While we did not do anything too fancy yesterday for New Years Eve, except watch Harry Potter, Prisoner of Azkaban, last night, we did let Sam and Andrew stay up until midnight to ring in the new year for the first time. Then we all promptly went to sleep. 🙂
Today was a fairly relaxed day. Watched the Rose Parade, some football, worked on getting the Catholic Engaged Encounter site for San Diego ready for the people I asked to wait to register. This deployment has taken more time than I expected, but hopefully this week will be the launch week. I don’t see any current issues for the one site.
The nice surprise today occurred while taking a walk on the Montclair Railroad Trail – while I fully expected to climb up to the dirt skate park at the top of the power line hill over Shepherd Canyon Drive with my boys, I didn’t expect Christine to want to try and find a childhood path she knew of. The path took off north and connected us to Zinn/Snake which got us home. On this path, there was a huge rope swing which the boys loved. Its always neat to find hidden surprises close to home.
On the walk home, Adam asked that I tell him a Friend Dragon story. It always warms my heart when my boys ask for these, because they were stories that my father made up for me. I don’t remember any of his specific stories, but have made some fun stories up for my boys along the way. I started with a story of some of our National Monuments getting stolen, with an idea that we would be stopping space aliens, but Adam just got going with his own ideas. He knew he could help by first getting his Spiderman “Web Flingers” and then needed his Deadpool outfit. His ideas kept coming all the way home. He was so happy to keep telling me his ideas, we got home and he lay down with me, chatting away as I asked if I could take a nap. I’m pretty sure he is a “Quality Time” kid – which would make sense as he has three brothers who all demand time from us.
We wrapped up the day and our stay up here in Oakland with a lovely meal at Victor, Ellen, and Alexandre’s house. Its really nice to have in-laws (father/mother/sister/brother) that you honestly like and appreciate.
And to wrap up my first post of the year, here are my resolutions for 2019.
- Learn another language with Duolingo – preparing for our trip this year.
- Plan out my week each Monday – I start with a pass as the year started on Tuesday. 🙂
- Regularly play guitar – perhaps take lessons. Thomas wants flute lessons too!
- Have a disciplined schedule – less late nighters.
- Make my bed every morning – because you have to start somewhere….