2015 Holiday Edition : Homemade Traditions

Connie, Ryan, Emilia(5), Liam(4)
--> Behind the Scenes : Sakurada 2015 Holiday Card

This year, and future years to come, I want the kids to be an active part of holiday traditions. The kids helped put up and decorate our Charlie Brown tree (while only managing to knock it over twice). They also assisted with putting up a garland of holiday cards strung across our living room window. When it came time for getting our holiday cards done, I also wanted them to have a hand in it. So this year, we went back to the basics.. homemade holiday cards, which also made for great craft time! (Also reason as to why we're late!)

Kids at work.



--> Year in Review : 2015

2015 was another typical busy year (I know.. it's a re-occurring theme every year!), juggling various schools, work, and activities on top of basic responsibilities. It has had its ups and downs, struggles and joys, successes as well as failures, and always, always never enough time.

Kids with their Charlie Brown Xmas tree & presents.

Emilia started kindergarden this year, and she loves it. The social butterfly walks into school and gets greetings from everyone. It's pretty amazing to see her personality shine in an environment that is her own. Liam has had to learn to be in preschool without his older sister. It took a little bit, but now Liam has found a few best buddies to play super heros with. While the kids each have their own lives and school environments, Ryan and I are still learning how to be supportive parents and to be involved in our kids' community - volunteering for school, meeting other parents, etc.

Camp/Climb Trip May,2015

In spite of juggling everyones' schedules, Ryan and I have been able to somewhat maintain regular rock climbing. Though I'm sure it is at a sacrifice of time for possibly something else (friends, family, sleep, food-lunch/dinner times). This year we were able to do a couple of family camping/climbing trips (Priest Draw in Flagstaff,AZ and Kraft Boulders in Red Rocks, Las Vegas) where we spent days climbing and hanging out at the boulders. At times when climbing outdoors just didn't fit either due to weather or timing, we would tour rock climbing gyms, sometimes meeting friends or famous climbers along the way.

Family rock climb time with Chris Sharma!

Aside from us, there was lots going on with our friends, family, and the world. Lots of heavy stuff to think about and really reflect on life and what we can do in spite of things that seem out of our realm. The Syrian refugee crisis, the terrorist attacks, both my kids had lock down drills at school, military friends that were deployed as we followed in snippets of their experience and their families, grandma passing, and news of reoccurring cancer to Emilia and Liam's cousin Luke (age 15).

Luke, Spencer, Emilia, & Liam, 2012
--> Important Sidenote : A Request

The best present the kids can have is a chance to have a future with their cousin. I don't know who reads this blog (other than grandparents) but by chance we do have friends and family reading, Luke really needs a bone marrow match. Please please consider being a bone marrow donor and help spread the word. The test is easy, simply 4 cotton swabs of the inside of your cheek.

More Information About Luke's Story and How to Donate

Direct Link to Sign Up for Bone Marrow Donation:
join.bethematch.org/teamluke

--> 2016 Preview

Obviously 2015 had a lot going on around us that really brought us back to evaluating life, values, and our priorities. How do we go about teaching our kids resilience through fear and hardships? Appreciation for the simple basic joys of life, and not to take what they have for granted?

The "Less is More" motto has resonated a lot recently... less stuff, less distractions and more doing. The kids actually are a lot better than adults about that and they teach us a lot. They already have minimal toys and spend most of their time MacGyvering things to fit their imagination. They get excited when they see a puffy funny shaped cloud, or a moving train while we are driving on the road. On our camping trips, we give them a shovel and nature is their sandbox and play yard. So for 2016, the goal is to get the parents inline with the values we stress for the kids. Luckily the rock climbing life style fits in very well with this. =)

Kids, shovels, and the outdoors.

This quote that I came across Facebook one day sums it up, and as 2016 starts up, this is a continued focus.

"Do not ask your children to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is a way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself."
-Gregg Braden

Kids painting the inside of a paper bag. (Thanks Carey for the great idea!)

"Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away." Maya Angelou

Happy Holidays everyone! And wishing you all many simple, ordinary moments that take your breath away in 2016!

<3 The Sakuradas

Christmas Lights

This year's Christmas light display... we went back to a neighborhood where we found Santa Claus and Mrs.Claus roaming the streets two years back, but no such luck this year.

There is something about bundling up and simply roaming the streets on a cold winter's night with other roamers and soaking in the holiday lights. Sometimes there will be groups of carolers. Some homes have fire pits set up in their driveway, with offerings of cookies and warm drinks. This year, there was a family of kids wishing everyone "Merry Christmas" and passing out mini-candy canes.

Liam had his first yummy taste of hot chocolate on a cold, winter's night. And boy, did he like it!

Kids exercised in front of light displays... one would think it was to stay warm, but nope. Its just cause they can't stay still for photos.

A sighting of Santa! As close of a Santa sighting that we got this year, through an upstairs window.

Most wonderful time of the year...

Happy Holidays!

Here Comes Santa Claus!

It is that time of the year again, to visit Santa at the neighborhood Toys for Tots event. Kiddos were excited to see Santa and they know the drill now. Tell Santa about the good things that they have done this year. Liam went right up to Santa. Emilia needed a little nudge. No tears! (Even though it looked like there was a short moment of possibility.)

I dunno... Santa's either getting smaller or we are all getting bigger! Esp the kiddos!

Santa in 2014, 2012, and 2011.

Turkey Holiday Road Trip

For Thanksgiving holiday week, kiddos were out of school, so we took a week long road trip up and down CA to hit multiple destinations for multiple purposes.

First stop was at Red Rocks for some much needed outdoor bouldering fun. Stress level remained high, from rushing to finish work projects prior to vacation time, to packing last minute, but finally.. a day spent hanging out at the boulders with simply dirt, rocks, sun... doing some light hiking and climbing was the best getaway.

The campsite is a first-come-first-serve and being a holiday weekend, it was overfilled. No campsite available to us, so we had to camp in the walk-in parking lot. Luckily for us, the back of the truck works out. It is not the most comfortable, and changing in and out of PJs in the cold is definitely no fun for the kiddos, and we are all snuggled up right next to each other like a pile of sardines. But it is a unique experience for the kiddos and we have gotten a lot of curious campers checking out Ryan's camper setup and sharing their own stories of similar experiences growing up or rigging their own car sleeping solution setups.

Best part about car camping.. it puts us ~5 minutes away from the trail head to the Red Rocks, Kraft Boulders, where we climbed.

The trail was easily marked... just follow the line of crash pads along the trail. It seemed like the whole climbing community was out there climbing. Ryan bumped into some guys he knew from his gym. We met a couple from Oregon, another group from Arizona and the mid-West. At the specific boulder we were going to climb, there were ~30+ climbers throughout the day.

This time, packing was rushed, so I didn't have a chance to get toys for the kids. They simply had their daypacks with snacks and water, and the trusty shovels from our last trip. That was going to have to be enough (along with the elements of nature) to keep themselves busy for the day.

No photos of us climbing. Only one of Ryan. I spent a lot of time watching other climbers to get beta, check on the kids, analyze and figure out how I wanted to move on my specific problem, check on the kids, warm up the fingers, check on the kids, back to my problem and slip into line for turn to climb, check on kids..etc.

Ryan had a great route for me to work on, the V2 Monkey Bars. Nerves got to me the first try at it.. cause climbing outside is way different from indoors. It took a little bit of working some of the easier V0/V1 problems to loosen up the nerves, and I was able to complete the V2 on my second try. Still nervous at the top out, but it felt great to complete it.

My V2 project was Ryan's warm-up. He was working this V6 (shown below) for the later half of the day.

The kiddos spent most of their time scrambling on kid size rocks, playing imaginary games with whatever they could find, and chatting up friendly climbers around. I don't think they even used their shovels that much. The best playground.. the outdoors. =)

We only spent couple of nights at Red Rocks, one day of bouldering. We wanted to do some more camping and climbing, but a cold front storm was predicted to arrive, so we made the decision to skip more outdoor climbing and continue driving north.

One of the days heading north, we made plans to meet up with our friend, Roger, at Pipeworks Climbing Gym in Sacramento. This gym is pretty awesome. From the outside, it looks like an old, run-down industrial factory... seems sort of sketchy.

But... on the inside, it is like a climbing/workout paradise - big sections for top rope and lead climbing, lots of area with a modern design of bouldering, include a wave wall, and a bouncy, gymnastics floor for additional workouts with various gym equipment...

in the back there was an enormous room with lots of Crossfit rigs and lifting platforms for their Crossfit classes. This gym also had a yoga studio AND a Brazillian Jiujitsu studio/classes.

Kiddos goofing off. Luckily the place was not crowded when we arrived, so the kid had open range free play for the first half of the time that we were there, tho we had to reign them in a little as people started flowing in.

It's funny, the kids are never interested in climbing for the first 3-4 hours that we are at the gym.. but starting from the 5-6th hour that we are at the gym, that's when they become interested and really give climbing a go.

Liam climbing the down climb.



Ryan making this V5 climb look easy.



Emilia working the V0 climb (white hand holds) with any feet.



We've done a lot of driving.. with some climbing in between, but it's mostly been driving and time in the car...

from Red Rocks...

to Sacramento,and then to Grass Valley, near Tahoe. It snowed!

Ryan had a work meeting, so I put the kids to work too with creating a storybook for me. They ended up doodling.. so close enough. =P

and then back down to the Bay Area.. Bay Bridge, SF.

Lots of stops at restaurants along the way, and that has it's own challenging experiences dealing with Liam's food allergies. Egg is much more common than one would think! No PF Changs! We thought surely we could get rice, something with meat and veggies, but they coat all of their meats in an egg marinade. That is soo not Chinese!

Apparently we hit all the restaurants that had egg in things that Liam eats. =P Mac'n'cheese, grill cheese, burgers, pasta ... all are suspect for egg depending which restaurant we go to. This was one of our better food stops, Cattlemen's in Davis.

We made it in time to visit family, the night before Thanksgiving day. It was great to see the family. The kiddos miss their cousins and its great to see how they play together right away.

Unfortunately, I didn't take any photos from the family get together. It was a good kind of chaotic, gluttonous feast that will take me at least a month of exercise to work off... just in time for Christmas. We spent the remainder of our trip with family. Lots of eating, but did manage to get the kiddos and some cousins to a trampoline park for some trampoline dodge ball. Again, no photos, but it was fun.

We did a one day drive back down to go home, with a pitstop again, at Bravo Farms in Kettleman City, a Tex-Mex joint for food with an Old Western town themed playground and shops. They do have egg in their pasta and burger buns.. but the grill cheese is okay.

Sante Fe Cobb salad with Tri-Tip... yum!

It has been a long week. The driving and traveling is tiring, even though we are just sitting. The trip, even though it was a week long, still feels too short. But on the other hand, I am ready to get back to routine.. eat home cooked meals, exercise, and get a full nights sleep on my own comfy, warm bed. =)