We went to California and here is a post about it

The boys and I went to California last week to visit my brother and sister-in-law and niece, and I will never be able to spell “niece” right the first time.

It was a tough decision to go, after we found out that Molly’s services were being held while we’d be away. She was never far from our mind during the trip, especially on Monday.

We arrived Wednesday evening, and were pretty exhausted, so we had some pizza and went to bed. I slept terribly that night, for some reason (oh right because I’m old and have insomnia) but fortunately, we didn’t have a ton planned for Thursday. Ellie and I went for a walk, where we did a little light celebrity stalking. Later, we went swimming in the neighbor’s pool and hit up Target for supplies because Friday we…

went to Disneyland! We got up super early and were on the road a bit after 6 so we could arrive around 7. In the cars on the way there (I was in the girl car with Jennifer and Ellie, and the boys rode with Uncle Evan) we all were on our phones at exactly 6:59:59 to get reservations (or whatever they call it) for the new Star Wars ride. I managed to get them for us, yay!

We spent the entire day at the park. This should really be its own post. We rode a bunch of rides (the Rise of the Resistance was completely worth the stress of getting on it, and we didn’t have to wait in any line at all, which was nice) and walked a zillion steps and had dinner at a Tiki restaurant (so good) and my feet are still disgustingly blistered, but it was worth it.

Oh, and Linus is now obsessed with Dole Whip. Hard to blame him, it was delicious!

Saturday we mostly rested, except we went and got some famous Italian sandwiches from a place down the road for lunch. In the evening, Evan and I took the boys to a LAFC (Los Angeles Football Club) game. It was fun. The food was good. I got a jacket which will come in handy during football season here (they have the same colors as the Saints) and the boys got jerseys and as usual when we go to pro soccer games, the score ended us 2-2.

(I guess we have a streak of draws too.) (When we got home, we watched Season 2, Episode 1 of Ted Lasso.)

Sunday, the kids and I went to visit my friend Robyn who used to work at Automattic, and I made a new best friend who is three years old. We had delicious ice cream after hanging out at her house and eating pizza.

Maybe my favorite picture from the entire trip. My heart was in a puddle here.

Monday was the day of Molly’s service, and I still needed to take the boys to the beach, so we stopped for some flowers on the way and made a little tribute to her at the beach. Now, she probably preferred a more tropical beach, but I like to think she would have appreciated it, even if it was cloudy and the temperature was hovering around 68 degrees.

The boys filled their bathing suits with sand and Miles swallowed half of the Pacific Ocean, so we left after a couple of hours before heading back to Evan and Jennifer’s to relax and pack. (Boo!) A few of us went to the Huntington for a sunset stroll, which was stunning, but also, my feet were still killing me. So kind of painful too.

We came home yesterday after a long day of travel to a heat index of 105 after a week of 70s, but Daddy and Ziggy were very happy to see us!

Bench pic 6

Except this time it’s a step.

The last time we took a bench pic was 2019. You can see the previous five pics here.

Molly

The world is a bit dimmer now. My sweet baby cousin Molly died last week. I say “baby” but she was, in fact, a grown woman with babies of her own. But when I was growing up, she was one of my very own, real-life baby dolls.

I wish I had pictures of her with me to post from when she was a baby, but my mental picture is a dark-hair, dark-eyed, happy baby wearing smocked dresses. She was a ballerina. We saw her perform in the Nutcracker, and I was never more proud the year she was Clara.

All the girl cousins and my aunt Mary Beth (who doesn’t age so she just looks like one of the kids) in about 1989.

I was proud to have this beautiful, loving, wickedly funny woman in my family. Her laugh was infectious and her hugs were tight. I haven’t seen her in almost three years, thanks to COVID and her two young boys keeping her busy, and I regret so much not reaching out to her more than the occasional text. But isn’t that the way life goes?

I can’t stand to think about everyone who she leaves behind. Her two boys, her husband, her brother, her parents, her cousins and aunts and uncles and dozens of close friends. To know Molly was to love her, and I’m so lucky to have had her in my life.

Rest in peace, sweet girl.

Twenty years of blogging

Twenty years ago today, on July 10, 2001, I published my first ever blog post. Not that I called it a blog then. Each month was a page on my website (not sure what the URL was back then, because I didn’t register pyjammy.com until March 2002) and I would update the month’s HTML file every time I posted an entry.

I added a splash page at some point. How 2003 of me!

Sometime around 2003, I moved it to a real blogging platform (okay fine it was Blogger.) And then in 2008 I moved it to WordPress.com (and it was self-hosted for a while, but after I started at Automattic, I moved it back here to WordPress.com.)

Over the past 20 years I’ve blogged about running, weight loss, wedding planning, pregnancy, raising triplets, and sewing. This is the 4092nd post.

My stats don’t go back prior to 2009, but since then I’ve had over 2,000,000 views and 300,000 visitors. 2010 was my zenith of blogging, when I posted 541 times (that’s when I started the first 365 project, back when the boys were little and adorable.)

This is the most popular post, at least of the last 13 years.

Who ever thought I’d still be blogging after 20 years? Will I still be blogging in 20 years? I mean, surely I’ll still be taking the monthly pics…

Number 163

Fourth of July!

June so far

Not that there’s a lot to say. But I guess we’ve done some things, now that everyone is vaccinated and life seems to be returning somewhat to normal.

Plus I got a new iPhone so my pictures are better now. 😀

We’ve been to a couple of Jesters games…

We went out to eat! At a restaurant! Though now that I think about it, we sat outside so I guess it wasn’t that notable. But it was really nice. And we sat outside the pub after and played with a tiny puppy.

I donated blood and got a cool t-shirt. Ziggy remains adorable. It’s rained a lot.

I made beignets and we went to the pub for Father’s Day.

So yeah, it’s been a quiet month so far.

Next month will be more eventful. The boys and I are going to Los Angeles to visit my brother and his family and we’re going to an LAFC game and Disneyland and I’ll finally get to meet my friend Robyn’s daughter and see my brother’s new house. Very exciting.

Science: An Update

So you might remember that back in February, the boys began their participation in a vaccine trial for the Moderna COVID vaccine for 12-17 year olds.

And then, remember how last month, Pfizer beat Moderna to market for that age group? Meanwhile all of their friends were getting vaccinated, but we were being patient. We were told the study would be getting unblinded (which means we’d find out who got the vaccine and who got the placebo) at the end of May, at which time whoever wasn’t vaccinated the first time would get it.

But then the sponsors of the Moderna study decided, nah, they were going to wait until the fall to unblind the study, which meant the boys would be starting school possibly unvaccinated.

Well, we got a call last week from one of the lovely nurses working at the clinic giving us the option of unblinding, but whoever wasn’t vaccinated would have to leave the study. (And I’d march them right to CVS to get Pfizer.)

Not ideal (I mean, what about science, but also, what about a kid or two being mad that they weren’t going to make all the money that the other(s) would get? Because if they were vaccinated, they could stay in the study.

We got an appointment today for their unblinding. Our theory after the first shot was that Oliver and Linus got the vaccine, and Miles did not, because Oliver and Linus were fatigued and feverish afterwards and Miles was fine. But then that theory kind of blew up when, after the second shot, only Miles was fatigued. So I really had no idea going into it.

{In the study, 2/3 of participants got the vaccine, 1/3 got the placebo. So it was natural to assume our three would fall into those proportions.}

In the appointment today (boy I really am dragging this out, huh?) they had to have physicals and blood draws and COVID tests (the usual) and I had to fill out the consent forms since the study had changed (re: the unblinding) and blah blah blah finally after about an hour, the doctor was able to go get the results.

I was sitting in my usual chair in the exam room when I heard the doctor say as he walked down the hall towards us, “I can’t believe it. They all got it.”

He walked in the room and confirmed it. And then this was me:

The doctor was as shocked as any of us, he said he’s never seen anything like it.

So yeah, the boys have all been fully vaccinated since mid-April!

Bring on summer soccer! And yay science!!!

Thirteen and a half

Featuring a cameo by the zigster!

Last day of seventh grade

Today is the last day of seventh grade. Hard to believe we all (and by “all” I mean “the whole world”) got through this year. Let’s just hope next year looks more like, say, fifth grade. The last normal school year.

Based on their first day pic from August, I’d say they have grown a little bit.

If nothing else, their hair certainly has!

Some notable things about seventh grade:

They were in the same class for the first time since PreK-3.
Okay maybe aside from, you know, pandemic, that’s the biggest thing.

And on to eighth!

May so far

It’s been an eventful month. Maybe too eventful.

Went to Virginia to visit Kiki. That was good eventful. Being on an airplane was weird. We baked a lot, including croissants. PS buying good croissants is much easier. Just do that. But it was fun.

Oh wait, but the night before I left, I had to take Oliver to get stitches. Well, a stitch, really. (He lost a fight with his desk.)

When I got back, I got the house cleaned professionally for the first time and IT IS STILL CLEAN.

Then a tornado skipped through our neighborhood last week, and we lost power for a while. Spent the day with the boys at Starbucks and Target.

I did a dumb thing and booked a (non-refundable) hotel room in a half-asleep haze, not even thinking about the fact that hotels don’t let you check in until 3pm. The power came back on at 2.

The boys and I went to our suite and hung out for two hours. I took the soaps and shampoos yet I still don’t feel like I got my money’s worth. Ah well. An expensive lesson.

Fortunately, we didn’t have any damage from the storm, at least not physically.

And then on Sunday, Linus was having a tough time with this asthma, which ultimately resulted in an ER visit followed by overnight admission.

I’m ready for the rest of the month to be boring, thanks.

Here’s a bunch of pics. You’re welcome.

13 years, 5 months

In front of the jasmine, which smells so heavenly right now. And check out that lush lawn!

Yard renovation complete!

A month ago, I contacted a local landscaper to talk about getting our yard looking nice. Because it looked terrible.

The lemon tree had died, and was now just a scrubby bunch of spiky shoots. There was no grass, only weeds and dirt. There were soccer balls everywhere, and a big ugly shed, and a few bushes we planted a few years ago when we put in the patio. There was also a chunk of sidewalk from when a house used to be in our yard. (Well, I mean, it wasn’t our yard then, but there used to be a house between ours and our neighbor’s, but it was torn down at some point and now we have side yards.)

Before: (this is embarrassing)

Anyway, they ripped up the sidewalk chunk, removed the lemon scraggle, leveled the yard (including the unsightly mound in the corner that was made up of the dirt we excavated for the patio), squared off the patio, cleared out the weeds, planted plants, mulched, put gravel and sand down, moved the shed, and finally placed artificial turf down.

Seventeen years ago, when we bought our house, we planted a tiny tree and had a pretty nice grass lawn. Since then, the tree grew 20+ feet, we got a dog and three kids, and bamboo grew up from the neighbor’s yard. So it’s nice and shady, but not exactly conducive to grass growing. Hence the artificial turf.

LOOK AT THE GLORIOUS AFTERS!