I've fallen over a year behind in updates, mainly due to busyness and not being around my laptop as much, but I'm still going to keep it going, especially because last year was such a signficant one with Naomi graduating from high school, Lucas from middle school, etc. Hopefully I can catch up more in the summer. Hopefully. It's also a challenge to download the photos now whereas in the past I'd just plug my camera into the computer.
Speaking of significant years, Naomi turned 18! And it fell on spring break. Manny was out of town for work, but we did go out as a family to Olive Garden to celebrate before that. I took Naomi to La Fondue with a Groupon deal and some Lactaid for us. Naomi loves fondue even though she is lactose intolerant (but not as bad as me yet). I haven't been there since 2000 when my old mentor took some of us from the New College Graduate rapid training program at work. Naomi also requested a black cake, so I made one from scratch with black cocoa. There is absolutely no food coloring in this. If some of you know, you need a lot of black food coloring to make, for example, black fondant, and it just alters the flavor and not in a great way. This tasted like pure chocolate. I'd also bought a mango cake which she'd requested, so I figured her friends could pick. She also wanted to see the last of the cherry blossoms at Hakone Gardens, so we did that as well. It was all nice, although some crisis or chaos often happens on her birthday. I don't know what happened, but in the end we had a nice little celebration with her friends getting loved by the cats.
On another day, she and her friend E. went to Japantown. I dropped them off and made a stop at the Asian Art Museum, one of my favorites, to check out an exhibit before it was gone. Manny isn't a big art or museum person, and I think I just prefer to go by myself sometimes and not feel obligated to stay or leave. One of our cats Coach also had a birthday a week after Naomi's (maybe not his real birthday, but an approximation from the shelter).
When Isaac went on his field trip to the Tech Museum, the IMAX showing was canceled, so they sat in the theater but never watched anything. So I took him back during spring break to check out the IMAX show and we saw Beautifica 360, which was pretty cool, though I had to close my eyes at some points because I got dizzy.
My women's discipleship group aka our journey group at church had a final celebratory meeting over brunch with a white elephant gift exchange. I got a really nice Christian Dior lipstick that I love and still use all the time. I brought a philosophy gift set but accidentally left the price tag on...from Ross. So embarrassing. I did also include a nude matte lipstick, but the recipient I don't think uses that color (or lack thereof). She was really nice about it, though.
