December 2025

 

December started off with the Cross Country banquet. 

Here is Anna and her friend, Maggie.

Maggie isn't on the team but her brother is.

Anna volunteered to say nice things about the coaches and also recruited the others. 

She's becoming a real leader.

Here is the Freshman Girls Team. 

They all received a certificate and some also received the Scholar Athlete Award for their GPA.

Anna received a trophy for most improved player on the Freshman team!

I waited, but she never turned around to face the audience as she received it.

Here's the Frosh/Soph boys and girls trophy winners.

The professional photos came in!

The Freshman team came in first place in the league!

Later back at home she let us get a good picture.

 I went to the bridge Christmas party/game. 

The only picture I took was of the cute little olive penguin.🤣

At least my partner and I did well.

We went to the Belmont Shore Christmas Parade and saw Oli with his 5th grade class.

The city was trying to create a world record of people wearing Christmas pajamas.

I'm not sure if they succeeded but there were a lot of people in pajamas!

We didn't get the message though. lol

It was time for the annual boat parade!

I must have taken ten pictures of this boat and every time I cut off the top of the sail.

Kinga enjoyed decorating cookies this year.  😇

Everyone else blew me off. 

Later she got dressed for her ballet recital...

...which she performed with enthusiasm!

Christmas Eve was at our house with friends and family.

Here is Melissa and Kelly's sister, Kat.

Dan and Kelly, who both had surgery on the morning of the 19th, pose with their bandages and casts.

The girls were ecstatic that Jillian was coming to dinner.

So nice to have Sheila and Ernie close enough to join us.

Dan invited his golf buddy, Jim.

I don't have any pictures of Christmas Day,

 but that evening Darlene and all her family came over for dessert.

Beth came in on the 28th! 

We all walked to In n Out for lunch and stopped and took a photo on the Holiday Bench.

Beth was just in time to celebrate Dan's birthday.

We always like to celebrate hers at the same time since we rarely see her on her special day.

Dan is all into clapping out flames these days.

And now it was time for the annual Grandpa and Grandma sleepover!

We started out at John's Incredible Pizza.

After two and half hours no one wanted to leave!

After three hours we were all ready to go.

Paige helped a lot by taking Kinga around when I needed a break.

This dinosaur machine was hit with all the older ones.

We came back to the house and went night swimming!

After that it was time for the annual grandkids matching pajama picture. 

Poor Maks, they ran out of adult size. 

 Something tells me he was okay with it. 😂

In the morning, with little sleep, we had French toast and eggs for breakfast.

The next day these zombies went to Yogurtland to spend their gift cards.

On New Years Eve we went to Becky's annual New Year's Eve party.

The kids, and adults, had a blast playing the saran wrap game!

 

That's a (Saran) wrap for 2025!

Onward and upward into the New Year!

November 2025

November photos were scarce this year! I guess I just didn't remember to pull out the camera.

We celebrated Kinga's third birthday. She's officially not a toddler anymore.😢

                        

Anna got herself out of bed early, which is not an easy feat for her, 

and ran the Seal Beach Turkey Trot with two friends.

The big red chair holds a lot of memories with grandkids walking to the park,

 but this time Kinga wanted a picture "by herself".

A rare smiling photo of Mia. 

We celebrated Arek's 40th!!

We went to Dani's for Thanksgiving this year. I didn't take any pictures but Dani took a picture of me meeting her newest child, Gemma.

The next day we went to see Air Supply with our concert buddies, Joe and Karen.

I think there will more pics for December!

October 2025

 Another month, another medal. She used to be the same height as her friend.

Melissa and I took all the kids to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal.

Mia's favorite class is her engineering class. She made this catapult for an assignment on her 3D printer. She got some help from Dan but she did a lot of the work herself.

Family dinner for Anna's birthday! 

It's hard to fit all the September birthdays into one month so they overflow into October!

It was time for our second annual trip to Las Vegas to watch the Raiders! We were going to see Barry Manilow on Saturday night but he canceled due to bronchitis.

So we found out Steve Martin and and Martin Short were in town and got tickets for their show.

Did we like it? Sorry, Barry, but your illness was our windfall!

You would never know one of their best friends had just died that morning.

They were a perfect example of the show must go on!

They did pay tribute to her at the end of the show with a silent toast.

The next day was the Raiders game. They won! Who would have thought??? 

It was fun day to be here also.

There was a ceremony at halftime for Eric Allen, who had just been inducted into the Hall of Fame.

We got a good view of him on the Jumbotron.

Aloe Blacc played he's famous song (at least that's what they said), The Man, as a tribute to Allen.

It's always a sea of people leaving the game towards the strip. 

We stayed at the Mandalay Bay this time so it was a short walk for us.

We stopped at Border Grill for dinner and I had the vegan tacos for my birthday dinner.

And...another medal - Orange County Championships!

Beth stopped by for a weekend visit after their Palm Desert trip. 

We love that we live next to so many places within walking distance.

A walk to Yogurtland is always a favorite.

Kinga and I went on our first twitching trip. 

There was a very rare Mandarin duck in Irvine and we found it!

The best part is the it posed for us on a rock.

In tried to get a picture of Kinga and the duck together but the duck is just a blur.

There was a lady on the left with her tripod all set up 

so I couldn't very well ask her to move out of the way.

We watched Becky's kids overnight while they went to a wedding. 

We no longer have a fire pit but that doesn't keep us from making s'mores!

The didn't care about our piddly fire.

Halloween Night - here is Anna with the eighth graders.

And now Mia is with eighth graders.

When it came time to go out, Anna decided to go with the high schoolers instead since they weren't staying out late due to the cross country meet the next day. 

And Mia decided to go with the eighth graders because they WERE staying out late!

And we move on to holiday season...