For Auld Lang Syne

Well, another year has come and gone, and I only found it fit to write one measly post. I might succeed and get this one just under the gun for the calendar year. I feel a little more motivation now, since Alison continues to go to great effort to publish this blog into book format, which we hold in our home. It will make a nice memoir, although this digital space is probably a bit more durable in the sense that it is not so easily lost or destroyed.

I've been thinking a lot about legacy and history, because I've started to get a lot more involved in family history work. It had always been some little sidenote in my sphere, something that older, retired folk did. For some reason, though, during our Thanksgiving visit to San Antonio, my uncle Kevin got me super interested. He had uncovered some interesting details about my great great grandfather John James, things I never knew before. And then a mere hour of Google-fu revealed even more. From that point, I was hooked.

I won't bore with the details of my work so far, because it is awfully incomplete. Thus far I've spent most of my time on my mom's side, since there's more "low-hanging fruit" there; lots of gaps in the genealogical record. I even got my DNA tested with Ancestry, although I'm still waiting to hear back on the results. Not that they'll be too unique, because apparently Mom and Dad had already been tested a few years back. Hopefully, my results should at least confirm that they are my parents.

Since I last wrote, I was coming off a long stint of space vehicle testing for a joint NASA-NOAA satellite in Boulder, CO. Nice area, now that I've spent probably a good 5-6 weeks there.

We spent part of the Memorial Day weekend in San Diego, visiting the zoo.

Not Harambe, he was in Ohio

No flesh burns please

Alison doing her best to handle two kids

John's favorite animal at the time was the flamingo

The okapi--Graham probably knows of it; I didn't before seeing it

Taking the cable gondola over the zoo

The little playground was probably the biggest hit

Tired now

One last little trip to a seaside park

John put on a good show, but he doesn't really like Brazilian food

Asleep in our San Diego hotel

Our Memorial Day picnic (no cooking required)

The final days

Painting purgatory

Not pictured here was Alison's visit to Houston after the end of the school year. I had plenty to do at work, supporting additional sensor testing.

Another visit to Disneyland

Best little Thai restaurant in Hollywood, just before my first escape room experience (don't recommend going after a graveyard shift)

Some Rad doughnuts

John disappeared from IKEA

Beware when ordering this item

We spent much of the 4th of July at the Rupp's house. The La Crescenta fireworks were visible from their ward building.

Training for the big day

And in the wee hours of the morning, the time arrived

We still had a couple of days to go to our due date, but Tommy was ready. It was a little after 1 AM when Alison woke me up. I dropped John off with our neighbors, who were willing to be our "any time" child care. Fortunately, it was a Saturday, so that probably made things easier on everyone.

Tommy came around 4 in the morning, and since it took us a while to get checked in, we didn't have enough time to get an anesthesiologist. Also, Alison's doctor was out on vacation. But, everything turned out.

Here's Tommy!

Unwashed head

Another visit to Disneyland...learning to savor while we still have passes

An impromptu visit to the Pasadena Children's Museum turned out to be pretty fun.

I was the alligator

John didn't want to leave this hanging hammock

John's face

Playing the role of the troublesome monkey in some Chinese fairy tale

Magnets!

Astronauts!

Marbleworks!

Ball pit!

John didn't want a picture with us

Another visit to Din Tai Fung

Haley and my parents came for a visit to see Tommy.

Last known sighting before Haley disappeared on a mission

A day at the Newport Beach

Smashed avocado on toast. Can't afford a house because of this. Thanks, Jon and Vinny's.

We took a day trip to Griffith Park. Pretty cool place, seems like it'd be cooler at night. Unfortunately, the planetarium show is only open to kids early in the morning.

Some Tommy pictures...

John took my camera and wanted to show off how huge he is

Boba Fett is ready for Halloween

Random midday trip to Pasadena

Taking the Gold Line

I was working a lot of graveyard shifts in October, especially over the weekends. I finally caught a break in late October, so we went to Disneyland again.

John wasn't bold enough to actually carve, but he watched

Our Ewok Tommy

Garlic bae

Suddenly, we were into November.

John's Turkey Day at his preschool

Off to Texas for my cousin Becca's wedding and Thanksgiving.

Benefit of having "single" young couples like Eric and Krystal: free childcare. We got to go to my favorite theater to see Justice League (it was OK, worth the trip at least).

Becca was married at St Luke's Episcopal church in San Antonio.

Fireworks at the San Antonio Country Club reception.

Mommy and Tommy

Uncle Eric and John

Grandpa Frank James and my mom (Felicia). Believe it's in Hawaii.

A rare collection of the James family. From left to right: Aunt Tammy B., cousin Kendelle J, me holding Tommy, Mom, Dad, John, Grandma James,  Uncle Kevin J, Uncle K.B. J, cousin Corey J, Aunt Kim J. Alison took the picture.

A random walk with Grandma to distract her while her unwell turkey was swapped for a better one.

The first leg of our trip was over after a fun visit with the James family and Brizendine-Allen wedding. Turned out to be most economical to take Amtrak from San Antonio to Houston, but we had to get up really early in the morning. Turns out that we didn't quite get up early enough, but it didn't matter because our train was delayed. The station in San Antonio wasn't exactly the most comfortable.

Once onboard the train, it was really comfortable, even in the coach seats. The bedroom compartments maybe would have been nicer, but this was perfect for the 4ish hour trip.

It was our first time visiting Houston since Hurricane Harvey. Our nice home that we left behind in our move to California managed to escape flooding, but a lot of the city was hurting.

Holiday Star Wars was in full force. We were going to see Coco.

Merry Thanksgiving

Buca di Beppo Thanksgiving. A lot easier than making dinner!

Our 5th anniversary dinner in downtown Houston

Our trip had been very relaxing, right up until the Saturday after Thanksgiving, when we were planning on getting photographs of our family. Along the way, a lady pulled out from a parking lot into the road in front of our car. We hit at around 40 mph, maybe less with the last second braking. We turned out OK, bruising from seatbelts and airbags. The kids were fine. The lady had to go to the hospital.

Needless to say, that put a damper on the holiday. Debby is still dealing with the insurance fallout, which is turning out to be troublesome. Seems rare when it isn't a problem, honestly.

IAH, by the way, has greatly upgraded their gate area. Improved dining, easier payment--almost didn't mind having to drag bags around while we ached.

Finally managed to do an adult thing and get the Christmas tree up.

John added most of the ornaments to the bottom

Poke Pizza

Here's the collection tube for Ancestry's DNA test. I sent it in earlier this month, but because of their recent sales, I probably won't get results until well into January.

I had more graveyard shifts in December, but that didn't deter the ward Primary from a long drive to the Los Angeles Temple.

Beautiful but exhausting to get to

Alison let me sleep in Saturday morning, my birthday. We traipsed about old town Pasadena for most of the evening. The big event, of course, was Star Wars. The movie was great. Lots of haters out there are wrong.

A last visit from Grandma Debby before she headed off to Malaysia.

We were off, at last, on our Christmas trip. This was the morning view from our halfway house in Ehrenberg, AZ.

Unfortunately, shortly after arriving, we learned that Christie, Kirby's friend, was sick. Mom and Dad had to take her to the hospital. She ended up staying until late Christmas Eve...turned out fine in the end.

Missing his friend

Random Stormtrooper appearance

Tommy and Papa

Annual Christmas song singing

Delayed start to Christmas morning due to late nights for everyone

No Tucson Christmas is complete without a visit to Winterhaven.

Christie stalking behind Papa and Tommy

The Dutch Eatery

Chef's Board

The Benedict

 A visit to Reid Park Zoo is about John's speed.

Tigers are now his favorite

Weird Pokemon are now kept at the zoo

Red Pandas in the South America exhibit

Dad wanted to take John to Saguaro National Park to see the petroglyphs. He wasn't so impressed with the the carvings, but the cactus seemed interesting enough to him.

Cactus!

Look at the carvings! 

"Dad, I'm done"

An afternoon at the Oro Valley Children's museum

Our Christmas BB-8

A family walk

So, that ostrich farm off the side of I-10 near Picacho Peak? We finally went there. It's called Rooster Cogburn's Ostrich Farm. About $10 admission, it's a good afternoon trip.

Everyone gets the feed

Ostrich eggshells

Mom got bit by a donkey, we all had no issues

John loved feeding the parakeets best

Deer were pretty chill

Goats were pretty hilarious; some would stick out their front leg and tap to get attention

Ostriches are jerks. I opted not to get bit by one.

Sheep are also rather nice

More fun goats

Lorakeets!

A pretty good ending to the year, I guess! Alison has more projects in store for the house; I'm just hoping to take better care of what we have. There will be more late nights/early mornings for work in the future, but, hopefully, some fun times in the mix as well. Happy New Year!