We were reminded and decided to have a visit to a pumpkin patch this morning.  It has been at least 2 years since our last visit as a family.  We went to the Spina Farm which is a nice one closest to us.  When we arrived, we learned that this farm has become like a theme park now as we had to park in the big lot after paying for parking and lined up to get in.  They did have safety measures in place.      

  We walked around; we noticed that they had re-arranged and added new things.  After checking out all the activities, the boys wanted to do the corn maze which was much bigger and more involved than what we anticipated.  It was pretty inside too.  The maze turned out to be quite hard.  Logan and I finally got out of it before Stuart and Connor did.  Afterward, we picked out the pumpkins we liked before we left to head home.

    This year in 2020 marked our 15th year of marriage.  It is hard to believe how fast time has flied by.  With the COVID pandemic, we did not have any special celebration in mind.  The anniversary also landed on a Thursday this year and thus it was basically like any ordinary days.  After the usual school day, the boys did home work and had some game time afterward, we went out for a dinner.  It was nice to finally have a drink outside of our house.

     Connor wanted to decorate his room this year, so when he goes to class, his classmates and teacher could see them.  Thus he and I put up a couple of spiders along with some of his previous Halloween things in his room.  Connor later told us that his teacher said he inspired her to decorate her space too.

    After sharing a couple of spiders with Connor, I decided that we needed more and so I bought some more.  Now I think I went a bit too crazy with these spiders.

    During the boys’ fall break, we decided to take a short trip to a nearby beach town.  It was a good timing to get away as it was still quite hot with poor air in San Jose.  We found these cottages that would take doggies and it seemed safer to avoid much public areas with our own cottage.  We arrived on Thursday first to near Monterey; we walked around the coast and later found a pizza joint to have lunch.  Afterward we could finally check in to the cottage.  We had one of the smallest units but it was plentiful for us.  It did have an unusually short entrance door that Stuart had to be careful.  We loved having a private backyard to ourselves.  Buddy also liked the large common courtyard in the center for all the doggies to walk around.

    After a much needed break for TV and game time, we walked over to the Asilomar Beach.  Stuart and I had spent time in the Asilomar conference ground before and thus it was nice to reminisce the beautiful ground while walking through it.  Then we arrived to the beach and we were surprised by how soft and wonderful the sand was.  The weather was perfect and thus the boys and I spent a long time playing with sand and at the water.  Buddy was having a good time walking along the coastline with Stuart; he would love to be let free like some dogs there, but we were not ready for it yet.  After a couple hours of playtime and a good shower, we ordered takeout from the local Fishwife.  It was very relaxing to hang out in our cottage the rest of the night.

     On Friday the air quality was not too good in the morning, thus we decided to hang out in the room just as what the boys loved to do.  I did take Buddy out to walk all around the Asilomar conference ground and remember about the day when I went for a conference.  Before lunch time, we headed out to Carmel.  It was unusually warm and sunny that day.  We walked around downtown and finally found a good place to stop to have lunch; Buddy was happy to rest in the shade and had some iced water served by the waitress.  Next we spent an hour at the Carmel Beach as we were not as prepared for a long outing.  We liked the Carmel Beach as well; there were even more doggies being free there and Buddy loved watching them.

     After our usual afternoon breaktime in the cottage, we walked back to Asilomar beach.  This time we stayed until after sunset and it was another awesome fun time at the beach.  Connor loved bossing us around building cities with sand; Logan had a good time building and playing with water despite the fact he sometimes told us that he does not like getting dirty at the beach.  I did take turns walking Buddy with Stuart, and I also enjoyed taking pictures of the sunset as well.  We finally had to say bye to the beach and headed back.  Since the food was so great plus we were tired and lazy, we ordered again at Fishwife for its close proximity and enjoyed another wonderful dinner.

    We tried to make the most of our trip and we stayed in the cottage until close to check out time.  We all agreed that we will return one day again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mvHhW_A41sQ

     The boys had the Fall Break and I took the week off to be with them.  A couple of things I wanted to get done first were giving them a haircut and get our flu shots.  This time I was able to have enough energy to give both boys a cut on the same day, and I am happier with the cut this time as well.  On Monday when Stuart was done with the morning meetings, he took an earlier lunch to go with us to get a drive thru flu shot.  We waited total of 30 mins; the boys were nervous the whole time, but they did well just sitting in the car and had it given to them.  Next we took a wonderful two day getaway to Pacific Grove to wrap up this week break.  More on the trip in a latter post.

      For PE, Logan had to learn about 16 muscles in the body and the types of exercises to increase endurance for these muscles, thus this was a big homework for him.  Logan did work

hard and tried his best to memorize all those names.  At the end, the teacher gave each student a verbal quiz and Logan did not do well.  He was very disappointing and was saddened by it.  The next week each student had to come up with a 30 minutes workout with the different exercises.  The teacher liked Logan’s routine and picked him as the leader for his small group, thus Logan had to lead a few students to do his workout.  Logan was freaked out with this assignment; we had not really seen how stressed and scared he was for days.  Logan tried to memorize and practice on his routine, and on the day before, we suggested him to rehearse it with us.  Connor suggested doing it on Zoom to give Logan more of a realistic practice.  Logan was nervous with us but he did well.  He made some last minute changes to make the routine last closer to 30 minutes.

    Finally the PE class was due to happen after lunch on Friday before the fall break.  Logan did not really have a good appetite for lunch and he quickly returned to his room before class started to get ready.  Later we heard Logan’s voice on the other side of the door.  He was loud enough and he did a good job announcing the exercise, describing which muscle it helped, timing his group through each one minute routine, and the 15 seconds break before the next one.  According to Logan, one of his classmates appraised Logan for doing a good job leading their small group.  Logan was very happy and relieved when this class was over.  Who knows a subject like PE gave Logan the most grief so far.