Happy Birthday Tom!

Tom got to celebrate his 33rd birthday (aka the Jesus birthday) with a busy week/weekend of Meredith being out of town, two school Halloween carnivals, 2 World Series games, and a family gathering at our house.

"Bugster Posey"

The kids invented a cool new game.  Take one double-edged light saber as your bat, a nerf football, and create your own rules.  Umpired by Uncle Jeff.

Orange October

Our family has been decked out in Orange and Black for the entire month of October, it seems.  

There's a new team in town and we were there at the first game of the inaugural season for the SF Bulls hockey team.  With the NHL locked out, we had to go somewhere for hockey and that place was the Cow Palace.

Chuck a Puck was the best part of the game and one of the funniest things I've ever seen.  $1 for an orange foam puck you chuck onto the ice during the 2nd intermission.  Closest to the center of the target wins $50.  There were hundreds of pucks on the ice.

Obviously, our real attention was on the World Champion SF Giants.  This photo is from the Old Gym at SI during the day game against the Reds.  There was a big screen and a live feed that kids came in and out of the gym all day to watch.  This was the 9th inning, my dance class is in the crowd since I told them to report there!

Here's some more of our loyal Giants support

#RallyEnchiladas

We even watched Game 1 of the World Series via Face Time while I was at a conference in LA.

During Game 4, #RallyCecchinArms spread across the bay via text message.  From Oakland to Moraga to Daly City to San Francisco, Rally Arms eased the tension as we went into the 10th inning.

 (it's hard to take a one-armed self-portrait, we discovered)

We all saw the cute picture of little Brandon Crawford at Candlestick park.  Here's another lifelong Giants fan at Candlestick park in 1989.

Our kids have seen 2 Giants World Series Championships in their lifetime.  The same amount we've seen in our lifetime.  We really enjoyed watching this team this year.  We're not sure what Tommy is going to do now that baseball is over.  He keeps replaying it in his mind...

Tommy's October Review

Tommy's most notable accomplishment from October is that he was promoted from Level 1 to Level 2 in gymnastics.  Miss Paulette reluctantly signed his ribbon and rang the bell announcing his promotion. She was reluctant because Coach David was starting a young Level 2 class for other kids Tommy's age who were ready to move up (most of the Level 2 classes are for 7-8 year olds).  Miss Paulette didn't want to let go of Tommy!  Level 2 is a longer class and much more challenging, but so far Tommy is doing well, working hard, and getting stronger.

Tommy initially remained neutral come Bruce Mahoney time...

Bridging the divide

but as the game wore on Tommy fell in love listening to SI Sports Radio.  He kept the earphones on the entire game listening to (and repeating for us) the play by play.  He absorbed every moment of that game and asked a hundred questions of Daddy, Papa, and a very generous religion teacher who happened to sit next to us.

I caught him reading upside down one morning.  He seriously read an entire paragraph to me out loud with the book upside down.  I'm not sure why...

Time with cousins is always a special gift

 With Bianca and Shen helping to clean up campus after the Halloween carnival

Giving high gives and a "good game"congratulation to every tree between the parking lot and WingStop

Tommy and Mama have developed a good system of reciprocal foot massages

Tommy confessed today that he voted for Mitt Romney in the online election they did at school.  I (calmly) asked follow up questions.  He'd heard candidate speeches from junior high kids the day before.  Was there something about Romney's platform that he liked?  No... he just wanted them to add another president to his Presidents vs Aliens iPad game.  I replied, "and that's why they don't let kids vote, Tommy."