Equinox

Here we go. Alison did the Christmas thing, although she left her blog post as a draft for a month. I went ahead and published it for her, so I'll probably be scolded at some point for that.

I didn't have hardly any pictures of John's birthday celebration at Jump 'n' Jammin, because I was on Tommy duty most of the time.

It was a success, and exhausting, of course. Fortunately, we have a lot of friends that pitched in that made it all work. John lost his balloon in the ductwork, and the staff offered to bring it down. They improvised with a long pole with a loop of tape. They snagged his red balloon and brought it all the way back down, much to John's delight. Then, as the young man was removing the balloon from the tape, it popped. John's face was a sight to behold, a mixture of confusion and horror. The Jump 'n' Jammin employee was horrified. And my reaction was to laugh. I'm a great dad.

Debby visited and offered to take us to some run-down Italian joint called Maggiano's, by the Price is Right studios. If you don't know me well, the restaurant is not actually in poor condition. Well, not entirely...they ended up having some flooding issues that closed the restaurant right around the time that we had finished, but in the meantime a fun time was had by all. John almost died for lack of entertainment, but that's another issue.

I went and lost my credit card at a pub by the Pantages theatre in Hollywood. I got it back a week later. Alison and I saw Wicked, finally.

Tommy has no problem with stairs.

John bedazzled his superhero mask at his school's "Daddy and Me" day. Dang, some kids had some legit costumes there. Fortunately, I managed to ease his jealousy of his friend Logan, who had a pretty spot-on Flash outfit.

Alison and I are always up for fabulous getaways, being season ticket holders and platinum level contributors to the council of the arts in...yeah, not really. We do like attending plays and performances when we can, though that doesn't stop the organizing committees from hitting us up for cash as if we were. We caught an excellent rendition of Ragtime in the Pasadena Playhouse.

And we also got heavily subsidized donuts from a new bakery.

I love selfies

Just a Sunday afternoon...

My last living grandparent passed away in March. I was grateful I visited Grandma Reese back in August for her 90th birthday, as that ended up being the last time I spoke to her. I traveled to Utah for the funeral, alone, as Alison had work obligations that she couldn't escape.

The Reese sombrero, kept in storage until Dad rediscovered it

The Grant residence, where the family gathered to sort through belongings

 We had some extra time in Salt Lake City on Sunday, so I got to attend my first Music and the Spoken Word.

Afterward, in the rain transitioning to snow, I suggested we go to the Salt Lake City Cemetery to visit some of our ancestors. Dad's folks are all buried elsewhere, but almost all of Mom's were buried here. I made sure to visit the James, Romneys, Birkinshaws, Showells, my mom's grandparents. Turns out that my James-Romney great grandparents were the hardest to locate. Their headstones were not where the cemetery records would indicate, but we did find them at last.

Grandma's service was held on the following Monday in Brigham City. Her children all participated with either prayers or speeches, with Dad giving the main remembrance and my cousin Angela retelling her biography. I was tasked with dedicating the gravesite, a first for me. I hope I did an OK job. We couldn't have asked for better weather, after the rainy and snowy stuff we had Sunday.

We had the rest of the afternoon to ourselves. Since we even got Eric to come out for the occasion, we did some tooling about downtown Salt Lake.

We located a CupBop joint, together with a ramen place. That was awesome...would definitely go again. Although maybe my stomach wasn't super ready for the unique flavors a few hours later...still, worth it.

Since I couldn't convince my parents to watch Us, I found a showing of the Apollo 11 documentary at the Salt Lake Film Society. I think Alison would have loved the place...very arthouse styling. It reminded me of the cinephile aspects of the Alamo Drafthouse, but without the pop (serious business). The documentary is excellent, and I recommend that any fan of history or of the space program see it. I happen to be both.

So, it's back to the grindstone with me. Fortunately, our long test campaign at work has ended for now. Haley comes in about a week and a half, so John and I are going to ride the rails again to see her--more adventure awaits!