Drama Department Halloween Party

On Wednesday night we all attended a Halloween party put on by Kira and the Drama Department at the high school. The event was designed as a fund raiser for their upcoming trip to London and the kids were invited to come in costume and have a little fun.

Parker was thrilled to finally be able to dress up in his Superman costume and as we drove all the way down to the event he kept saying that Kira would be so proud of him for wearing his very cool costume. As you can tell from Conner's costume, Star Wars is back again and a lot of kids are dressing the parts.

The kids had a great time at the party, collecting a small bag of candy, getting hair decorated, playing a few games, and as noted in the next picture, a fortune teller gave them some good news. Not sure what was said, but the boys seemed happy with the results. The grand finale included a very good magic show, and then we parted ways, stopped for pizza and then headed back to the house for bed. (Well, Dianne and the boys anyway). A great evening indeed!

Homecoming Fall 2008

This is a super secret post that Kira must not find out about. I was told in no uncertain circumstances that this silly blog I have started may not discuss or otherwise post pictures of Kira. I may not also contact her via my new Facebook account. Hanging with parents is still uncool.

I understand Kira had a great time at her third homecoming event, but details have been a little sketchy. I need to have some of her friends over to get the scoop I guess.

From Valerie:

I know these pictures aren't very good. Lita took them last week when I was home with Baby Hobbs. But I wanted to show you how incredibly cute Jescie is in her Palau swim club cap. She takes swim lessons twice a week now with Tina (from Japan). She is in the Water Babies class with Daisy (our babysitter Lita's daughter). Too cute!

Max's 12th Birthday

It has been a while since our last visit to Santa Cruz, and so it was great to get a birthday invitation from Max to come for dinner and celebrate is 12th birthday in style.


On Saturday we drove down, carpooling with Kent and Ben. It was good to get caught up with Kent for the couple of hours we were trapped in the car.


The Santa Cruz Glynns all seemed to be doing very well (at least they put on a good show!) and I think Max had fun at his party. We went out to a local pizza place. Attendees included the Danville Glynns, Kent and Ben, Mom and Julian, AK, a neighbor - Dianne, and the Santa Cruz Glynns. It was a hit because it had games for the kids to play and win useless prizes. Over the course of the evening Conner won about 40 tattoos, which he is now wearing, two at a time, until we go through them all. They had beer for the adults, so the restaurant did a good job catering to every one's needs.


After pizza, beer and then cupcakes for dessert, we headed back to the mail room (aka the Glynn residence) to hang out with a glass of wine for a while. The boys all played together for a while and then Parker and Everett split off to battle with swords until we dragged him out to the car.


As always, the trips to Santa Cruz are too short, but fun was had, none the less.

Five Litttle Pumpkins

Keeping things on the straight and narrow

In an effort to ensure that our family blogger, AKA Tom, is providing the full insights to all his blogs I thought I would add a couple of clarifying comments:

(1) Parker and swimming - while Parker certainly has attempted, on at least 1 occassion, to participate in swim classes, of late he has clearly communicated his lack of willingness to continue. As such, Tom acquiesed to the smile (and presumably tears) of a 3 year old and determined that resuming such classes at a later date was more feasible. What a tough dad!

(2) Dianne and the San Jose Olympics - While I certainly should known in advance that climbing up, over, and through an inflatable obstacle course was not intended for overweight 40 something (or 29ish) moms the mere fact that I completed the course (albeit in a somewhat lesser fashion than I started) should be applauded! You should also note that 3 weeks after the event I am healing well and almost able to walk down stairs normally - YEAH - YES I am as stubborn at work as I am at home

(3) Tom continues to live in his dream world that training for multiple iron man events on an annual basis requires roughly 12 hours per week - although I do not track the data to the level that he most certainly does, I can tell you that this is an "average" time thoughout a whole year, does not normalize for vacation, holidays etc, and does not consider the incremental "getting ready" time - but it is fun to dream!

(4) Conner continues to amaze us all with his broad range of interests - most recently the Food Network (I am sure he gets this one from Grandma Verna). Recently, when questioned whether or not any of his friends even knew of the Food Network, he proudly announced that his good buddie, Addison, knew the history behind Alton Brown (one of the more notable Food Network hosts) including his winning of an Iron Chef competiton - yes we support great diversity in our home!!

(5) And last, but certainly not least, Kira has attended her final Homecoming dance (while final one that she qualifies to go to). The remarkable thing about this was the lack of "warm up" to the event - no need to have a special hair appt made, no need to go out shopping for expensive dresses, shoes, or other accessories, and no need to open our home for photo ops - either we are growing immune to this or she has moved onto bigger social events - wonder what Junior Prom and Senior Ball will bring this year!

Cub Scouts Airplane Racing

Conner is officially a member of the Cub Scout Organization. With two pack meetings and one den meeting under our belts, Conner has decided that this is a fun thing to do. A couple of days ago was the official balsa wood plane flying championships.

At the beginning of the year, each Cub Scout was given a small kit containing a block of balsa wood, some plastic for wings/fins, a propeller and some rubber bands.

It took us a while to get the plane sanded down to the shape we wanted, painted and fully assembled. In the end it actually looked pretty good.

At the pack meeting the planes are attached to a fishing line, the propellers wound tightly, but not too tightly, because if they break, your done, and then at the count of "three" all the planes race down the lines to the other wall.

We were pretty good at finishing second. In the four or five races we had, we came second all but once. The second last race, the plane flew backwards when released. Note, to self for next year, remember to wind rubber band the right way). After the last race, our plane was ready for a rest, having lost all it's wings to various traumatic crashes.

Some of these planes were definitely "Dad" projects, but most kids had a great time and everyone traded notes on how to make things better and faster for next year.