On Monday while I was in AZ, I got an electronic notification that Logan was excuse earlier before school ended.  It turned out that Logan might have had a migraine headache and nausea after lunch, thus he finally had to go to the office at the last period of the day.  He had the nurse called Stuart and he was picked up early.  Because of these symptoms, the school has a protocol requiring a negative COVID19 test before Logan could return to school.  Unfortunately I was not home and Stuart had to deal with these all by himself.  He talked with the nurse, an admin and the principal to clarify the situation and confirm their required protocol.  He also had to take Logan to get tested the next morning.

    Logan remained not feeling well for a couple hours after school on Monday, but after a good nap, he felt better and the symptoms all resolved.  Logan tried to do some work at home the next two days to stay on track.  Stuart had to continue his work while taking Logan to get tested and watching Logan.  Fortunately on Thursday early morning, we received the negative result and Logan could return to school.

    Dora was invited to give a presentation at a conference being held in Phoenix, thus I had planned to go with her for support.  When the date got closer, the conference unfortunately changed to a virtual meeting instead, but Dora and I had decided to keep our planned trip and visit AZ together. We had a short trip, thus we planned for one day at Sedona and one day at Phoenix. 

     We arrived at the airport at similar time on Sunday and we drove to a town near Sedona.  We were able to see the city at sundown and had a nice dinner in the village.  The next morning we woke up early to get to a very popular hiking trail, Devil’s Bridge.  We made it in time for parking and after an interesting beautiful hike on red rocks, we made it to the scenic spot.  We decided to wait for our picture time which we were glad that we had.  The hikers there helped each other to capture the moments and our pictures came out awesome.  After a troll in the village and a good lunch, we left the beautiful Sedona to drive back to Phoenix.  Sedona was definitely a nice place and we were there in a good weather; thus we were happy that we made the drive for it.

     In Phoenix, we did not find it as interesting.  We walked around one famous street and had dinner.  The next morning we hiked in Papago Park to find “Hole in the wall” and saguaro cactus; it was a nice hike there too but felt very different from Sedona.  Overall this AZ was a nice visit and it was awesome hanging out with Dora.  I did miss the family and so I brought home two “cactus friends” for the boys.  Here are our photos.

    We had initially planned to go to Maui during the boys’ fall break, but we finally cancelled it since Connor has not been vaccinated.  Instead, we planned a short trip to Cambria and we booked a house this time.  I am very happy that we made this decision as this trip was much more relaxing.  The house had everything we needed and we could spread out more.  It also had a beautiful deck where we could hang out around a firepit looking out into the nature.  We also loved the quieter beaches and awesome hiking trails in Cambria, and we enjoyed strolling in the quaint village.  It was the Scarecrow Festival at Cambria this month, thus it was very interesting seeing varieties of scarecrows all over town.  There was also an elephant seal rookery there; we had fun looking for the seals.  Buddy seemed quite relaxed there as well; we had gone out for a couple short trips on our own, and Buddy had a good nap. Here are the photos to sum up our wonderful fall break trip!

    Logan had a total of three meets in this season. The kids were placed in Group A (the fastest), Group B (for 6th and 7th graders only) and the Open Race.  Placements were determined based on the time trials during the second week and continued to be adjusted based on the time from each meet.  Logan did well this year and were placed in Group A for all three meets.  So I had to pick him up earlier from school and go to the Montgomery Hills as Group A boys were the first to run.  Logan was worried to come last among the group, but he had done well all three times, coming in in the midst of the Group A.  The day for the 2nd meet was super hot, 95 degrees, thus the meet was cancelled.  Fortunately our coach along with a few other school’s’ coaches found another location to run the next day when the weather cooled down.  This location was a place where we go hiking on our own sometimes, thus Logan is familiar with it, but it said the meet was much harder as he almost ran the entire 2 miles without really warming up,  Thus he felt winded the rest of the night.  For the third meet, they were back to the usual spot and the weather was finally cooler.  Logan tried to warm up and cool down better for this last meet, but he still felt a bit queasy afterward.  I did learn that Logan always tried his best to put up a good face for his classmates and me to take a few pictures; he did not complain too much until we left the meets.  We definitely are very proud of Logan running these 2-mile of hills each time with determination and rarely any complaints, and he did well too.  The short season then ended.  We shall see if Logan would continue to run in the future.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp3_m8bw-Vc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BEDO00FdnIY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13Dm8CJsa6I

     I joined the girls to watch the Boyz II Men last Sunday.  I am not too familiar with all their songs, but I looked forward to an outing with my friends.  We met up at Theresa’s aunt’s house and they were so nice to prepare wine and snacks for us in their backyard.  We then were driven to the venue by our designated driver Martin.  We had more wine to drink and hang out at our seats.  The show finally started and it was an awesome “over an hour” of great entertainment.  I definitely did not need to know all the songs to enjoy the show very much.  It was a wonderful evening hanging out with friends.