Rubix's back to school night, Axel's 1st dance, birthday parties, Harker day and more!

On Thursday night before Fall break day #1 the family went for a night swim and had the privilege of seeing the sun set. It was quite beautiful. 

With fall break day comes harvesting our apple crop. Axel and I picked 4 dozen apples and left another dozen or so on the tree for later. It seems like a decade was a long time to finally get a nice crop, but at the same time it doesn't necessarily feel like it has been a decade!

We are excited to say that the Montezuma house is occupied by our renters starting October 1st and we were able to get everything done that we wanted to (except for a few "minor" things). It is amazing that the copper repiping, copper ground electrical work, among other things were all done within a couple of weeks and that we were able to do these and get the place rented in 3 weeks from close. We are so incredibly blessed! We hope our tenants are enjoying the house and we hope this house is a blessing to one of these lovely children below in the future. 

With fall upon us we all started running again. Axel has ran 3 weeks in a row, hovering a few seconds past 7 minutes. Rubix went from a sub 12 minute to a 10:30 minute mile and Phoenix is still working on her form to tolerate running without pain. 

On September 28th, we finally had Rubix's back to school night. Here is his rock that he painted. 

This is a placemat that his homeroom teacher made for all of the students. 

Here is another picture that was hung up in the classroom of our sweet Rubix. 

And last a fun project that Rubix did for back to school night.

Our second round of pumpkins have finished slowly one by one. Unlike, our first round that were harvested nearly all at the same time. This second round have been ready weeks apart. We actually have one more to harvest this weekend that is still in the process of turning orange. 

On October 1st Axel had his first school dance. He was quite nervous, but had a great time overall.

Here he is right before I dropped him off. I was so proud of him for going and having fun.

On October 2nd we went to Tyler's 10th birthday party at the Cabana club. They have been one of our close family friends over the pandemic and it was nice to be able to celebrate with the Gunnions. 

Tyler invited just 2 friends besides our family. It was a little windy and a bit difficult to light his 10 candles for him to blow out. Everyone got a good laugh at the efforts taken to outsmart the wind. 

With team work the candles were momentarily lit and Tyler was able to blow out a few of them. 

A cute picture of Joel and Axel. 

Cake time!

Axel and Tyler gutted through an extra spicy cheetos eating contest and Axel won! Crazy kid could handle spice like he had been eating it for years! 

Here is a cute picture of Keith holding our first rental check. Very exciting!

I started mentoring at the San Jose Kaiser last Thursday and was awe struck by God's gloriously painted sky. I know it was dangerous, but I snapped a few pictures because it was too beautiful to not remember. 

This Saturday we went to Harker day where the kids had hours of game time fun. 

Axel made Eagle masks for all of them to wear to show school pride. 

Rubix got to ride in a bus for the first time from the old middle school campus to the high school. 

Rubix trying to snatch a toy u.

He wasn't quite successful, but he did get a constellation price... 

a weird pumpkin head stuffy. 

Rubix also had fun playing fooseball., 

skiball, 

and basketball, even with the big 4th and 5th graders. 

He also played "hockey", 

did the shock wave and 

and had fun exploring the fish. 

Phoenix spent most of her day trying to snatch up a toy. 

She patiently waited in line over and over again with different friends until....

she was successful and finally won a toy!

We also tackled this fun game. Both Rubix and Phoenix were able to ring the bell. 

Axel hung out with his friends. Luca was his buddy last year when Luca joined Harker. Luca came from Italy just a couple of years ago. He is a sweet kid. Axel also hung out with his friend Shamik. 

Life continues to be busier than expected and we are still trying to adjust. Axel lost a tooth recently. I can't remember if it was in the last blog or happened since then. Axel also broke the 5 foot mark and is 5 foot 1/2 inch! Phoenix and Rubix also continue to grow like crazy, but with Axel it is the most noticeable with growing out of pants I just bought him 2 months ago!

We are looking forward to some more fall/ Halloween fun. The kids are having trouble deciding what to be for Halloween, but we are all looking forward to the 3 day weekend at the end of the month. Check back then for more Szolusha adventures. 
 

The new house, Daddy swim team and more !

I think the kids are settling into a routine as they finish up their first month of school. Rubix and Phoenix are both doing dance and Axel is on the swim team. Keith does most of the drop offs and pick ups, but there are a few times a week where I get to help out. Here is one of those days when Rubix and I were waiting for Phoenix and Axel to come out of the "older student" gate. We are lucky that Axel takes a bus from the middle school to the lower school on days he has swim practice, so we only have one pick up location.

Over Labor day we were able to spend some quality time with the Gunnions. The kids had multiple swim practices together and we also went for a hike. Here is a picture of Axel with a frown. He is standing by a no swimming sign, but as you can see the earth is as dry as can be. Our drought continues to worsen and we are hoping for a rainy fall, winter and spring. 

After our hike we went to their house for an impromptu dinner. Here are the kids playing soccer while the parents are talking. 

It took until the 2nd week, but Rubix was proud to come home with school work. The kids read about Pete the cat and he cool shoes. 

Although I did enjoy the other artwork above, I did get a laugh at this project which included mask do's and don'ts. Out of all of them he wanted to keep this one and hang it in his room because his teacher told him that this was important to keep and remember. 

On Sept. 9th, we had Phoenix's back to school night. We were actually on campus and were able to go around to all of her classes. Every class is 10 minutes, but Language arts was 20 minutes because she has it for 2 periods. Here are two of her pieces. This first one is a poem. 

I believe this is Hachiko in Hachiko Waits. So cute!

Axel had time trials for swim on Friday, Sept. 10th. Keith had fun announcing the events while the kids and I watched from outside the fence. 

Rubix got bored, but made a new friend, named Matthew, who is in the first grade. Phoenix was running around with her friend watching the swim meet and cheering for their siblings. 

We had Axel's back to school day on Saturday Sept. 11th. It was a long day for me as I had 3 hours of bible study in the morning, 4 hour back to school event and then we had a 2 hour pool board meeting party at night. I wanted to include a couple of pictures. This first one is of his math elective class where the teacher was informing us parents about MathCounts. Apparently this equivalent to a state championship. If Axel makes the team of 15 students he will be spending his Christmas break practicing math! 

The other picture that I thought was funny, considering we are still in the pandemic, is from Axel's Japanese class. Matsui Sensei states, to improve motivation you can travel to Japan and frequently go to Japanese restaurants. Now, if only our pocket books supported these two things and the kids were all vaccinated, I am right on board with these two suggestions.

With all of the back to school events, Axel earned lots of babysitting money. He asked for me to take him to Joanne Fabrics to purchase cotton fabric. Well, we went and spent his entire $50 on material and elastic. He has been enjoying making masks for himself, Rubix and Phoenix. I am so proud of how thoughtful he is and how sewing feeds the creative, building part of his brain that he filled for years with building Legos, Blocks and Magnatiles. 

We had a lovely 3 weeks at work where we didn't need eye protection. With the Delta surge and the increased supply of PPE, we now have a variety of masks and face shields to choose from. We are expected to throw away the disposable face shields that we used for 15 months now after every time we take it off. This can happen multiple times per day because we go back and forth from video visits to in person visits. I continue to choose to wear goggles, now even more so I can help save the earth from endless plastic face shields that are being thrown away all day long. Everyone is making fun of these new ones, as the look more like ski goggles. They actually fog up much less than the other ones I am use to wearing. 

This weekend was another big weekend. We took Phoenix to her first school event, which was a beach day on the coast in Davenport, CA. 

She was so excited that her two close friends, Kyla and Ashley were there. 

We stayed for over 4 hours and were one of the last people to leave. 

I found this picture in my phone that Keith sent me one morning. Our sweet Rubix has decided to start pushing his boundaries. These boundaries consisted of listening, getting ready in the morning, eating dinner, etc. As a consequence, he was picked up right after school for a couple of days. He recognized that he wanted to act like a big boy so that he could stay and play with his friends and now he is back to his sweet cooperative self. 

Keith runs practice for the kids every Saturday morning. More and more kids have joined since swim team ended. The kids absolutely love his practices. After doing some drills and technique stuff he allows them to race each other. I have been so proud of him for putting so much time and effort into the kids and Westgate Cabana pool. It looks like he will be moving from Membership Director to Aquatics Director, which should be a good change and allow him to make even more improvements to the Cabana's swim program. 

We got the keys to our new home on Sept. 8th. The house was tented on the 10th. Since then we have had a handy man come in fix up a few things, electrical work done to add a ground wire and fire detectors to code and tomorrow our copper pipping will be done. Last week I put up the Zillow ad for the house rental and this past weekend we showed the house to a handful of families. We had 12 contacts and 8 requests to see the house. Only those who were able to make it on Sunday had the privilege of seeing the home. Most were interested, but two couples were most interested and qualified. We received a nice letter from one couple as to why they would make great renters. Low and behold, just 6 days after posting we had a signed one year lease with the rental deposit in the bank! They move in on Oct. 1st. It has been such an action packed few weeks going back and forth to the house. We are on the home stretch. We need to get an attic guy to fix up the attic and seal it from rodents as there is a lot of rodent droppings from a prior infestation. The electrician today restated with the inspection stated. H recommended that we take care of it right away. We have a week to get this done, rekey the house and purchase a new refrigerator. Keith and I are looking forward to being done with all of this and getting the renters in.

Rubix finally received his team USA swim bag and pool buoy. He as very excited!

To top off this weekend, Rubix went to his first birthday party. Keith's Japanese teacher's grandson, Rick, was turning 5 and Rubix and him have played together because Keith works with Rick's mom. He enjoyed himself and even had enough energy to come to the pool to meet his new friend Matthew for a swim playdate. It was really nice to have the kids socialized so much over the past month. It is a little overwhelming and I am beyond exhausted. We are trying to be a safe as possible by having the kids mask, regardless if they are outside. I am hoping it continues to protect them because we are done to the final couple of months before the Rubix and Phoenix finally get vaccinated.  

I do hope things settle down a bit. I hope to blog again, but knowing the last years track record, it might not be for another month!