november update part 2 of 3 (manny's birthday):

For Manny's birthday we had a party at home and also had an early afternoon fancy dinner when outdoor dining was still open.  

I was going to buy a cake, but at the last minute decided to make one.  I kept it simple with just three colors and decided on a Superman cake because I remember him dressed as Superman for his birthday party when he was little.  The logo was the hardest part.  I used an X-Acto knife for the first time.  Usually I just eyeball and cut with a regular knife, but this one took a little more precision.  I printed out the logo on paper and then just cut the yellow diamond and then the red overlay.  I didn't know what to do with the extra red, but I saw a cake somewhere that had used it as a cape, so I decided on that.  It was a little dried and cracked because I'd left it out since I did everything over two days.  My cake was a Ghiradelli chocolate cake mix with homemade chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream frosting.  I thought it was a bit buttery and strong in flavor, but Manny and Naomi really liked it, so I think I should have put more on.  But also the filling and cake flattened and buckled a little under the weight of the fondant, something I still haven't mastered.  For the dinner I made a semi-Korean meal of bulgogi beef with rice cakes and vegetables, soup, and japchae noodles.  I did not make homemade ice cream as planned, but got Rocky Road, Cherry Vanilla, and Vanilla Bean ice creams.

For the presents, I wanted to get him some pillows, but I wasn't sure what kind he would like, so I ended up just getting special temperature and microbial control pillowcases and pillow covers since he sits on the bed a lot when he works.  They were on major sale.  I also got him some specialty fudge in four different flavors.  Digging through my assorted balloons I just happened to have a couple red, blue, and yellow balloons left and some masks left over from Isaac's Captain America party.  I do fewer and fewer themed parties as the kids get older, and it's nice to get through all our party supplies.  The kids gave a card, and my in-laws sent a card and gift card.  Naomi drew him a cute picture of Nacho.  Oh, Nacho, miss him lots.  I had more plans for his next birthday than for the kids.

A couple of days after Manny's birthday, we went out to an upscale outdoor shopping center to walk around and eat outside.  That was allowed at the time, but due to the Thanksgiving spike, we are now not allowed to gather at all with anyone, even outdoors.  It was fun to see the lights since I love love love Christmas lights.  The last time we were there was for his 40th birthday.  It seems a lifetime ago now.  So much has happened since then.  And this was our first time dining at this fancy steakhouse.  I brought wipes, and we always maintain distance from others, but it's still a risk because you have to take the masks off to eat.  So I understand, and we unfortunately had to cancel Christmas outing plans, but hopefully it will help others.  Our county's hospitals are pretty much out of ICU beds.  My friend who is a doctor has an aunt who was stuck in urgent care all day because there was no bed in the ER for her.  She doesn't have Covid.  The beds aren't just for those patients, but people who have been injured, had a heart attack, or other things.  We have to consider that as well.  And the Covid patients can end up occupying those beds for weeks or months.

First time I used an X-acto knife on my fondant.  Forgot at first this rolling mat could be cut into!

Double boiling chocolate for the homemade chocolate Swiss meringue buttercream

Whipping it up

Enchiladas for the day before

Nacho always hung out during M's haircuts

Haircut.  He leaves it long on top.  All the boys here like it that way right now.

Finished!  It was a simple one, but still took a while to cut out all those letters by eyeballing.

Hadn't had Korean for a while, so made a bulgogi platter and spicy tofu soup.  Store-bought jap chae and fish/shrimp balls (for me and Naomi).

Specialty fudge!

Getting ready for the party!  The balloons are just stuck to the chair with glue dots.

Birthday boy

Dessert time (party photos are backwards)

Leftover masks from Isaac's superhero party

Leftover napkins and plates.  I'm using everything up that I can with these pandemic parties!

Naomi drew this for M.  This was with a broken/old tablet a friend had given her.  She couldn't see what she was drawing on the tablet itself.  We got her a new one. 

Nice pic of us.  I didn't post it on Facebook, because my doctor friend said that posting these things normalizes eating out and gathering, which can encourage it.  I hear her.

Pork belly appetizer was delicious

Fancy steak dinner

Christmas tree

november update part 1 of 3:

I’ve sad news that Nacho died last night during a sudden and unusually bad seizure.  We knew after his diagnosis of idiopathic epilepsy that he might not have long to live, but this was too short.  I keep rewinding to think what we could have done differently.  It was just so sudden and unexpected.  I am beyond devastated.  I will keep the November updates as is.  It just seems unreal that he is not here anymore.

Thanksgiving and Manny's birthday were in November, so this will be a three-parter.  So the start of November was of course the election.  I voted by mail, which has never seemed more controversial than this strange year.

Naomi put in a request for fall vegetable dishes, so I actually made ratatouille for the first time as well as roasted fall vegetables.  It’s easy with my Pampered Chef products, and I’m not just saying that as a consultant.  I also had been delivering dairy products to foster parents for a while, but they moved, so I'm now giving it away elsewhere.

I was going through a low time, and it was a nice break to make these drop-offs.  When our church small group talked about positive justice/mercy/charity toward sojourners, it reminded me of this family in the east coast  who sort of took us in when we first came to the U.S., particularly the mom.  They were Catholic.  All this time I thought her name was Darlene Starling, because when I was 4 or 5, I asked her what to call her, and I guess she said Ms. Darlene, and I wasn't used to calling adults by first names, so I thought that she said Ms. Starling.  Anyway, after 40 years, my mom cracked the case and found her on Facebook.  I tried to connect with her and couldn't, so then I went through her son, the one who used to play Atari games with me, or maybe I just watched him play.  It was nice to catch up.  She is 82, widowed now and still in the same state.  And  now we are Facebook friends! It felt really good to tell her what her kindness meant to me before she passed, and to be able to find her after all these years. 

Naomi and I also went to a friend's house for a delicious Korean lunch.  We stayed by the open windows and wore masks and distanced, but there's always still a risk, and it feels silly because you have to take the mask off to eat anyway.  But she kept the food separated and things cleaned with sanitizer available.  I felt it was worth going so Naomi could meet her adult daughter, a college graduate.  My friend thought they might get along, and it would be nice to have someone to talk to who is older, even to help her feel comfortable at our church.  At Naomi's age, many teens would prefer to talk to people apart from their parents.   

When my friend told me it would be us and Tori, I thought she was inviting another friend.  I didn't know they'd gotten a puppy!

Nacho kind of lazy with the tug o' war playing these days.

Praline cookies went over well!

Baking something to bring to my friend's lunch.

Albondigas (using up the chicken meatballs from the school district).

Pre-marinated pollo asado and lemon cheesecake bars.

Me and my brother with Darlene and her sons in 1980.

Orange chicken, eggplant, shrimp, tofu, greens, and brownies.

I love the Pampered Chef Brownie Pan!  All edges!

Lunch for many--tilapia with lemon and thyme and green beans.

Snuggling with my warm dog socks from my sister in-law and my warm dog.

Broccoli cheddar soup from Costco in a Boudin bread bowl.  Reminded me of my college days and getting back from work before midnight and getting one of these from a stand.

Roasted fall veggies (I had a lot of thyme).  Carrots, potato medley, butternut squash, and pecans.

Ratatouille.  I only had the fat eggplant and not the appropriate thinner one, so I quartered the slices.

october update part 2 of 2:

Second half of October, with pictures in reverse chronological order again.  I tried to select them in reverse, but they still uploaded this way.  So we'll start with Halloween.  I don't know if it's ironic or not that we had our pastor and his wife over the morning of Halloween.  It didn't seem so.  It's the first time we've hosted anyone since the shelter in place began, although we had them in our open garage and at a distance.  I also served the food, which made it not easy to get seconds, but that's what we were comfortable doing.  After they left, I went to drop off our abundance of dairy goods with a family with six foster children.  We are mostly lactose intolerant here, and the district gave a lot of food (though now they appear to have cut back).  They also live in our same city, but farther away from the pickup locations.  Then it was time for some Covid-modified Halloween fun.  I thought Halloween would be cancelled this year, and it more or less was, but I told Isaac if he wanted to dress up, we could just go for a walk around the neighborhood with his costume on.  I've changed my tune about Halloween over the years.  It's whatever we make of it, and I find it fun to see and talk to neighbors, wear a costume (I didn't this year), and walk around in the evening.  On the other hand, I didn't expect Halloween to become my kids' favorite holiday.  Yes, I took them to the annual Harvest Festivals and trick-or-treating, but it wasn't something I really promoted.  If anything, I've always made a bigger deal of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, maybe even New Year's and Valentine's.  

Holidays have been hard for me emotionally in recent years.  I've been struggling with mild depression.  When I have to stay up for Nacho's seizures, for example, the lack of sleep makes it worse.  Plus with everyone at home for the last eight months, I'm just serving and interacting all day, and it's hard to find downtime for myself.  I'm doing the best I can to squeeze in a few minutes here and there, but most days I barely have enough time for a quick shower.  The kids aren't at ages where they play with each other anymore, and most of their interactions are with me.  There was one week I felt rather triggered and exhausted.  Manny took me out to eat the weekend after he met up with a coworker at a park he hadn't seen all these months. We went to a fancy burger place.  I had a bone marrow burger for the first time, which was pretty good.  Then my friend who'd recently received a meal herself after a rough week said she was paying it forward and sent our family a huge meal from a local Mexican restaurant!  I couldn't believe her generosity doing something for me from halfway across the country.  So I told her I would pay it forward as well, and we sent a meal to a family from our church who just welcomed a new addition.  

In between those two special blessings, I saw the weather was good for hiking and asked Lucas if he wanted to go, just him and me.  I listed off some of the many hikes we've done, and he said no to all of them.  Took me a minute to figure out he wanted to go someplace new, and so I looked for one in the AllTrails app that would be open and challenging.  We ended up taking an 8-mile hike which was moderate, with a steady incline for a large part of the hike.  I was pooped, but Lucas did really well, running for several stretches of it, even though he had a wound on his foot.  He didn't complain and just kept going.  I think he was happy, although the big difference between him and Isaac is that Isaac talks the entire time we're walking while Lucas doesn't want any chit-chat on our walks or hikes at all.  I think it was a great memory for us, and it was good for my soul to get out and see some nature while the weather permitted.  There was a lot of poison oak, which usually bothers Lucas, but the trails were mostly wide enough we didn't have to worry.  I guess it took us about 3.5 hours total with almost no stops except a couple water breaks.

Making the drumsticks we got from the school district using my friend's mom's Chinese chicken recipe.

Mummy dogs, eyeball pasta, and Halloween Oreos, and Halloween snacks.  I meant for Naomi to paint that white pumpkin, but she hasn't, so we'll see if it can last and become a Thanksgiving decoration.

Naomi and her friend K in K's backyard.  I thought their photo shoot was pretty funny.

They dressed up as a biker gang, but I didn't get a good photo of Naomi.

There were definitely fewer houses decorated this year, but some still had some pretty cool lights and things.

Treat bags you could grab.

This station had hand sanitizer, though we still cleaned all the candy when we got home.

After Isaac grabbed a Playdoh, a group of teens came by and took half the Playdoh off the table.

Candy taped to the tree to grab.

Isaac decided at the last minute he wanted to be a construction worker, which was really easy.  The face mask goes right with it.

Nacho was dressed up as Nacho Libre (for a little while--he didn't like wearing the mask for too long).

Eggs, quiche, pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, steak, and ham.

Fruit salad.

Setting up for brunch with our pastor and his wife in our garage.

Bacon and spinach quiche.  I haven't made quiche in our new oven before, so I need to figure out the timing better.

Bought a mix of candy primarily for Lucas, who wouldn't be going trick-or-treating this year.  He and Manny stayed home and played games.

Annual tradition - thin French apple tart.

Pork tenderloin, veggies, and air-fried potatoes.

Nacho after his annual appointment.

Manny just joined the A/V team at church.

Homemade chai toffee chip ice cream, a favorite.

Nacho and his veggie pizza, one of the few dog toys he hasn't torn apart yet.

Enjoying flan and tacos from my friend.

A huge meal sent over by my friend S. in Chicago after a rough week.

Potatoes au gratin

Steak, leftover curry, edamame, pineapples, zucchini, and pumpkin cheesecake bars.

I'm afraid of bugs!

They had these one way routes, but this sigh was followed by the one above warning of bees and wasps.  No thanks.  We just took the regular route (plus I knew nothing about this route and didn't want to get lost or go too long).

Nice to see a few creeks now.

Those are Lucas's bangs blowing in the wind!  He hasn't wanted to cut them till the end of the pandemic, but I think we're just going to have to do it.

Beautiful view on Windy Hill.

View of our county.

Heading toward the trailhead (about one mile in).

We kept our masks on except when there was clearly no one around.  I think Lucas actually enjoyed that.  We just said hi to passersby and it felt like any other hike.

Burger time!

I forgot the name of this drink, but it was some kind of non-alcoholic ginger lime soda.