Day 165

Today was the first of several official Back to School Days. Because of the staggered start (twins go tomorrow, AJ goes on Wednesday). Today it was Matteo, Lexi, and Fina - the first two in person and Fina, well, see the photo below. She's both recovering from surgery and doing 100% online. Jamie and Lynn whipped up some steaks with a mushroom cream sauce and leeks au gratin for dinner from one of their favorite and well-worn French cookbooks by Paul Brocuse. Their was a notation on the leeks page that we first used it in 1983 for a dinner with Jamie's sisters and her hubby. This is actually our second copy of the book, the first one was literally worn out. We transferred the notes in the old one to this new one. Tonight's movie: Into the Forest (an apocalypse movie with no zombies or the like, just a 3-person family trying to survive in their nice home in the woods). Side note: Jamie's Starbucks card developed issues, auto-pay just stopped working and neither phone nor email contact provided a fix. Oh well, he said, "I wasn't real thrilled with supporting them over local anyway." Sayonara.

He got a huge kick out of a balloon tied to his brace.

COVID Cuts for Jamie and the twins.

AJ gets some peach cobbler, and ice cream!

Day 164

We were a little spread out for church today. Fina is still resting at home from her surgery, and Nana is still doing her concussion therapy. Matteo stayed home to get some placement tests done before his first day of school tomorrow. Jamie got a day off from the safety team so he played utility, making runs for this or that, helping Matteo (not much, actually, but he was available), etc. After church, Matt got a hankerin' for the Dog House, so off we went. Then we visited Bass Pro for some shoes for Matteo. And maybe the best part of the day, Nana and Matteo made peach cobbler from the Kiwanis peaches we picked up yesterday (and Jamie got ice cream). Tonight's movie: The Sleepover. Cute.

Day 163

We picked up our annual Kiwanis peaches. Cobbler or pie is on the way! They had quite the assembly line going. AJ's baseball team played for the championship today. They ended up 2nd place for the season. They had a great coach who knew how to coach kids, and win sometimes. AJ had a great game today. He nailed the first pitch on his first time up, but it went straight to the pitcher. He smacked it again his second/last time up and this time got a base hit. He made it around to third, but alas, the game ended with him on third. A few more game pics are here. Tracy got Sasquatch Cookies to celebrate the game. Pretty warm and smoky day today (from the forest fires). Fina continues to recover and Lexi continues removing rings from her Back-to-School Advent Chain. Hot dogs and grilled onions for dinner (plus a little linguica if you wanted). Tonight's movie: The Art of War.

Kiwanis peaches pickup.

Day 162

Lots of surgery recovery; and for more than just Fina. And oh my goodness, for the love of blueberries. Matteo went to orientation in person, first time at his new school, Evangelical Christian Academy. He also got his passport photo done today. Lynn's cat scan was clean (from her fall/concussion a few days ago), but she still gets to go to concussion therapy, therapy for the brain, oh boy. Simple and very good chicken chili verde (in the pressure cooker, no fuss, no muss) over rice for dinner. And pina coladas (Mr. T's mix, just follow the directions on the bottle) came out for the first time in quite a while. Fosters watched an interesting movie: The Last Word (2017, Shirley MacLaine, Amanda Seyfried). 

How does she sleep like that?

Day 161

Guess who got her tonsils out today. She got home AOK and is just chillin'. So is all the ice cream in the fridge. The blue walls of the bathroom off the kitchen will remain. All the tan-with-dark-tan-trim from the mudroom through the living room is being replaced with off-white-with-even-whiter-trim. Lexi got some art work done today, of course. And, she removed yet another link from her Back to School Advent Chain; the time draws near! The baby loved sitting up on Matt's feet and belly laughing while watching the dogs. On the other hand, the baby has not got his aim down very well for eating. Watched a great, hot off the press, movie last night: Irresistible. Pretty timely.

From Facebook, this teacher is ready. Reminded Jamie of what his student
teaching teacher always said, "Wowie, think of that."

Not even close.

Day 160

Guess who got her learner's permit today! Papa took her out for a first time on the road. One hour down, 49 (plus) to go! Lexi loves playing card games like the one pictured below. This passion developed while Aunt Vickie was here a couple weeks ago and shows no sign of diminishing. Matteo had an online orientation with his new school this morning. He's probably got the biggest change this year as he's going to a new (for us) private school, Evangelical Christian Academy (ECA) - it's a classical education, Latin and all, much like SLOCA was back in CA, though ECA is overtly Christian. We weren't big on the options DCC had for middle school (Matteo) this year. At this point, ECA is planning on full-time in the classroom. Fina, as you may recall, is doing pretty much everything online but in such a way as to allow her to do extra-curricular stuff, e.g. improv and theatre, should those become available. The littles (Lexi through AJ) are going back to DCC which also is planning on mostly in the classroom (though as many as 30% have opted to stay home and do online which gets the in-classroom teacher-student ratio down to a much better level). Jamie went out to the Ranch for his horse program volunteering this afternoon, but alas none of the kids showed up. It is a weird in-between time with schools starting up, orientations anyway, and the like. I guess the whole schedule is being reworked at the Ranch. No loss though, Jamie had a great chat with Katie about the horse program, and the horses themselves in particular. Like, how do you "qualify" a horse to be trusted around kids that weigh as little as 5% of what the horse weighs? And I'm not sure who's less predictable, a horse or a kid. Anyway, she went to Cal Poly SLO (love that school, Trevor went there) in the Ag department and then got a Masters in social work. She's been pretty hands-on in the horse and horse-therapy world for 20+ years! Tracy is continuing her painting rampage on the mud room through living room; I'll get a little photo collage of all that tomorrow, I promise.

Day 159

Sorry for the lack of pics again. I was a little under the weather from my flu shot yesterday. I did the Noah's Ark session of my Bible study class (online, anyone may join; recordings available after the fact). Village Arts released a trailer today for the film I'm in, Voices Beyond the Veil: the Story of God, Humanly Speaking. The film releases on August 28th. And Fina had a little cohort gathering in the backyard this evening.