Metz Family: 2018

Another year, another last-minute half-hearted attempt at a holiday letter. As usual, this isn't really much more than a bunch of pictures with extended captions, but hey, less reading for you, right?! There was a lot more going on in 2018 than I'll talk about here, but this is what I had reasonably good pictures of....

In January we went hiking Almaden Quicksilver Park, which was supposed to be the first of 7 hikes in some of the prettiest county parks for the PixInParks program, but we fell off the wagon right away. Maybe next year.

Hiking in Almaden Quicksilver County Park.

In February we went to Kauai for Steph's Mom's 70th birthday, along with all her sisters and their families (17 people in all).

Building sand castles in Kauai.

Spouting Horn in Kauai.

Waimea Canyon (Evan is pointing at a helicopter down in the canyon).

Looking down onto the Napali coast (it was pretty cloudy, but we had a few moments of clarity).

Hanging out at the Marriott (which is not where we stayed) on our last day on Kauai.

I couldn't find anything photogenic going on in March, but in April we took a cruise from Galveston, TX to Cozumel, Mexico over Spring Break with some friends from the kids' school.

Before one of the dress-up dinners on our cruise.

Among a sea of towel animals one morning.

On a snorkel tour in Cozumel.

With our friends the Aroras on the last night of the cruise.

Also in April Alex got glasses for the first time, so that makes a whole family of near-sighted people.

The boys posing in their new glasses outside of the eye doctor's.

Evan finished elementary school in June, so they had a promotion ceremony for the kids at the end of the year (he's loving middle school, by the way, partly because he can walk around the block to get to school, so he doesn't have to wait for Alex to get ready in the morning for me to drive them to school).

After Evan's 5th grade promotion ceremony.

Also in June both boys' soccer teams had an end-of-season event at an Earthquakes game, where Evan's team were flag bearers during the opening ceremony and Alex's team were escorts for the player introductions.

Outside the Earthquakes game.

The summer was a mix of busy weeks of camps with quiet weeks of hanging out at home relaxing and playing with friends. At the end of summer we went away to the Lair of the Golden Bear (the Cal alumni family camp) in the Sierras for a week.

Down at the stream at the Lair of the Golden Bear Camp Blue.

Once school started back up again Alex's soccer team had a kick-off-the-season event at a Santa Clara University men's soccer game where they played a scrimmage at halftime (Evan got to tag along, too).

After providing the halftime entertainment at a SCU men's soccer game.

We went up to Angel Island for the first time in August, too, with some friends of Steph's.

On the ferry back from Angel Island, with San Francisco in the distance.

This sculpture in Tiburon (where you catch the ferry over to Angel Island) was pretty cool.

Neat shark fin sculpture in Tiburon.

In September Steph and I went to Chicago for our anniversary for a long weekend, and we got lucky with absolutely awesome weather. We had a great time (it's always wonderful to get away and be adults for a bit)!