A new park just opened up nearby, and we had to check it out!

Lola’s 2020 edition pumpkin hats!

It’s getting crowded in the kitchen! Lola and the kids made palitaw today, which is a chewy sweet dessert made of glutinous rice flour coated with coconut flakes and sesame seeds. “Litaw” in Tagalog means “to float” or “to surface,” and it’s often eaten around the New Year to help the luck float up or surface. We’ll take it!

First lucky wishbone, both lucky wishes!

She turned two today:) And Meryl made several cakes for all of us.

Gosh it was great to see everyone! Kahuna Seafoods (sockeye and halibut) and Wolfbear Farm (honey) pop-up on the block, the COVID edition. (Frank, Meryl, Sarah, Holmes, Matt, Kinley, Cal, McKenzie, Eva, and Allison)

Chanterelles on toast (after our watching our neighbor, Kim’s, cooking demo) and Alaskan halibut to pair with the release of Last Man Fishing, focused on sustainable fishing. It has been a week. One or both kids have been home sick each day, COVID tests for all, I foolishly ate something with trace amounts of cashews last night sending me to the ER (thank you, neighbor Margy, Lola, and Tito for coming to the rescue!), and a nail showed up in our car tire this morning (hello, new tire). Steak night tomorrow, we’re going to live it up:)

Dog poop bags, they’re perfect for stacking projects during dinner prep!

From stacking dog poop bags to painting…he’s already blurring every day objects into art.

Hold tight, parents! The cold season has just begun. Though, I must say the cuddles are nice.

With the weather this morning, we got notices of heavy rains (no more flooding, please!) and power outages…but the call we actually got was to let us know that Holmes wasn’t going to last all day at school. So far, his one-on-one home activity requests have been to build a fireplace fire and play all of Meryl’s puzzle and board games, with the liberty to touch every little piece without complaint:)

Meanwhile, I’m a sucker. Meryl and I headed to the little-been-there-forever ski shop by our house on the way back from school today and she scored a new set of last year’s skis and boots. Hello ski season, we’re all in…mostly for the hot chocolate.

I upgraded to a new pair of last year’s skis too! (Better than the twenty+ year old skis in the garage!) Here’s to all the pizza slices and French fries on the hill. I’m way too excited.

We all received negative COVID test results! Holmes promptly headed to school and Meryl hung out at home one more day. Though, after she sneezed seemingly all of her cold out in the morning, it was like she never had one thereafter:)

Lunch break! After watching a cooking demonstration by a Filipinx chef, we were inspired to get a few ingredients and lunch to-go ourselves. Turo turo translates to “point point” in Tagalog and also refers to a casual style of dining where you point to what you want to eat in the display case to take away. We talked it up with Meryl, so today seemed to be the perfect day for a lunch adventure to Fou Lee Market!