February Break and Basketball

Phoenix had a game at Castilleja School a couple of weeks ago. I rushed to get there at 5 pm and the first game was running late, again! This happened the last time I rushed to her 5 pm game. I thought it was fun to see her and Astrea comparing science notebooks/doing homework. 

Her other teammates, which you can see in the back ground were watching the game of the older girls. 

They finally started warm ups at 5:15 pm. You can see Phoenix about to shoot the ball on the far side of the court. 

They ended up playing a good game and winning. Phoenix scored about 10 points, which was more than half of the total points. I think she was happy with her performance. We rushed to her swim practice afterwards and she managed to get in the water by 6:45 pm and swim for an hour and 15 minutes. Not bad, considering we had a 30 minute drive and the game didn't end until after 6pm!

On Thursday, I left for Windsor after getting Axel from school and dropping Phoenix off at practice. My mom, sister and I had a "girls weekend" planned. I was happy to make it there by 8:30 pm. We were able to chat a little bit before heading to bed. On Friday morning, after breakfast, we went for a hike. My mom doesn't prefer pictures, so she was protesting with a funny face. We enjoyed a nice 3 mile hike and then stopped by the store to pick up some food for the weekend. After lunch we went "thrifting" in Santa Rosa and had a blast!

This was the first time we didn't have any plans scheduled for our girls weekend, which was actually kind of fun to hang out without an agenda. So for dinner mom whipped up fish tacos and grilled sweet potatoes. We helped a little bit, but selfishly went for a short 20 minute jog/gym workout while she grilled. 

Afterwards we put on silly face masks. I had never seen "masks" like this. When I purchased these I thought they were creams that hardened. It was quite the surprise to have the "ointment" on actual masks. We had a good laugh and enjoyed the relaxing day together. 

While we were enjoying a relaxing evening, Keith was busy managing all of the kids Friday night. He had to get Rubix from school to take him to Phoenix's basketball game and then get them both to swim practice. Axel, luckily, found a ride home. Keith worked hard on Thursday night making posters for Phoenix's basketball game to help "cheer" her and her teammates on. He was extremely creative and made the following posters for Parshi, Zoey, Serena, Ally and Phoenix. 

I was so proud of him for not only managing the drop offs/ pick ups, but to also going above and beyond by making these posters. 

I forgot to mentioned that we rushed back on Friday from thrifting to watch Phoenix's 4 o'clock game. Harker live streams their home games, so it worked out well for me to be gone, but not miss her game. Here she us making a free throw. 

I also took a picture at the end that shows Keith and Rubix on the court because I thought it would be fun for them to see themselves. 

We had so much fun hiking on Friday morning we decided to do another hike on Saturday morning. We had planned another 3 miles hike, but it turned into a 5 mile epic climb transferring 1000 feet of climbing. 

The first look out was beautiful, overlooking all of Windsor. 

The second look out we couldn't convince mom to join in on the picture. 

The third lookout, we have warmed up and removed our jackets. 

After transferring some crazy mud we decided to turn around and head on another trail that we thought would bring us back to the start in a mile and a half. Well, as you can see from this picture, it was not a mile and a half and it was a lot of up and down! 

It took us 2.5 hours to complete and everyone's knees were hurting by the end! We were glad to be done. We rested and had a nice lunch before we got ready to go to Healdsburg for more shopping and dinner. 

This was lit up a pretty purple with lights, but you cannot see it in this picture. We had fun doing more Thrift store shopping before we ate out at Asahi Sushi and Kitchen. 

We had delicious brussel sprouts and vegetable tempura, but the sushi was subpar. This was the only restaurant to have 4.9 stars, so we were very disappointed in our meal! 

I left bright and early, about 6:30 am to rush to a swim meet that the kids were at. It was a very smooth drive and morning at the meet. We were done and headed home by 1pm, which allowed me to rush home and get Axel to the club for his exercise. I managed to make it back home and make our traditional super bowl food of giant nachos and other snacks before the superbowl started. I was a little disappointed in the blow out of a game, but we had fun as a family hanging out. 

Phoenix had a great few days of creating and drew and painted many pieced of art work. She let me take pictures of the ones that she completed. 

These Phoenix's will go on either side of her window. I just love what she did!

I had a lot of downtime and was able to spend time with the kids playing games. Here the boys and I were playing our favorite family game, Monopoly Deal. Rubix also helped me in the kitchen and started to learn how to cook and bake. 

On Friday, Valentine's Day we went to PanIQ and broke out of "Atlantis" together. The lady working there said she was impressed at how well everyone worked together and how we didn't ask for any clues. We did have to ask for two clarifications, but otherwise we broke out of the room with 6 minutes to spare!

It was a lot of fun! Keith and I went out for lunch together and the evening and weekend was filled with swim practice and a swim meet for Phoenix. She seems to be doing better taking Zyrtec and we have discovered that she has been getting chest tightness when she is swimming hard, so we think we will start her on an inhaler. We just have to wait for our appointment with the allergist this Friday to go over her results. From what I gather, she is highly allergic to grass and some trees, which makes sense why she is always blowing her nose and sneezing. 

 School and work starts tomorrow after a nice 10 day break from work for me. Axel will start having track meets in a couple of weeks. So far he is doing okay running. He is having a lot of muscle soreness after trying some speed work, so hopefully his body is able to transition and the stress fractures don't dome back! We have the boys birthday parties scheduled and soccer officially starts this week. It is going to be a busy Spring with the kids doing multiple sports, but we are looking forward to longer days that arrive in less than 3 weeks with the time change! Spring is almost here!

Spring Swim season and Basketball begin, Winter Ball 2025

Rubix went to a birthday party at the K1 race track. Two funny things to note is that this was his friend's brother's birthday party and after doing the race track once, he decided he had enough. So as interesting as it was for him to be invited, I thought it was even more interesting that he didn't want to race the car a second time. His friend, Aury, was glad he went and Rubix still made swim practice at 12:30pm after attending this morning birthday party a couple of weeks ago. 

I had purchased the family a new puzzle for Christmas. Rubix took it upon himself to complete it, with Daddy's help. Here he is next to the finished product. 

Phoenix had her first 6th grade dance, while Axel had his Winter ball. Phoenix managed to swim the 400 IM at 5:20pm and I was able to get her back to school for the 6:30pm social on the 24th of January. On Saturday, the 25th Axel went to the Winter Ball. His date was his "girlfriend Laya", although he hung out with his cross country friends too. 

Laya wore pink so Axel sewed himself a tie and made origami boutonnière and corsage.   

You can see the corsage in his hand. I did not get to take a photo because we were running late. 

Here he is, happy to be at the dance, ready to have fun!

Axel with his cross country crew!

Axel with Laya.

Rubix took the high points for the 7-8 year old group again at the Winter Championship, Brian Malick swim meet Jan 24-26th (He also won last year as a 7 year old and the year before in the 6 year old category.). He won every event and set a great personal best in the 200 IM on Friday night, getting a 2:33.97, just .01 behind his teammate Albert who won the 9-10 year old boys category.  

Rubix receiving his high point award. 

Here he is with his coach, Coach Victory. 

His teammate Aury. 

All the SCSC high point winners. 

Rubix was also on the winning relays, both the boys and the mixed relays, all 4 won 1st. This happened to be the 8 year old boys 100 free style relay. 

Phoenix started basketball games last week and played a home game on Wednesday and an away game on Friday. She also has a game this Wednesday and Friday as well. Here she is getting ready to do the jump ball. 

They ended up winning their first game and losing their second game. 

Here she is with Kylie, one of her old besties who left to go to Menlo. Menlo is more of an athletic school and they easily beat Harker, but the Harker girls had a great attitude and didn't give up, even though they were down from the beginning. This is a huge improvement since last year where the girls would often end up in tears, even when they were winning. 

Phoenix didn't really want to play basketball or practice before the season, but after playing a couple of games she decided she wants to practice and improve so she has been asking Daddy to play with her. She played twice this weekend!

Without a swim meet this weekend, Phoenix had a lot of downtime, which meant time for her creative juices to flow. She came out of her room with two beautiful pieces from this weekend. This cute duck and ......

this amazing charcoal piece. I absolutely love it! She has to decide on her elective for next year, which means she needs to chose between ceramics 2 or visual arts 2. She thinks it is better to take ceramics at school because she can draw and paint at home. The girl never seizes to amaze me at how good she is at art!

 This weekend I am off to spend a couple of days with my mom and sister, while Keith holds down the house. Rubix has a swim meet this weekend and Phoenix has a swim meet next weekend. Axel starts track practice tomorrow and he started tutoring a Japanese student on Sundays (this is along with his Japanese conversation/lesson he is having every Friday with one of our Japanese neighbors) and he will be volunteering for a couple of math competitions, that are an all day event on Saturday Feb. 22nd and March 22nd. All this means is our weekends will become very busy through April which makes for a very busy time because I will be working 5 days a week starting the first Friday in March through the first week of May! And the sad part about it all, is that these next few months will fly by and my goal of slowing time down will definitely not happen!

We do have next week off of school and work, but I hope the kids can have a restful time at home. We might decide to do a couple of play dates with friends or fun outings. Besides that we are looking forward to soccer starting for Rubix and the boys birthdays. It is unclear if I will have time to post before then, but check back soon, just in case!

Phoenix turns 12!!

Phoenix has been preparing for her birthday party for the past couple of weeks. She made this super cute chicken pinata and we purchased all of the chicken theme gifts for her white elephant game and quaking chickens and chocolate to go into her pinata. 

Besides preparing for her birthday party she has used the past couple of weeks (with no swim meets) to catch up on some well needed rest which included a lot of drawing and reading. Here are a few of her drawings from last weekend. 

On Sunday, January 19th, Phoenix requested chocolate croissants for breakfast. 

Everyone enjoyed the special treat as this day was her big birthday party day. 

Axel and her spent the morning decorating her cake. 

They had an incredible amount of fun with each other. 

I just love how sweet Axel is in helping her and the memories that they will have working together to make a special creation for her special day. I think they did a great job. Axel is the master mind behind making perfect frosting and Phoenix is the primary artist here. Since her birthday with chicken theme, she was having a happy bird- day, hence the spelling of birthday. 

Phoenix brought out the chicken Axel made her for Christmas and chicken sat at the head of the table with her during dinner and cake. 

Phoenix invited over 10 girls, but the party started with 5. Cielo, Joanna, Stella, Sohpia and Savannah. They played the hot dog and chicken game while they waited for the other girls to arrive.  

Catherine and Maggie arrived in time for laser tag, capture the flag and the pinata. Helen and Sarah couldn't make it last minute and Amy didn't arrive until cake time at 6pm. 

Daddy setting up the pinata. 

The girls getting ready to hit poor little chicken. 

After the pinata everyone was hungry so they came in for pizza! It was so easy to have pizza and snacks rather than make a bunch of food. I get why people do pizza or catering for parties now. 

Once Amy arrived, we sang Happy birthday and the girls enjoyed a lot of ice cream with the cake. We couldn't believe how much they all loved the ice cream. 

Once their tummies were full it was time for Phoenix's favorite white elephant game. I think it was a hit. The favorite gift was the chicken night light. 

Once the white elephant game was over, Phoenix opened the gifts her friends brought her. They were mostly chicken themed too! I loved it!

Sunday, Phoenix had the privilege of spending time with one of her BFF's Audrey, who moved to Pleasanton. They got their nails done and then went out for Noah's bagels before coming to our house and hanging out for the afternoon. 

 

 

They have so much fun together. I love how they are still good friends despite being far away. They plan on getting together during the ski week break in February. 

Tuesday morning was more of a rush than ideal. I was only able to take a couple of quick photos of Phoenix before heading out the door. She had a lot to get together with school, snacks for her advisory class and snacks for both her basketball and swim team. She wanted to wear her yellow sweat shirt again and be warm and cozy for her free dress day. 

After school she had basketball practice. I went early and was able to watch the last 10 minutes or so from my car, while I was in line. It is not ideal watching through the fence, but it was still nice to see her and her friends having fun. 

After practice she passed out Hostess Cupcakes and Oreos. During advisory she brought macaroons and Oreos. Apparently, all children were happy with these sweet treats. 

We went straight from basketball to swim. I was impressed we made it on time because he had a 30 minutes turn around from basketball ending at 5pm and swim starting at 5:30pm. We got lucky with traffic which was nice! Tuesdays are usually fly day. After the warm up set and drill set, Coach Luba helped Phoenix put on the birthday swim cap. 

The team sang Happy Birthday and then it was right back to swim with the main set, which was a hard fly/breast set.

The girls are putting away their gear and getting ready for the main set :)

I noticed when putting Phoenix to sleep that her Lovies have multiplied quite rapidly over the past year. I thought it was funny that I got rid of 2-3 bags full of stuffed animals except "Doggy" and "Panda" which were her two childhood favorites. Now she has all kinds of soft, plush, "Lovies".

Her swim friends asked her if she was able to fit with all of them now. The answer is yes, but sometimes one or two of her "friends" gets knocked off in the middle of the night, regardless of how hard she works to prevent this from happening. 

It is hard to believe that she is 12 years old. I remember this being a big year of growth in maturity, so I am looking forward to seeing this growth! :)

In other news.....

I found this little origami that Axel folded awhile ago. I am amazed at how detailed his miniature origami is. 

Here is the cat he made for his "girlfriend" Laya. It is very cute! He is so talented! 

This weekend is the start of a very busy time for us, but I am hoping to stay grounded and not get caught up in it all. We have had a really difficult start of the week with our new washing machine breaking, our leak in our kitchen sink getting worse and worse and or top oven breaking. We were lucky enough to have a plumber come out on Tuesday and we have GE coming next Tuesday to fix the washer. We won't have the plumber back to fix everything until the February break because we are just too busy with work and the kids schedule. I actually had to cancel my work day next Tuesday to be available for the repair man to come because Keith has missed too much work taking care of everything. That is the bummer thing about working from home. I always expect that he can manage, but his entire Layout team just got laid off and he has one of his managers in Colorado who is quitting or trying to get fired. He has an incredible amount of work stress. 

This weekend brings the start of the Spring Swim season with the first 3 day swim meet of the season. Phoenix plans on racing just after 5 pm tomorrow and then having me drive her over to her first dance of middle school. They actually have a 6th grade social with just the 6th graders and they don't even call it a dance. She is very excited. So, she will go to bed late and get up early for her swim meet on Saturday and then rush over to a birthday party at 12:45 pm where she will enjoy lunch, cake and an Escape room. Axel will have his Winter Ball this weekend as well on Saturday. He is going with Laya, of course. He is also busy competing in a computer science coding competition called BattleCode. He is having a lot of fun with it. 

Axel and Phoenix both finish their first semester. Axel received straight A's with only 2 A+'s and 1 A- (in Honors English). He is very pleased about his English grade, but was a bit disappointed in all of his other A's. I felt kind of bad because a couple of his A's were 96% and a 97% is an A+. I am hoping he can get use to just getting A's. :) Phoenix received one B+ (English Honors) and the rest A's with an A+ in Japanese.  She has really struggled with her Honors English teacher, but I think she is learning a lot. She also received an A- in math, but I was proud of her digging herself out of the whole she started in with some pretty bad grades the first month or two of school. 

Rubix is on trimesters. He received his grades in the fall. I am not sure if I shared them, but he did well getting all A's with one B+, which is also in English. I think all of the kids excel in STEM, even though Phoenix really enjoys Language Arts more than math.

Rubix has started playing soccer with his teammates for the Spring season. They officially start in February sometime. We have been focused on helping Rubix work on being a bit more responsible, trying to keep track of his belongings and assignments. We had him moved to an earlier math period, which has resulted in him being more successful. He was really struggling with math at the end of the day. He is also playing basketball on Thursdays in a "lunch time" basketball tournament with his friends at school. The basketball coach is trying to get the boys interested for 4th grade basketball, which I think is a great idea!

I likely won't get a chance to post anything for a month. Until then, stay warm!