For a variety of good reasons, Peter moved his office from its Santa Clara location to a new location downtown, and this is our moving month. I think all of us are excited about the new offices, which are directly across (and with windows looking onto) San Jose’s beautiful historic cathedral, kitty corner from the…
Earth Day Buddhist Birthday Party
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….
Farewell My Children’s Happy Hollow
Happy Hollow Park and Zoo is one of our favorite kiddie-friendly places to go in San Jose, and we have pictures to prove we’ve been going there since Neil was about 6 months old. It’s rather old fashioned, and rather worn, but that’s always been part of its charm. On one end is a small…
Pam Pfiffner Was My Starbucks Enabler
The other day, Peter was trying to fix a date on when he became addicted to Starbucks, in that a tough day doesn’t begin properly without a caffeinated something in a “venti” tub. He thought it started during the short-lived period he was taking Neil to his middle school math classes but I pointed out…
The Adventure Club Takes on Pinnacles Park
Ten energetic children between the ages of 2 and 12; 2 perky indefatigable Mormon moms; the biggest pile of boulders you’ve ever seen, and…me. It made for quite an adventure, even if at times, for me, it was like Fear Factor as hosted by Disney, with a bottomless box of snack chips. Among the other…
On a Clear Day You Can See A Penny Shoot
For the Wednesday of Spring Break, my friend Becky invited me and some of her other friends to join her at the Lawrence Hall of Science in Berkeley. Of course we went: the Lawrence Hall of Science is one of Neil’s favorite science museums, and Neil likes it even more with friends. And he gets…
Neil’s A Boy Scout Now
We have been travelling and adventuring so much lately, that we completely forgot the date for Neil’s graduation from Webelos. Luckily for us, after Peter had had a hard day at work and just after we’d finished a late dinner, one of the scout leaders called us, and let us know the ceremony had already…
Easter Weekend Fun
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…
Legoland
While we were in Southern California, we figured we might as well stop in at one of our favorite amusement parks, Legoland, where Neil has a lifetime membership. On the down side, even though Neil was skipping a day of school to go there, it turns out Southern California schools were either having their Spring…
Wizard World LA
Despite the fact that Wizard World LA was an overpriced, underattended bust of a show, we did go to part of it, and had a lot of fun. It was after all, at its heart, no matter the size, a comic book show with fun, funny, and fun-loving people. As I wrote in an earlier…