Merry Christmas 2012

Merry Christmas one and all!

If you are reading this, we survived the Mayan apocalypse.  Hurray!

I should probably put all that money back in our retirement accounts. And maybe I can get that 911 Turbo back to the dealer before they notice.

Soccer has taken on undue importance in our household.  Emily’s team in the fall of 2011 was stacked with some really great players, and they made a playoff run that lasted eight weekends: parents were groaning with jubilation.  It seems now that the fall season lasted until April for her.  Claire’s team had the misfortune of being coached by me, and we came in a solid fifth out of ten teams—never in danger of extending the season.  We watch the highlights of the English league and have become the annoying people who discuss how soccer should really be called football, and that American thing with helmets could get a lesser name.  If my girls were unattractive boys, I would foresee many beatings in middle school.  Claire is improving dramatically, both as a keeper and a field player.  Secretly I enjoy every minute of soccer with them (I can’t let them know how much or they’ll hold it over me).

Adorned with her awards

Ready for battle

The girls’ activities have become the focal points of our lives: music, church, girl scouts and soccer.  Every once in a while, I get a stray thought on some intellectual topic and then reprimand myself for not focusing on laying out cones for practice or sorting out the cookie boxes quickly enough.  Claire is playing the violin and Emily the flute.  We tried to record the Winter Music program but our iPad was acting up.  We were quite embarrassed to be the only parents there enjoying the event without recording it.

We got a couple of good trips in this year.  Over spring break we saw Death Valley with Holly and Rich while it was only dad-blasted hot, not %$d-d@*+ed blasted hot.  

Not too hot??

Badwater - the lowest point in N.America

 The girls, my father and I took a week-long road trip from CA back to Wisconsin at the end of the school year.  Don’t we all have memories at staring out the window at the desert Southwest?  Of course, this time part of it was on fire.  Jenn couldn’t come along as Mickey Mouse takes a dim view of his employees taking the busy season off.  She had been to Santa Fe with her mother in the spring and recommended we see Mesa Verde and its ancient cliff dwellings.  Two days later we met up with my brother and his family, Carolyn, Natalie, Magdalene, Emma, Camden and Kedzie at Wind Cave, but we were traversing the continent in opposite directions and couldn’t stay together long enough.  Lots of stories from this trip: double rainbows, fire, wind and ice; so if you’re interested please ask.

At Bishop's Lodge - Santa Fe, NM

Mesa Verde, CO

Wind Cave, SD

We became good friends with a lovely family down the street with a daughter Claire’s age and a younger son.  The mother has been dragging me out running most mornings, so I berate her publicly and thank her privately.  We ran a 10K in April and are training for a half marathon in May 2013—we have our doubts, too.  The Kims have been a true blessing.  So much so, in fact, that Mrs. Kim has helped secure some employment for me, making math videos for an education company.  Better days ahead.  We also had them along on our annual pilgrimage to Joshua Tree over Veteran’s Day.  They are still thawing out, but hope to have feeling in their extremities by February.  Mr. Kim and I were bemoaning the pathetic state of the wisps on our heads that try to pass themselves off as hair, when I half-remembered a report that said men with excessive testosterone experience early hair loss. “Ahh, we are so manly, it scared the hairs off our head: I like it!” he said.  It’s good to live next to happy people.

On the rocks

The trail blazers

Jenn also upgraded her employment situation by taking the management training program at Disneyland so that she can switch over from hourly to salary with benefits—full exhale.  We celebrated with a dinner at the new fancy restaurant in California Adventure, Carthay Circle.  We are all very proud of her.

Fall 2012 Emerging Leaders Class (I'm just to the right of Mickey)

Claire is now nine years old and growing up quickly, but some subtleties escape her.  The other day in the kitchen I was focused on making sandwiches when she said with a note of self-criticism, “I’m not a very good cracker.”  My Father Warning System shot from zero to Defcon 4.  I was trying to simultaneously pin down where she heard that particular Southern term (not on our road trip surely) and wondering how to respond to her not claiming membership in that group (“That’s okay, honey, you’re not supposed to be a good cracker” seemed insufficient). Then I noticed she was handing the ice cube tray to me.  She couldn’t get the ice cubes out for her water bottle.  Parenting crisis averted.

This has been just another crazy year in the ongoing chaos of the Leeb family.  We hope you all are well and enjoy the Christmas season.

The Leebs

Go Tacos!

Emily is still playing soccer from the fall season.  Her team, the Toxic Tacos, won the Area championships today!  They already won their Region by winning all their games.  They have continued their undefeated season in the round robin tournament leading up to the championship games today.  They were both nail biters.  The other team scored first in both games but the girls kept up their attack and scored 2 unanswered goals and won 2-1 each time.  They play with such team work and are so supportive of each other.  They are a blast to watch.  Just as amazing to me is that the coaches are both volunteer college students.  Kelly and Chloe have given so much of their time and talent to help a group of girls that they had no connection to at all at the beginning of the season.  The girls found out that they will get to walk on the field of a Galaxy game some time and get cheered for their accomplishment.  They are super excited about that!

Getty Villa

Our Christmas present this year to our parents was a day at the Getty Villa.  The girls got to have a "Family Field Trip" day.  They walked to school then almost immediately got signed out.  We got the earliest reservation time that we could and it was a good thing.  What we thought would be a couple of hour thing turned out to take all day.  We went on several of the tours that were offered.  The docents were amazing.  They knew so much about their topic and were great story tellers.  They kept us all interested and taught us so much.  The first tour was the architecture tour.  We learned about what the different rooms of the Villa represented and the history of it.  The edible garden tour was a lot of fun.  John and the girls even sampled a dried berry from the garden.  Emily picked the world's largest radish.  We did a touch demonstration about the glass art with recreated pieces.  At lunch we brought out a picnic and had gourmet sandwiches.  We still had time to go back and look at a lot of the art we saw in passing on the tours and the girls got to play in the Family Forum. 

Happy New Year!

We had a fun New Year's Eve party with neighborhood friends.  What a treat to not have to drive on New Year's Eve!  The Kim's picked us up on the way over to the McCarthy's.  We brought our little red wagon along with all the stuff we had.  Emily L and Noah had a ball building Legos.  The rest of the girls did crafts and ran around doing whatever it is that 8 year old girls like to do when they are together.  Since the McCarthy's have access to New York time TV, we watched the ball drop over Time Square at 9:00 local time.  there was champagne and kisses for the adults, streamers and Martinelli's for the kiddos.  By 9:30 we were walking home and by 10:00 I was asleep!  It was a perfect night!

Merry Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas everyone!

Over the past year we have had many experiences that push us towards reflection.  My daughters are eight and ten and getting too tall to carry comfortably.  We lost a beloved pet (Skitter, a guinea pig).  Emily kicked the soccer ball between my legs and nimbly stepped around me in a scrimmage, proving that her soccer skills are in the ascendancy while mine…well, it’s not polite to use the terms I am thinking of.  Father Time marches on, and it’s our job to adapt.

Claire still has a wonderfully bubbly and undefeatable personality.  We were out selling Girl Scout cookies door-to-door in the neighborhood when a very nice older woman opened the door.  She immediately sensed our intentions (the wagonload of Thin Mints might have given it away) and was crestfallen, “I’m so sorry—I don’t have any cash.”

Claire responded, “That’s okay,” and the woman got her smile back, assuming she was off the hook, “you can write a check.”  She laughed for a moment and then bought four boxes.

During Spring Break Emily and Claire travelled north to San Simeon to tour Hearst Castle with Holly and Rich.  Rich took a hilarious twenty-second video of Claire up to her chin in short rib bones (and up to her eyebrows in barbecue sauce), still chewing and yet reaching for more.  We have an agricultural balance among our daughters; one wants to raise livestock, and the other wants to eat them.
See the rib eating video - click here 

Morro Rock

Claire played on the Lavender Lava under 10 girls AYSO soccer team, and I was the coach.  We learned how to win and how to lose.  Claire made many friends and is getting better all the time.  I still have a long way to go in knowing what nine-year-old girls think is important—it took two days and three rounds of voting to come up with “Lavender Lava.” Yet we struggled with keeping both feet on the ground on throw-ins all year (sigh).

Emily moved up to the much bigger field with the under 12 girls, and I had the pleasure of watching her score the winning goals in two games (I can describe each one in less than ten minutes if I leave out the details, ask me).  Her team is undefeated and will be participating in the playoffs in January.

Soccer is the confirmed favorite outdoor activity of Emily and Claire, which is a relief because I secretly believe it means a lot to my wife.  Just because I played and refereed for years and think it is the greatest game in the world don’t think I’m the one pushing them to play.

Other competing outdoor activities this past year included playing in the snow up at Mt. Pinos in January where I learned that repeatedly crashing your elbow onto ice will cause it to swell no matter how cold you keep it.  We got some sliding discs and whiled away a Saturday—only stopping for lunch.

Wisconsin during the summer with my parents is also very outdoor heavy.  Emily water-skied around the lake for the first time.  We actually ate some of the fish we pulled out of Leader Lake, thanks to the deep-frying maestro, Uncle Matt Ryder.  Speaking for all the girls in the family, Claire said,” I don’t really like to eat fish…unless it’s deep fried so you can’t really taste it.”

We took our annual expedition to Wilderness Walk, half a zoo for woodland creatures plus one Bengal tiger and half a collection of themed shacks (maze, tilted, jail and the like): very unpolished and very fun for us.  While we were watching the wolves a passing ambulance siren set them off to howling and all the game animals got very alert all of a sudden; very fun to watch.  At the end of the day the girls all had a memorable time on a trail ride outside of Hayward.

Jenn and I returned to the scene of childhood memories by taking our girls up to Gooseberry Falls, fifty miles northeast of Duluth near the northern shore of Lake Superior.  We had a very nice two hour hike and played in the water; no rangers and no safety railing nearby, just one warning sign and an ethos of personal responsibility. Jenn likes to contrast that visit with the inanity of some of the visitors to Disneyland, “I didn’t know I could be hurt if I put my hand between two moving pieces of metal.”  She says that something about overpaying entrance fees turns off parts of people’s brains.

Gooseberry Falls

Speaking of childhood memories, at Claire’s birthday party we resurrected a game my grandfather used to organize for my cousins, brother and me: a kind of scavenger hunt in which we would discover rhyming clues and eventually discover the grand prize.  Everybody loved it and Claire’s group did too.

Back in school, Emily decided she wanted to run for treasurer but she lost to a sixth-grader: disappointing but not crushing.  Now this particular sixth grader had the good sense to up and move just two weeks after the election, so Emily was appointed the post.  I asked if the horse’s head she put into the sixth grader’s bed affected her decision to leave, and she just looked at me funny.  Now she gets to count up the Santa-gram money.  Sonny would be proud.

Jenn is moving up through the ranks at Disneyland—every couple of months she comes home talking about new training and responsibilities and yet is still in a good mood.  She really enjoys it and is looking forward to more training this year.

I’m still trying to land a full-time teaching job and occupy myself with substituting.

We were just invited to go on an evening boat cruise with Ryan and Angie Balius.  We cruised around Huntington Harbor to see all the lights while sipping hot chocolate and eating cookies. The electric power went out on one side of the harbor, obviously an overloaded transformer.  We gleefully indulged in speculation about the owners of waterfront mansions not being able to afford that month's electric bill.  After an hour SC Edison must have taken pity on the paupers and turned the power back on. This trip can put even the most convinced Scrooge in the Christmas mood.

Disney Family Chistmas Party with Jenn's parents

That’s about it.  See you all soon,

The Leebs

Soccer 2011

Got to see both girls play today.  They both had games at 8:00 but since it was one of my few Saturdays off I had to make the best of it.  I stayed with Emily and her Toxic Tacos for the first half of their game.  They went up quickly 2-0 but the other team rallied back 3-2 at the half.  I ran over to visit Daddy and Claire at their game.  The Lavender Lava was out scored but Claire was running like a champ and got several nice touches on the ball.  When their game was done I ran back to Emily's field (they are on opposite sides of the park!) where I learned that the girls were up 4-3 and that Emily had scored the winning goal!  *insert proud mama here*

Wisconsin 2011

We're here!  It's been a long day starting with a red eye overnight with Greatmother and Uncle Henry but we are here.  It was muggy all afternoon but that didn't stop the girls from getting in the lake after we took a nap.  While John and the girls were setting up Bongo, a pair of loons surfaced no more than 10 feet away from them.  Both humans and birds spent a moment staring at each other wondering where on Earth the other had come from.  The loons didn't seem particularly worried though and kept swimming and diving near them.  Eventually they kept going but it was cool to see them close up and realize how big they are!  It's finally raining tonight complete with lightening and thunder.  After a good night sleep tonight we can really start our vacation filled with energy!

8/ 2:
We had a pretty slow start this morning.  Time change, little sleep the night before and an overcast morning all conspired to keep us in bed as long as possible.  We found out that the storm last night dropped nearly 4 inches of rain!!  Once we got going Emily found a puzzle that we worked on for a good part of the day.  While we were working Joe and Aunt Cheryl came to visit.  The girls took off to play with Joe at the beach then at his cabin.  After lunch Joe came back down to the beach with his dad.  Claire went fishing with Joe and Uncle Matt while Daddy, Emily and I checked out the new kayaks.  We paddled down to Paddocks and passed by the fishing boat.  The kayaks are a great way to see the lake.  We saw the loons up close and could stop paddling at any time and just enjoy the quiet of the lake.  We all played in the water, on Bongo and in the kayaks for many hours this afternoon.  When we were thinking of drying off and getting dinner started Karl and Margarida showed up!  They will be here too for 10 days.  It's a full house in both cabins!  We all had a dinner together and got caught up.

8/3
We went to Hayward today.  The girls stocked up on candy provisions for the trip.  They each got new tee shirts too.  Claire's reads: I'd be a vegetarian if BACON grew on trees.  Perfect for her!  Actually we saw it in the store window and when I asked if they came in her size the guy said, "No but I can make it in her size." Sold!  Emily was allowed to pick out something too.  Since hers wasn't so obvious it took a bit longer to find something she liked.  She wound up with a cow shirt since cows are her current favorite.  Karl and Margarida were in town too and we met up with them at about this time.  Karl had been looking for a shirt for Lowell and finally found it in the same shop.  Lowell's reads: Finish your beer!  There are sober kids in Africa.  hahaha  After a quick trip to Subway for lunch, we were off to Wilderness Walk.  The girls visited the nursery area first.  There were baby skunks there!  eek!  After they spent some time there we followed the trail around to see all the animals.  As we passed the wolves an ambulance passed by the road out front.  In response to the siren the wolf started howling.  It was amazing being 10 feet away from a howling wolf.  It was so loud!  A little further down the trail were the red deer.  They are bigger than the usual white tail deer that we see around here.  The girls each got a quarter to feed the deer and we were pretty excited to watch them all get up and start coming over to see us until we realized that the keeper had walked over too and was getting ready to feed them their real meal.  They weren't too particular and were still happy to take the special treats from the girls.  We watched what they were being fed and realized that bagels and day old bread were part of their diet.  The keeper said they bought their feed from the local store and that they threw in the day old stuff too as a treat.  While we were watching we noticed a doe that was playing with her roll.  She bend down and dipped it into the mud puddle at her feet. We laughed thinking she was like everyone who likes to dip their donut in coffee in the morning.

8/4
We canoed the Namekagon River today.  Since Karl and Margarida were with us we could take 2 cars and 2 canoes.  It make getting picked up so much easier to take care of it ourselves!  And each girl got to have her own canoe.  Since there has been so much rain here this year the river is the highest its been in years and certainly the highest I've ever seen it.  All those places where we've practically had to get out and carry the canoe over the shallow spots were at least 15 feet across and 2 feet deep.  There were a few rocks that made their signature ripple on the surface to be avoided at all costs but for the most part we just sat back and enjoyed the ride.  We steered of course but it was a lazy trip.  We stopped for lunch at a really pretty campsite.  The girls and I walked ahead to check it out while the canoes were being pulled out of the water.  After we went back to help carry the lunches and get everyone else the whole group walked back up into the woods on a narrow footpath.  John was the last of the line.  He asked if any of us had noticed the poison ivy growing near the trail.  No one had.  Fortunately we didn't touch any of it either because no one reported getting itchy later in the day.  Phew!  There wasn't much in the way of wild life to see and despite their best efforts Karl and Margarida didn't catch any fish.  We all figured it must be because of the high water levels.  After we got off the river Karl and Margarida treated us to ice cream at the Village Scoop.

8/5
Finally a quieter day.  The girls played with Joe and spent a lot of time fishing with Matt and Henry.  After all the fishing that had happened all week it was time for a fish fry!  We all headed up to Bob and Sheryl's for dinner.  Matt did the honors with the frier.  We all brought something yummy to share.  In all we wound up with 19 for dinner!  Lowell came over for awhile and David, Magda and Natalie showed up in time to join us too.  It was really incredible to have so many together at once!  Joe shared his kid sized ATV with the girls - big and small.  They took turns riding laps around the driveway between the two cabins.

8/6
I was gone for most of the day today.  I drove down to Wausau to have lunch with 3 other moms from the March Mommies board.  It was a lot of driving - 3 hours each way but worth it to catch up with the moms.  On the way back I was intrigued by a sign that said "Geographical Marker". So I took a 4 mile detour to see what it was about.  Turned out to be the exact location of the 45th line north and the 90th line west.  Kind of a 4 Corners kind of thing but a good excuse to drive out into the middle of a corn field in an unknown little town in Wisconsin.
Meanwhile back at the cabin... It was a cousin fest.  Besides Magda, Natalie, Joe and our girls, Zach and Mara showed up too.  I'm not sure of the exact order of events but there was time in the lake until a rain storm forced everyone inside.  There was a puzzle done.  The Awesome Club was invented and all in the area were made members and given jobs to do.  Sounds like everyone had a great time.

8/7
If it's even possible today was even more of a cousin fest.   There were 10 of them here today at various times down at the lake.  The most at once was 8 when I was able to snap a picture.  Besides my 2, Magda, Natalie, Zach, Mara and Joe there were Ethan and Mikayla (Joe's 1st cousins) and Noah who is cousin Kevin's little boy.  Emily was in heaven playing with Noah for awhile.  After lunch Matt suggested getting the water skiis out and letting whoever wanted to try it.  Claire was first up.  She decided she was old enough to start learning.  Her first attempt ended with the rope being yanked out of her hands.  The second time she spent a wobbly few seconds mostly upright before she flopped.  That was the best she did all day but I thought it was great for a first time out.  Emily's first try was a classic up and over.  Her second time though she was up!  She held on for an entire loop around the lake.  When she got back to the dock she let go of the rope and glided into the water like she has been skiing all her life.  It was amazing!  She floated back to us all grins and puffed with pride.  She tried again later and was not as successful but she knows she can do it now and that is all that matters.  David, Kelly, Magda and Matt also had good turns around the lake.  After dinner we had a fun game of Michigan Rummy aka the penny game.  It was all good until Claire realized she hadn't won all night.  She had gotten cups with pennies but had never been the one to go out and get to collect pennies from the rest of the players.  She'll survive somehow.

8/8:
A day of rest after cousin-palooza!  Daddy and the girls did ATP rides, hung out at the cabin and helped with the plumbing situation at the downstairs cabin while Mommy, Greatmother and Grandma had a "girl cousin" lunch.  There were 9 of us total, all related somehow at a pot luck progressive lunch and dessert.  Besides the 3 of us were: Sheryl, Jill, Beth, Saralyn, Bonnie and Dea.  We had lunch at Saralyn's and dessert at Beth's.  There were lots of stories told and lots of laughs.  It's a nice tradition that they are starting.  At night we had a Michigan Rummy rematch that Claire won.  Go figure!

8/9:
The 4 of us drove up to Gooseberry Falls today.  We took the scenic route out of Duluth so we could stop at Emily's restaurant that we ate at 2 years ago after our Boundary Waters trip.  Sadly it was closed this year. =(  But we did stop at a beautiful spot along the North Shore to stretch our legs and get some pretty pictures.  In Twin Harbors we stopped for lunch.  We hiked all over Gooseberry Falls park.  There was a lot of water in the falls this year which made them especially spectacular.  Claire got a little pooped during our walk but she made the whole loop with us.