Rehearsing James and the Giant Peach

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dancin’
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

It is so incredibly sweet that these two are doing their first theater production together! They have done 3 sleepovers together in the past 2 weeks! This time, Finley stayed at our house. Here they are practicing one of their main songs!

Incidentally, Cameron’s theater camp started one week after Dylan’s and they just got their roles! Happily, she got one of the ones she requested, Young Philip! It is adorable practicing with her. She really likes the part where she has to scream and run away. I’m especially proud that she is completely ok and proactively interested in playing boy characters!

Theater is already shaping up to be a lot of work (what with the 2 kids in separate productions), but I know it will be worth it…they are both so happy to participate.


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Secret Life of Pets

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G. and Cameron
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Last weekend, Cameron saw her good buddy Gigi. They hung out at her house for a good part of the day and then returned to our house for a sleepover as we had planned to watch “The Secret Life of Pets” on Sunday.

Poor Gigi had just seen “Zootopia,” though, and got nervous on Saturday night, so she ended up going home around 10pm. Cameron was very kind and expressed much hope that she would still come for the movie…and she did!

It’s been very sweet watching Thing 2 grow so much. She has really become a very sensitive and thoughtful friend and sibling.


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Chloe’s First Time on Skates

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ready to roll!
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

K. and Cameron spent a ton of time out back together, skating and playing tetherball. This little thing wanted in on the action.

It was adorable to watch Cameron give her “lessons.” Cameron was an attentive and patient teacher and Chloe was a very willing and equally attentive student!

I wish I’d gotten a picture, but at the end of the evening, K. and Cameron put on a skating show. They had a few “choreographed” moves, one involving high-fiving while passing each other and another where they shook hands. And they had bows!


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2016 Wharf to Wharf

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at Schwan Lagoon
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Well, we did it! Thing 1 and I made it through another Wharf to Wharf with hardly any training (on his part) at all! And, it was spectacular!

Overall, I think we maintained a similar pace to last year. If we didn’t stop for a picture and for Pokemon Go (yes, I fired the app up to help entertain us along the way), we surely would have beat last year’s time.

We also saw Mariah and Finley! We’d been on the lookout for them at Seabright, but didn’t actually find them until we were on Portola. What luck that we ran into each other at such a big event!

Also, due to our faster-than-expected pace, Tom was late to rendezvous point where Cameron was going to jump in. Dylan was very unhappy about her joining us. We spent quite some time discussing what to do — should he stay with Mariah and Finley (which he didn’t want to do) and then doubling back about 5 or so blocks to go meet up with Cameron. After that, poor Dylan’s mood was soured and his heart wasn’t in it.


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fresh legs
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

This one came bolting towards us from 30th and East Cliff. She had super energy and it was delightful to see her so enthusiastic to run!

Initially, she was not very sensitive to Dylan’s mood…but after about a mile, she was very kind and kept telling Dylan we could go at his pace and that he could jump in on a race with me and her next time.

After we got our goodie bags and shirts, we waited on the beach for Chloe and Tom.

Our original plan was to walk to Mariah’s house, but Dylan was still a bit unhappy and expressed a desire to just go home. I told him about Mr. Toot’s Coffehouse, where he had his very first coffehouse drink!–and we ended up going there for a couple of vegan peanut butter chocolate chip cookies, vegan breakfast burritos, hot chocs for the kids, and a lavendar almond latte for me.

Our day did not end here! From there, Dylan and I went to theatre to work on sets — he went to Louden Nelson and painted some stairs, I stayed behind and helped build the Giant Peach!

From there, we went to swim lessons for the girls. By then, Dylan was starving, so he and I headed to Shun Feng for mu-shu veggies and returned just in time to see Cameron wrapping up her lesson.

It was an exhausting but wonderful end to a very full weekend: Finley spent the night on Friday and HAKT came over on Saturday for games and dinner! Now it’s Monday. Sigh.


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Dylan and Taliana’s Home-rolled Summer Camp – 7/5 and 7/9

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photobooth at the Boardwalk
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

So, this past week, Dylan and Taliana both had just a few days in between the last camp (the Spot) and next camp. They spent a couple of hours at the Boardwalk, riding rides, playing arcade games, and hittin’ the photo booth. They are such sweet friends together!

Later in the week, the two went to Tom’s work with him and they explored the SJSU campus. Apparently, they walked a lot–saw the Olympic statues, went to Starbucks, checked out the MLK Jr. Library….They really are growing up!


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Minecraft Server Workshop at Google

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minecraft server-ing
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Oh, look! A recent post! I’m trying to be more timely. I just made some space on my phone, so I didn’t want to lose track of these photos. Good incentive to post!

Taliana and Dylan and I went to another Minecraft coding meetup this past Saturday. I kinda knew that they already knew how to do this stuff…they’ve set up a server in order to do the modding workshops…but this one was at Google and I thought it would be a good experience: good wi-fi, a peek into what Google looks like, more dedicated coding time, etc.

And, I’m glad we went! It was fun to see all of the Android “flavor” sculuptures (Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, KitKat, Lollipop and Marshmallow–for the record, they just named the next release: Nougat!) and fun to see the inside of the Google offices. Plus, the wi-fi was good (whereas in the past, there was not enough bandwidth for all participants).


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playing
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Indeed, the kids knew what they were doing already, so they just took the opportunity to play.


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at google
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

After the workshop, nobody wanted to take a picture with the Android Flavors sculptures (sad me), but they did take a picture on the bench inside….


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future googlers
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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dylan
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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taliana
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

I’m so glad these kids continue to show an interest. It’s fun to take them to these events! Poor Cameron also wanted to go, but she is still too young, but I’m looking forward to taking her and Chloe as well!

Oh, yeah. So now we opened a port on Dylan’s machine for his server. I finally decided we didn’t have to stick to IPs (especially since I also wanted to have a user-friendly alexa-sonos server name), so I bit the bullet and added DynDNS service for our external IPs. If anyone is interested in playing Minecraft on Dylan and Taliana’s server, send a message and we’ll send the URL!


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Backyard with Chloe – 7/6

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backyard with Chloe
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

This is just another day hanging out in the backyard with Chloe! She has been enjoying playing with her Shopkins in the water table–hours of fun!!!


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water table
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

We have gotten our money’s worth out of this toy. Some things are just a total waste of space and resources, but this one is a gem!


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last day of our first 2016 swim sessions

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photobombing at the pool
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

We’re obviously very behind in posts here, but I’ll try to catch up with a few pictures! It’s been very busy what with the new full-time work schedule and Tom’s usual hectic summer schedule!

But, as you can see, the kids are still doing swim lessons…well, at least the girls are since Dylan broke his arm 3 lessons in!

Poor Chloe has a bummer of a teacher this session so she pulled out of class half-way early. At least she got some pool time in…!


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before class
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Chloe was really looking forward to class before it started, but then she remembered being in the deep end last week. I was picking up stuff at the store during swim class, but Tom told me he was really angry and fearful that Chloe would drown because she was just left to hang off the edge of the pool (I wondered why he didn’t speak to the teacher). This week, Chloe asked me to talk to her teacher and so I did. But, after last week, I think trust with that instructor is lost (interestingly, another much older girl started crying and left the lesson early, too. Anyway, Chloe will have a different teacher next session and I am thinking of asking for another teacher for Cameron (who has been assigned to her once more).


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Father’s Day and Dylan’s New Haircut – 6/19

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with new cast and haircut
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

This photo is now a few weeks old…Dylan got his hair cut and he got his new waterproof cast (the previous week)!


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another picture
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.


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father’s day brunch
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Dylan decided to get his hair cut on Father’s Day. In the morning, I made chocolate beer waffles with cashew cream sauce, regular waffles for the kids, roasted potatoes and some grapefruit mimosas. Everyone liked it and I didn’t burn anything.


(posted on 7/3)

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Dylan’s new cast – 6/14

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new cast
Originally uploaded by coffywoman.

Here’s the boy with his new cast!


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