]
On Saturday night, we went to Pizza Chicago downtown for Shiaw-Ling’s birthday party. This year, her theme was the 80s and 90s, and she encouraged her guests to come dressed for the occassion. I did my best to reproduce my wardrobe, makeup and hair from 1982, the year Shiaw-Ling was born:
Yes, those are actually leg [...]
I’ve never done trick or treating at the mall, and I never intended to. But yesterday, a fluke of circumstance had Neil and Kelly among a horde of costumed kiddies popping into places like Target and Bath & Body Works for treats.
The circumstances that put us in this unexpected place was the Halloween party at [...]
After our fun weekend, it was time to get on with the purpose for which we’d come down to LA. We checked in to the luxurious Sheraton Universal, where the auditions were to be held, and after dinner and his algebra test, Neil finished working on his drumming robot, which was what he’d brought for [...]
