Fall happenings

Before we knew it, summer was over and fall was upon us.  The kids wanted to celebrate by going to a local diner that they like.  It has really big portions of breakfast foods, including a huge cinnamon roll the size of a dinner plate.

This year, Karina started attending middle school along with Eliana.  They went to the bus together and attended three periods, and then Emily would pick them up after that to do home school at home.

After encouragement from Emily, Eliana started band this year and chose to play the alto sax.  She picked it up really quickly and is enjoying band quite a bit now.  She even decided to join the jazz band which means that she has to go to school early for 7am practice three times a week.  What dedication!

Gabe attends all day school one day a week on Fridays and also rides the bus for that.  He has a really good friend that goes, which is nice for him, but most of the work is project-based, which he says he does not particularly enjoy.  

In September, it was Mommy's birthday.  As per tradition, we prepared an angel food cake for her, with 7-minute frosting.

Gabe and Karina decorated it, including placing a message using the sugar candy letters.  They used as many letters as they could and the bottom part of the cake said "YOU'RE *45* NOW!"  They were quite proud of themselves.

Happy birthday, Mommy!

Amongst other things, she got a bag of Reese's peanut butter cups and other treats.

One thing that happened this fall was that we went to see Hamilton again in the theater.  This was in Eugene and part of the Broadway across American season tickets that we got.  Our next show will be in March.

As part of the girls' involvement in their local youth theater company, they signed up to be part of the Christmas Carolers.  There are about 24 kids in the group and they learned all four parts to about a dozen Christmas songs, some of them traditional carols and others less traditional.  They even had to learn how to sing Silent Night in German.

They had costumes that made them look like they walked out of a Charles Dickens book.  In December, they will be performing in nursing homes, company Christmas parties, and other places.  Karina had been selected, along with several other kids, to be part of the photo shoot they would use on marketing materials to advertise their services.

Also in the fall, Karina took up soccer again after a hiatus during the pandemic.  She ended up liking it and meshed well with the other girls in her team.

Gabe loves soccer and enjoyed another season of it.  Elvin also helped as the assistant coach.  This team of boys have been together for several years.

After the season was over, the boys had a party at Round Table.  

Because Gabe has tons of energy, we signed him up for basketball as well and the two seasons overlapped slightly.  He doesn't like basketball as much but has been enjoying it and improved a lot this season.

He's much better at defense now and also been improving his dribbling.

Once, he got fouled so had a chance to shoot free throws.  His accuracy with distance shots are not 100%, but to our surprise, he made both baskets!  This is the second one.

Xiao has been busying himself with various crafts at home.  One day get got some water and dish soap out and blew himself a bubble structure.

He's also gotten very adept at building things using these magnet toys we have at home.  He has built structures, spaceships, and apparently a Trojan horse.

And he likes folding paper and made a bunch of flowers one day.

One day, the kids had a hankering for pomegranate so they brought home a tray from Costco.  Then we learned from a friend that to remove the seeds, you can cut the fruit in half cross-wise and then beat the back of it with the flat of a spoon.  Here is Karina demonstrating it.

Then Karina realized that if you took the garlic press, you can squeeze the juice out of the seeds.

And when you mix it with sparkling water, then voila, it becomes a super fancy drink that is especially tasty if it's in a fancy glass.

And Mommy and Daddy actually went away for a day this fall.  We had tickets to go on a winery tour and so had a lovely afternoon at a winery in the Willamette Valley.  Emily doesn't drink so Elvin tried to make up for it.  It was lots of fun.

And that was our fall!