Halloween

 Just a picture so I can remember what the costumes were.

Hei Hei and Rosie

Rapunzel and Skeleton

Out of my Element

It is very rare for me to travel and to feel completely lost, turned around and out of my element. I have complained before about no longer experiencing the “oh fuck factor” when travelling. So imagine my feelings of confusion and surprise when confronted with exactly these feelings a mere 45 miles away from home. I was out of my comfort zone. 

Quick background. Oskar and Martin had their special weekend planned up in Nevada City and given that Alva and my official special weekend was in San Francisco I opted to get out of town for our weekend alone. I am still not sure how I decided on San Jose but that is where I booked a hotel room so that is where we were going. 

With Martin taking the car I booked a rental car which sounds straightforward enough. Except when I went to pick up the car my two options were either a pick up truck (not ideal) or a fully electric car (how hard could it be). Electric it was. And so began my first new experience in a really long time. 

The battery was only charged 60% which according to the dash would get me 130 miles. As someone who gets stressed when our gas tank only has 70 miles to go and San Jose is a 50 mile drive, the entire weekend was spent calculating and researching how much more time I had until I needed to recharge the car, looking for places to recharge the car and figuring out how to actually recharge the car. I attempted two places on Friday night while out for dinner, two new spots on Saturday during the day (finally having success at a Safeway while Alva and I ate ice cream in the parking lot) and failed completely on Sunday when trying to recharge before returning the car (opting instead to pay the fee). 

After a whole weekend driving the car (which was actually a really nice car to drive) I think I finally figured it out. And if we did have a place to reliably charge when needed I would be onboard for a fully electric car when we need to replace our current gas guzzler. But man, it was stressful in the moment. 

Car troubles aside, I was also directionally challenged the entire weekend in San Jose. I couldn’t for the life of me get my bearings of NESW! We drove almost everywhere and while everything was only 10-15 minutes away, each trip involved a new freeway which took us in a completely different direction. Thank god the car had a full screen for our google maps to guide the way… although in hindsight that may have also exacerbated the problem.  

Stressors aside, we did have a blast. Pizza at San Pedro Square, a morning of hotel breakfast, checking out the solar eclipse, playtime at the Children’s Museum, an afternoon at Happy Hallow Zoo (where we didn’t see any animals but did get face painting and ride all the rides), sushi /Thai dinner, unhealthy snacks and a hotel room where we snuggled in bed and watched TV. 

For Sunday Alva told me she wanted to see her new BFF from our previous girls weekend. With Lilah only an hour drive south, it was a date! However, while we had planned to paint ceramics at Color Me Mine (only to find out you had to wait 7 days for the items to be fired and no they didn’t ship), we settled on the Build A Bear workshop. And while we meant to go to high tea for lunch (only to realize with a phone call before heading that way that they do set seatings and were fully booked for the day) we ended up at Cheesecake Factory. 

It was the perfect day but a true reminder of how out of my element I was… after a few hours with besties, we said goodbye to head towards our respective homes, with big hugs and two incredibly happy but exhausted kids. 

Loving the rides at Happy Hollow

Fancy Dinner on Saturday

$70+ bears.. but happy girls

Cheesecake for the win

Proud Mom / Kid Moments

After a break in 2022, Martin was off to Norway for his bi-annual fishing trip. And that meant I was on point as parent for the week! For those new here, and to rely solely on the nuclear family stereotypes, Martin is the incredible, do everything mom of the family and I am the workaholic deadbeat dad. But with Martin gone I was excited and ready to step up to the challenge and have some fun along the way. Martin left Friday afternoon and wouldn’t return until the following Saturday. I took a half day on Friday to stock up on food at Costco while the kids were still at school and here is what we got up to:  

• We started Saturday off strong with a soccer game for Oskar in the morning (I brought snacks and juice boxes for the kids like the soccer mom I had always wanted to be) and we found some additional fun in the drive home, letting the kids decide what direction to turn at every intersection. With San Francisco on a grid system, at every stop sign or street light I asked the kids if they wanted to go straight or turn right/ left. We definitely didn’t take the most direct route home, but we did get a chance to explore a few new streets and neighborhoods along the way

• On Sunday, I introduced the kids to proper Dim Sum at Peony’s in Oakland. I am not sure if they were sold on the idea but I will blame that on the fact that they no longer offer the cart service. Promises were made for Yank Sing in SF in December so they could have the full experience 

• After dim sum the kids chose to check out the Lawrence Hall of Science (instead of FairyLand) where I showed my age by asking if the blue whale heart exhibit was still available (just a mere 30 plus years later) 

• Monday morning marked the start of the weekly hustle to get out the door and to school on time and me to the “office” before my day of work and meetings began 

• Monday evening also began the week of really juggling it all including cooking dinner, packing backpacks and getting everything set for the following morning sprint all while getting in a few minutes of quality time.  Thankfully the kids found a way to entertain themselves while I got dinner on the table every evening and I somehow convinced the Kids to pack their lunches each night before bed

• Everyday after school, I embraced child taxi service duties driving them to their swim lessons, soccer practice, and music lessons 

• With an 8:30 am start to work and a hard stop at 2:39 pm to make after school pick up, I spent most nights working instead of my plan of watching terrible TV and movies while Martin was gone 

After a few days of the hustle, things started to unravel…

• I had a huge mom fail of not recognizing how painful Oskar’s growing pains were one night at 2:30 in the morning. Instead of being a caring and loving mom I pretty much told him to suck it up and couldn’t understand why he was fake crying and not sleeping. It took an hour of tears before I gave him Tylenol and to my surprise (and serious guilt) 16 minutes later he had quieted down and fallen asleep 

• I also had a moment of weakness (aka I snapped and yelled) on Thursday night (why, I can’t remember) which prompted the kids to load the dishwasher and Alva made me sandwiches for my own lunch the next day 

• But by Friday, with the promise of Martin's return the next day, I was back to my normal positive self. I picked the kids up from school Friday afternoon and we headed to Japantown for a date night... the movie premiere of the new Paw Patrol movie and bullet train sushi 

• Saturday morning we had another soccer match (snacks provided by yours truly again) And with Martin arriving a little later than expected on Saturday, we made an impromptu visit to grandma and grandpa’s house Saturday after soccer. 

I had such a fun time and I think the kids did too. But we were all definitely excited for Martin to come home in time for a full Sunday of fun.