Letter

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.

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)!

Hayden and Steph in Millennium Park in Chicago.

At a Chicago Cubs game.

Skydeck at the top of the Willis Tower in Chicago.

In October I took the boys to a Warriors practice, which was a kick, and waaaay cheaper than going to an actual game.

Hayden and the boys at a Warriors practice.

In November Steph had an open studio event at her studio complex.

Steph getting ready for Open Studios.

We just stayed home for Thanksgiving this year, and played a lot of board games amid all the other lazing around.

Playing some Settlers of Catan over Thanksgiving.

Peekay participating in the lazing around spirit over Thanksgiving.

And I got a bunch of pictures from our annual trek up to the Santa Cruz mountains to the Patchen Christmas tree farm to get our tree.

Our Christmas tree in its natural environment.

Evan seems to be allergic to smiling nicely for the camera.

See, he just can't do it.

OK, it's possible for him to smile on demand, just difficult.

2018 was a pretty good year for us overall, and we hope it was for you too. Happy Holidays, and best wishes for 2019!

Letter

As we've done most years recently, we're going to take the easy way out with this end-of-year letter and basically just post a bunch of pictures in lieu of any real narrative about the year. At 1,000 words/picture, though, I figure this is just as good as a nearly 30k word essay! So, here we go through 2017 in pictures....

Apparently not much happened in January that was photo-worthy, but this picture of the boys and Hayden after getting haircuts was kinda cute:

In February we went to a San Jose Barracudas (the Sharks minor league hockey team) game for a friend's birthday:

We did some hiking at Pinnacles National Park in March, which was a new experience for all of us -- it was the boys' first time, and even though Hayden and Steph had been there several times before (back when it was just a National Monument) it was always to go rock climbing, so the hiking was just something in the way of our reason for being there.

Later in the month Hayden and Steph spent a weekend away, although we just went to Danville. Here we are at the top of Mt. Diablo:

For our first big trip of the year we went to Maui for spring break with our old next-door neighbors. We hadn't been to Hawaii in over 10 years, so the boys has obviously never been. Now that they're old enough to go snorkeling we figured it was finally time, and it was a great trip!

When we got back we tried to keep the island vibes going by drinking Maui Mules (just a Moscow Mule with some POG added, which we made up on the trip) and eating Hawaiian chips in the backyard:

Here are Steph and the boys at Evan's school band spring recital (he plays the clarinet):

Hayden had to travel back east for work several times in the late spring and early summer, and on one trip his flight home was on Evan's 10th birthday:

We didn't have any big adventures over the summer break, but among a variety of day excursions we went to the Exploratorium in SF:

the Alameda County Fair:

and the California Rodeo in Salinas:

For Steph's birthday we went to a recording of Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me at Davies Symphony Hall in SF:

The end of August brought the start of a new school year. Evan is now in 5th grade, and Alex 2nd, meaning this is the last year they'll both be in the same school until their Senior/Freshman years in high school:

In October Alex turned 8, and he insisted on having his birthday party at the house:

Also in October the entire 5th grade went away to Science Camp for the week, which was a big hit:

Alex and I went to the last San Jose Earthquakes game of the season, which ended up being quite an exciting last-second 3-2 win that sent the Quakes to the playoffs:

Steph is starting on a big new project in her art practice, InTouch, that's going to need a lot more space than she had at her old studio, so she took an opportunity to move to a bigger studio downtown:

For Halloween, Evan was a penguin and Alex a Pikachu:

We spent most of our Halloween prep time working on the boys' costumes, so the adult costumes consisted of Steph making a Wonder Woman tiara/headband:

For the first time in several years we made the trek back to Columbus, Ohio to see Hayden's side of the family for Thanksgiving:

We needed a picture that included Peekay for the Christmas card, so after we got back he staged on on the front porch:

And finally, here we are with our Christmas tree:

All told, we had a pretty great 2017, and we're already looking forward to 2018. We hope you all had a wonderful year too!