Christmas 2020

For the first time in 15 years we did not go to Aunty Gail’s house for Christmas dinner. We had a quiet day at home with lots of phone calls with family. Dallas’s parents had originally planned to visit over Christmas, but at the last minute cancelled to stay safe. Makai still got tons of presents! From us, santa, family and friends. A lot of gifts were mailed and most made it on time. The postal service was soooo overwhelmed with packages because people were staying home and mailing their gifts.

This year makai had a supervisor watching him open all of his gifts!

Makai got the Nintendo starter set. And KC had to be in the middle of it while Dallas explained it to Makai. He also got a few expansion sets from Caroline. They were pretty fancy – iPad instructions, bluetooth scoring, etc.

Fun stocking stuffers – mac n cheese and a giant chocolate coin.

Opening presents from Grace and Niko.

Makai’s big gift from Santa was the Animal Crossings game. It was a piece of paper wrapped inside about 3 nested boxes. On the paper Santa wrote that the game was already loaded onto our Nintendo Switch. A long discussion on how Santa got into “daddy’s office” was had.

Playing the new game.

Makai got a chocolate frog in his stocking and Stephanie got him the 3rd Harry Potter book. We’re currently reading the 2nd.

We Facetimed with mom and dad, Jessica, Dick and Jill. Also Dallas’s parents and sister and brother.

We got an air fryer from Jill and Richard, which came in handy for reheating chicken tenders and french fries for lunch.

Makai got Chinese Checkers. Who do you think is winning? Makai or KC?

KC got some Packers tennis balls from her Uncle Richard.

Christmas snuggles.

Playing Makai’s new Super Mario themed Monopoly game.

More Christmas snuggles… and reading his new Bad Guys books.

For dinner Dallas made shrimp and grits, which were amazing. He did a lot of research into what kind of grits to get and how to prepare them. The shrimp was from our Sitka salmon share.

Makai thought it was so cool that he wore pajamas all day then took a shower and put more new pajamas on. These were from Grandpa and Grandma B.

Niko and Grace in Goodyear, AZ.

Starbucks Christmas Art

Stephanie made this art for me in 2015. It’s composed of Starbucks holiday gift cards and is one of my favorite Christmas decorations. Every year when I brought it out, it was in a little worse shape because the paper they were attached to was very thin. I took the piece apart and reapplied everything to poster board. I also added Stephanie’s name and date!

A Week in Wisconsin [6.21-6.27]

It was a loooooong and stressful spring, so the second school was over Makai and I headed to Wisconsin for a week. The plan was that I would then head back home and leave Makai there for an electronics detox and to spend some time with grandpa and grandma. On the way to Neenah we stopped in Oak Creek and visited with Uncle Richard, Jill, Jess and Stephanie outside in the yard for about 20 minutes. Makai was so excited to see grandpa and grandma that he went and sat in the car and waited for half of that time.

Grandma was so excited to see Makai. It had been a long time (since January).

Makai made Father’s Day cards for his dad, grandpa, Uncle Richard, Uncle Jose and Uncle Jordan.

On a hay bail on a walk.

Bath time!

Eating smoked meats (salmon, ribs, chicken) that Uncle Richard gave us to bring up.

Jessica made the carrot cake.

Makai continued his remote piano lessons with a keyboard that was borrowed from a neighbor.

I mailed some new books to Neenah so Makai would have something new to read.

Makai helped grandpa with a lot of projects in the garage like painting.

It was raining, but that doesn’t stop a boy from scootering!

Makai’s new best friend, Buddy!

Makai helped grandpa do a lot of gardening projects.

Working remote.

Grandpa took Makai to some parks while we were working.

When in Wisconsin….

Doing crafts and painting rocks with grandma.

Running up a big hill on a walk.

Splashpad fun.

Coronavirus Quarantine Week 4: April 5-11

Something fun and different to do when the weather was nice.

Update on the ant farm.

Makai told us that he “felt weird” and he didn’t know why and started bawling. It shook me up and I took some time off work. Dallas and I started to rotate taking off one day of work every other week to help Makai with school and to just pay attention to him.

Stacy works at Fortune Fish. She had to go into the office one day and we were able to place an order with her. With so many restaurants closed, we were able to get some really great seafood. We LOVED IT. Makai liked playing with the stone crab more than eating it!

We had ahi and prepared it 3 ways: Sashimi, poke and grilled.

Breaded and pan-fried halibut.

Wow. Check out the date on this.

We’d had this unassembled cabinet in our house for months and had run out excuses to not assemble it. It’s nice to unpack some boxes still hanging around from our move. My office space is coming along. It’s also nice not to sit next to a pile of boxes and random stuff all day long.

Makai took a virtual tour of Yosemite and was excited when he found a parking lot.

There are  zip tie locks on the soccer and tennis court doors. And signs on the playground and field house banning use. When I saw this tape on the entrances, I freaked out and thought the whole park was closed. I found out later they were doing construction in this part of the park.


FaceTiming with cousin Stephanie on her birthday.

Early morning walk around the block after nighttime showers was so refreshing.

Lunch break. We try to check in on Makai between as many meetings as we can. Some days are really hard. Some days we might get a game of soccer in.

EVERYTHING is all about “contactless” now. Lot’s of this going on at work for contactless pizza delivery and curbside pickup and paying for everything, including tips, online.

Where else do you see a billboard in polish right next to a billboard in Spanish?!?

Cross stitch update.

I can’t imagine what all the front-line workers are going through.

I’ve been having the best lunch dates!

Makai and Dallas watching TV.


I can’t believe how these retailers have already started to evolve and cash in on this.
Try to take a 5 minute break with a mindless game and you can’t even get away!!

Banana blueberry bread.

We put a bird feeder out earlier this week and got our first customer today.

Deep thoughts…

Dallas made hamburger steak for dinner.

Playing dino trax.
I’ve been taking short morning walks this week with Makai. I was afraid our park was closed but I think the tape was up because they’re doing construction in one area of the park.

I lost 2 in a row.

  Sitting on the back deck watching a hawk soar over the park.

Quarantine day 28 was not good, but we managed to have a fun time dying eggs for Easter. We also got Burt’s Place pizza delivered (SOOO delicious) and watched the new Trolls movie. EB made a late night delivery.

Dallas made homemade blueberry pancakes.

One of the many things that were cancelled. I got Dallas Ricky Gervais tickets for his birthday, I got my mom Cirque de Soleil tickets for her birthday, we had tickets to visit Next restaurant, Dallas had tickets to see Rage Against the Machine, our Spring Break vacation to see Jordan + family was cancelled. So many things we were looking forward to.