April-May happenings

Joy and the boys played in the annual kickball game with our peer group at church.  Long kicks were made, great catches were achieved, the game was close.

Griffin takes a picture by our home group's donations to the Insta House which gets housing ready for refugees settling in our area.

Joy got her hair cut for the first time in a while.

Garrett got his braces off!

Leia wanted a picture too, before rolling over.

 

Joy and Domarina at the Hongo baby shower.

Practicing impromptu at ICC.

A hurricane tube, Griffin thinks this is pretty cool, of course he also liked drinking the Mtn Dew that provided the 2L bottles for this experiment!

Bryce's Projects

Bryce has been hard at work on 3-D Perler bead creations.  These are not based on any designs on line.  He looks at the object he wants to make and figures out a way to produce it, by an intricate layout in his head.  Then he goes to work on the project, often joining the family or his brothers in the same room to be with people while working.  What could he do with a 3-D printer?

Showing the latest creation...which he would gift to Luke...but not before he realized it might need a stand for display, so he made that too.

 

Welcome to my office.

Frame It Up

Garrett flew to Tennessee, this time by himself, for a week of training in media.  Brett got up at 2:15am to drive him to Oakland for his 5:20am flight.  Interestingly, Brett saw Mike Zendejas in line for baggage check-in and discovered that Mike would be on the same flight as Garrett for the first leg to Chicago.  Mike had played HS baseball with Brett and was a stand up teammate.  Brett had also had Mike's older brother Julian as an assistant coach on his Freshman team.  So this was one way that God was comforting Brett sending his son across the country on a flight by himself.  Garrett had cash for lunch in Chicago, but little did we know that the airport had gone cashless, so Brett was able to get a card # to Garrett so he could order food for lunch.  Finally he arrived safely and had a great week with 11 other students making both individual and group project videos such as Celebrate the Journey and Caught Red Handed.  Brett picked Garrett up at 12:40am and arrived home around 2:30am.  No more early morning or late night pick ups please.

Garrett, the director, presented the initial video to the group at the end of the week.

The posters Garrett brought home for the video projects he was a part of putting together.

Zoe, Madelyn, Josiah, Dawson, Sayer, Garrett, and Noah (front center)

Back Row:  Mr. Au, Mrs. Au, Doug, Kelsay, Noah, Sayer, Bryan
Front Row:  Lydia, Catherine, Zoe, Madelyn, Dawson, Garrett, Paul, Timothy, Maseo

Mother's Day

A morning at church and an afternoon with Grammy and Poppy was the scheduled events for Mother's Day.  We missed seeing Wendy and James and the girls due to illness.

Joy got her sign!

Joy and Grammy with the boys amongst the greenery.

 

A random picture of who was outside:  Garrett, Poppy, Griffin, Joy.

Joy and her boys on Mother's Day at church.

Garrett's birthday

 Garrett's birthday started with a great breakfast made by Mom.  Then, after Dad and Griffin returned from an 8am baseball game, we were off to SF to beat the craziness that would be traffic into the city for a day consisting of a Warrior's playoff matchup with Memphis only a few blocks away from our destination of Oracle Park where Buster Posey would have a day in his honor.  The reason we were there was because how could we miss Buster Posey day on Garrett's birthday.  Posey has been one of Garrett's favorites since he broke into the big leagues in 2010.  The game was great with a lot of runs scored and a Giants win.  The parking was interesting due to the Warriors and we had to leave the game about 15 minutes early to get our car out before the garage closed, but the 1.5 mile walk got us away from most of the traffic!  We stopped at Cold Stone for a special dessert on the way home.

Special breakfast made by Mom:  fruit, bacon, donuts.

Dr. Strange and the Multiverse of Madness with Dad the day before his birthday.

Watching the game with the Belands:  Deegan, Trinity, Derren, and Keeli behind us.

The Posey ceremony!  Bryce called it a speech event.

Now Griffin gets the Mad Bum jersey...

Deegan and Griffin, baseball buddies.

Posey addresses the Giants faithful.

Fitting that Yadier Molina was there and in the lineup, since he and Posey were the best two catchers of this last decade.

Joy and the birthday boy.

Griffin's baseball team happened to be well represented here:  Carter, Griffin, Deegan, James.

Deegan, Trinity, Derren, Keeli our friends joined us for the Giants game.

Moon Knight themed birthday card drawing by Griffin.

A lightsaber at last for Garrett.

Garrett's birthday cake.

May the Fourth Be with You and One Man Star Wars

After working all day and wearing a Star Wars themed tie, Brett went for a walk with Joy to downtown where they had a set up by the Brenden Theatre of a Star Wars theme.  Then we went and picked up Garrett at church where they had a Star Wars themed night too.

A couple of days before that, we had gone as a family to the One Man Star Wars show, which was a rebooking from 2020 (cancelled twice due to COVID).  We were greeted in the atrium of the Gallo Center by numerous characters with authentic Jawa and Tusken sounds.

An X-Wing fighter built model.

Joy chose to pose with Chewie.

Brett took his pose by the droids.

Does this look like the Millenium Falcon cockpit.

Brett on his workday.

Joy on her workday.

 

A Tusken and Boba Fett...epic!

A Mandalorian and Jawa.

Ooohh tini...

Stormtrooper on guard for our family.