Good-bye McCauley's

We had to say good-bye, albeit in a rather rushed fashion thanks to RJ spiking a fever at the start of their going away party, to our friends the McCauley's.  I feel a sense of deja-vu since we recently had to say good-bye to the Sternods in June; it's a kind of deja-vu that sucks because we will miss them.


I've known Sara for 14 years, where we met when I rushed and joined Kappa Kappa Gamma.










We fell out of touch after her graduation, but I was thrilled to reconnect on a different level, as moms, when she and her family moved down here from Oregon.

RJ and Madeline have been friends for a great majority of their lives; they met when RJ was 15 months old.  I believe, much to Simon's chagrin, that RJ gave Madeline her first kiss within their first few [play]dates!

This was one of their first dates:

I certainly think they've grown into very cute friends!

And I haven't forgotten about Logan and Dylan, who have know each other Logan's entire life!

I think that all four kids have genuinely enjoyed each other's company and I know that we will greatly miss having all the playdates, dinner get togethers, and the parties.  

On the day of their going away party, the kids had a play date at the San Jose Children's Museum and then crashed together until RJ's fever became apparent to me and we had to leave.

August in Pictures

Stockton Children's Museum - August 4

Daddy's New Logan Distraction Device

Mr. Pickle Dance Party - August 12

Bay Area Discovery Museum - August 14

For more Bay Area Discovery Museum Pictures, click here.

Mr. Nutella Face

More Dancing...this time at a Tracy Winery

RJ doing Handstands

Pixie Woods - August 25

For more Pixie Woods pictures, click here.

Logan's New Do

More August Pictures click here.

DeLancey's Go Tomato Picking

We are CSA members at Live Earth Farm, which means that every week we get a box full of wonderful organic seasonal produce (which Lance picks up in Redwood City on his way home from work on Thursdays).  CSA, for the uninitiated, stands for Community Supported Agriculture.  That means that we pay for a share of the farms bounty, which supports the daily function of a local, organic farm.  I like supporting local food rather than getting produce from wherever the grocery store trucks it in from (which is where I would otherwise get food since I am HORRIBLE at growing things).  I've taken great pride in planning our meals every week to feature the vegetables front and center.  We've eaten less meat as a result, which has been a lot more healthy for all of us.  If you're interested in what I've been cooking from our share, check out our DeLancey Family Pollan Project blog.  Many of the recipes come from the farm's recipe database.  One of the perks of being CSA members (other than the weekly bounty of fruits and vegetables, and bi-weekly pastured organic eggs) is attending farm events like the Tomato U-pick (where the first 5 pounds of delicious dry-farmed Early Girl tomatoes was free, $1.50/lb. thereafter).

So, on a beautiful Saturday morning we packed up the munchkins in their sun hats and drove to Watsonville (which is nearly 2 hours away).

Unlike our fruit picking experience, the farm asks that you bring your own tomato carrying devices, so we brought the boys their sand pails and Lance and I just used our reusable grocery bags.  The boys happily filled their buckets with beautiful ripe tomatoes.  RJ did so relatively independently, whereas Logan picked the ones I pointed to.

After picking for a little while we had a picnic lunch (including a few of our fresh vine ripened tomatoes) under a tree near the adjacent raspberry bushes, where RJ picked and mostly ate a basket full (right off the vines!).  Logan seemed to enjoy running away from our picnic spot most of all.




I helped RJ pick a few more so that there were some raspberries to take home, and as you can see here, he was fiercely hoarding them the entire walk to the car, where we had to take them away because he ate so much fruit we were worried about the after effects.

When all was said and done, we had 22lbs. of tomatoes (pictured here once we got home).

Live Earth Farm is in Watsonville, which is near Santa Cruz, and we weren't about to just drive home, so instead we took the boys to Bonny Doon beach, which just happens to be a clothing-optional beach.  It was beautiful (the beach, not the naked people), but cold and windy (wind + sand = not so much fun), so we didn't stay long, but it was nice to see the ocean.

Then we were off to dinner in downtown Santa Cruz (we went to Acapulco for Mexican Food).  Afterward, we stumbled upon the Neary Lagoon Wildlife Refuge while looking for a playground for the boys to run off some steam before driving home.  This was perfect.  The boys ran along the boardwalk and enjoyed the swaying floating pontoon bridges across the lagoon while they talked to the ducks and the duckling, and watched the huge fish just below the surface.  And near the end of the loop there was a playground by the public restroom, which was pretty much everything we needed!

The next day, I made my foray into the wonderful world of canning with my shiny new pressure canner!   I also discovered that peeling tomatoes, even with the score and blanch method, is a pain in the ass.  But in the end, it was worth it!











I canned spaghetti sauce,









salsa,

and plain stewed tomatoes.

For more pictures of tomato picking and other Santa Cruz adventures click here.

DeLancey's Disney Dress-Up

RJ's friend Maddie celebrated her 4th Birthday with an adorable Princess Birthday Party, which invited its guests to come as their favorite characters.  While I could've gone the easy route and let the boys wear one of their animal costumes (we seem to have been animals for Halloween nearly every year - Dronkey (okay fine, it's not a REAL animal), Po the Panda, RJ the Racoon and Private the Penguin, and Simba the Lion/Lion Keeper), but I was looking to expand their dress up options and I happen to enjoy sewing.  So...some reconnaissance at Hannah's Birthday Party revealed that Maddie's favorite princess was Aurora (Hannah is Maddie's little sister and yes, reconnaissance is a stretch - I just asked Maddie and she readily informed me.)  After a google images search and our Sleeping Beauty DVD cover helped me discover who Princess Aurora's prince was and that his costume (which had to be the one he was wearing when she was in the preschool-girl-favorite pink dress) wouldn't be too tricky, RJ agreed to be Prince Phillip.

Logan was a no-brainer.  He was going as MY favorite Disney prince, Aladdin.  There was no way I could resist putting his little belly in that belly-baring little vest.

You have NO idea how difficult it is to find patterns for these particular costumes.  There are multiple authentic and non-authentic versions of the princesses, but princes?  None.  So, I bought this pattern for a knight and when making the tunic, added my own pattern for the striped poof sleeves and the collar.  I made the cape pattern myself (that wasn't hard - it's a trapezoid that's almost a rectangle with straps).  The pants are just basic pants but since I didn't have a real pants pattern in his size I actually just modified the pattern that I used for Logan's pants to not be poofy.  Add the Velvet belt with the fake pillow buckle and voila!  RJ is Prince Phillip.

Add the crown and sword that were favors from the party and he was even more "authentic".  He even tried to slay batman (before he had a sword) for Princess Aurora.







Logan's costume was easier.  I made the vest pattern myself and bought a girl's genie costume pattern for the pants and made the waistband straight rather than V-shaped.

The only problem was that this kept happening:
Silly baby kept taking his vest off!

Too bad Princess Jasmine was not in attendance at the party.


We had a great time at the party and the costumes keep making return appearances in the kid's play, so it was definitely worth the work!

Here, a month after the party is RJ reprising his role as Prince Phillip with his buddy Ashlan playing the part of Princess Aurora.

See more pictures from the party here.

DeLancey's Visit the Oakland Zoo

We went to the zoo since RJ has been interested in zoo animals lately and Lance has never been to the Oakland Zoo.  We decided that a membership was a good idea too.  I really like having the membership because the kids and I can go during the week whenever we want (as I'm writing this over a month after the fact, we've already been back once and have another possible trip planned in the next week or so). It also means that we never feel anxious to see everything in one visit because we know we will be back.   This is important because children want to play on the play structures they pass rather than move on to the next animal as quickly as possible. This makes the trips a lot more enjoyable because the kids can set the pace - like when Logan wanted to push the stroller.

During this particular trip we saw the alligators being fed (which involved dead rodents being slung around, but other than that, wasn't nearly as gross as I would've thought),






lemurs around feeding time,

and most notable, the lions doing something other than sleeping!  They actually got up and walked around!  Then the male lion rolled around in the grass!  Here is a video of some animal action (which unfortunately did not capture the male lion rolling around - for that you will have to live with our still shot).




We all had a great time and finished up the day with some Sushi at Yellowtail Japanese Bistro.  Unfortunately, Logan was not a well-behaved dinner guest.  His teeth chose dinner time to start pushing against his gums and he was miserable, being that he was hungry, but refusing to eat because his mouth hurt.  Here is the first attempt of the kick-ass waitstaff to cheer him up after the origami animals didn't keep his attention long enough:

When that didn't work, they brought out the big guns.  Ice Cream.  That soothed his gums and his hungry tummy simultaneously.  The best part?  This was all free of charge (well, unless you count the nice tip they earned).

More pictures from the zoo are here.

RJ's Swim Lessons

We signed RJ up for swimming lessons this year, but this time it was not a parent/child class.  We thought he would be less whiny for a teacher than he would be for us.  We also chose a session that was 9 classes in a row - So M-F on Week 1 and M-R on Week 2, this way he could quickly build on his skills every day.

The class started off great, as he participated and had a great time for the first two days.

Then he was completely cranky and refused to get into the "cold" water on the nearly 100 degree afternoon for the next two days.  Have I mentioned how sensitive RJ is to temperature?  It's the same thing in the bathtub, the water is either too hot or too cold!  I was so frustrated with him on those two days.  I tried appealing to his apparent lack of adventure, I tried encouraging and appealing to his feelings, I tried logic (yeah, I know he's 4), I tried being *that* parent that tells him to buck up and get in the damned pool.  He was obstinate and would barely take his turns and was clearly not trying.  I was pissed.

Friday was "Pirate Day" at swim lessons and on the way there we talked about how much fun it would.  His classmates seemed to have skipped town for the weekend, so he had the instructor (who was also a sub that day) all to himself.  He LOVED this and swam with a noodle all by himself.  He was still not too keen on going under at all, but he was at least trying and having fun.  Whew.

We lucked out on Monday and his classmates were still MIA, so he had his regular instructor all to himself too.  I was beginning to think it was the other kids (who could actually swim a little bit, and where thus WAY more advanced than him) that were the issue.  They however came back on Tuesday, and he still had a great time in class.  Especially when they did the boat safety lesson!  Maybe it wasn't the other kids.  Maybe he was just cranky those days.

He even jumped in!

Then, on the last day, he played the part of a barely wet limp noodle, again (in his defense, he was most certainly cranky because we had taken Lance to the airport for a 7am flight that morning and he wouldn't nap before class).

I guess 6/9 classes isn't horrible?

Here is a video of some of his good days:

James N Morris 1923-2011

Obituary
James N. Morris, 88, of Verona, died on Tuesday, August 9, 2011. Beloved husband for 63 and a half years of Mary Louise Morris; dear father of Donna J. DeLancey and James E. (Helen M.) Morris; grandfather of Jayson (Cheryl) DeLancey, William and Christopher Pollitt; great- grandfather of Reed and Logan DeLancey, Casey, Chelsea, Greyson and Adrian Pollitt; brother of Alice (the late William) Patterson. In addition to his parents, he was predeceased by two brothers. Mr. Morris served in the Marines as a Corporal during WWII, was a member of the Verona Eagles and enjoyed bowling.

Eulogy
I haven't been to many funerals but based on what I've seen in movies and on tv my objective is to make *you* cry while trying to keep myself composed enough to finish. I was trying to remember whether or not the last time I heard a eulogy to use as a reference was when my father passed away when I was only 10. This is not that much different an experience for me because my grandfather played as large of an impact in my world especially in the 20 years since I was that little boy.

There was a reason I tried to make it a habit to call my grandparents every week to talk to them. Even though I could and probably did read all the articles online about the Steelers, it didn't matter -- I heard it from him so that he could make sure I was fully informed before we decided on what the point spread would be and if we were betting 25 cents or going double-or-nothing.

Gambling on sports or playing cards was not the only thing you could depend on with my grandfather, you could depend on him. He made sure he was on time and that I would find my way to karate, swimming, baseball, hockey, kung fu on time and patiently wait in the car until I was done or grandma was finished in the store. If I was unsatisfied with dinner, I could depend on him knocking on the door to deliver some kraft macaroni and cheese.

He was a stoic figure, he wouldn't complain about whatever non sensible choice of music I may have put on the radio or when I smashed his car up (both sides). The only thing that ever seemed to upset him was when grandma thought he was driving too fast and all the other cars thought he was driving too slow.

We spent a lot of time together over the years -- trying to teach me to ride a bike in the back alley, going up to the baseball field to catch and hit, shaving, learning to drive, picking grandma up after work from sears, stopping at the bank on the way to the nursing home to visit his mother, the bowling alley, the shoe shop, and going to the barbershop every four weeks for a haircut -- a practice I have not kept up as I learned yesterday I'm getting light on top AND still need a haircut.

My wife and I sat down with our kids to try and explain to them what happened and what it all means. Even if we want to defy the gravity of what happens in life and avoid the topic of death ourselves, we felt it was important to be open and honest and celebrate the lifetime and memory of a great man and to appreciate the time we spent with him and the time we still can with others.

One of RJ's first questions (he's 4) was "who will do the tricks" which we found out to be his memory of playing "little piggies" or "steal your nose", and other little games they would play together when we visited for the holidays and on various trips back here to Pittsburgh. When I have been thinking about my grandfather the past few days and his life's work, I have come to recognize that some of the things I like most about who I am as a person are qualities that I learned from him and he was the role-model for every day. I just hope that as time goes on that I am capable of continuing his legacy and teaching my children RJ and Logan all of their great-grandfather's "tricks"... and when they're old enough maybe some of his jokes too.