What a Day as the Year Winds Down

It is End of the Year

What a day!  It really captures the life we led this year.  It started off promptly at 5:45 am.  Time to wake the little man up, unless he is already up gaming.  Get dressed, brush your teeth, comb your hair and get downstairs for breakfast.

Most of the time it is waffles for him, oatmeal for me with grapes, and orange juice for both of us. Then we make sure the little man has not forgotten to print out any of  his homework from the night before. Off we go with his skates, books, and whatever.

We race to skating before school on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  The man looks good this morning.  It is all clicking.  He is really getting his routine down.

Then it is off to school, but we stop and get some kid's temperature hot chocolate at Starbucks along the way.  We make it to school with time to spare (who could believe it) so we play "chop sticks" - a game where you tap each other's hand to increase the number of fingers sticking out.  When your opponent has more than five fingers displayed you are out. The game doesn't really matter, it was the time together, playing, out smarting each other with strategy to see who is the last man standing, as it were. (I won today - that's a first trust me.)

In any case, the bell rings and he is off to class.  I stop at home and take the dogs out and then race to Monterey to take care of business.  (Luckily there is cell service along the way to check and see if my crew is working and to finalize a few projects before the end of the year.)

I have to race right back because David thinks he may have a karate sparring class at 3:30.  I make it home in time to let the dogs out and sneak in a little more work - invoices primarily, once again before the end of the year.  

Then I race to pick up the little man and to my surprise the only karate sparring class is at 8:15 pm - much too late for this little man.  But there is swimming at 4:15.  Who knew?  And did we remember his bathing suit or wet suit - of course not.  So we race home to get the wet suit and my karate outfit. (The wet suit because it is December and the karate outfit because I am in the same class as David along with mom and we (parents) were tested today.  (I will remove the suspense - we passed - we are now gold belts.)

In any case, I help David get his wet suit on - no small task - and watch him swim for a while.  He is showing off a bit today, demonstrating how much he still remembers.

(I manage to get in a few emails.)  He finishes the swimming lesson at 4:45.  I help him get changed back in to his street clothes, while I get my karate outfit on.  We race to the car to karate.

Mom meets us there.  We pass the test with flying colors.  David was thrilled that he was asked to help demonstrate a couple of moves. The teacher needed another knowledgable body (student) to pair up with another student for one of the moves.  To celebrate we all ate at Red Lobsters (one of David's favorites).

We finally make it home for ice cream, milk, and bed time.  David takes care of the pooping and peeing and then typically bath time.  We finish off with the brushing of the pearly whites and the golden hair routine. We hop into bed and read another chapter   I get ready to shut the lights off and say good night and the little man talks my ear off as a way to stay up later and keep me in the room for company.  Eventually, I say "good night, love you, sleep well" and he repeats it back to me.  I say "thanks" and the lights actually go off.

Today he was tired enough to sack out as soon as the door closed.  For me, however, it was time to get back to work. We are taking off soon for vacation and the week and the year are slipping through my fingers.  But I thought I would take a moment to highlight the day, because it really captured a lot of what this year has been like, minus the music of course - all in a day.

Catching Up - Near the End of the Year

Just Playing Catch Up

It has been one heck of a year for so many reasons, both personally and professionally, but for this young man, it has truly been non-stop.  In fact, I have felt a bit remiss in not "putting it to digital paper" as it were.  We have certainly been living alongside this young man's achievements and entertaining moments, but it is time to just do a grand sweep of things before we close the year.

Before taking a stab at recounting the last few months, which have almost been a blur for us, let me share a wonderful moment of childhood wonder.  I was reading the story Matilda (by Roald Dahl) last night at bedtime.  We are almost at the end of the story and a secret is revealed about the identify of Matilda's teacher (who treated her in an awful, if not dreadful, manner).  The moment I read the line that revealed her identify, he exclaimed: "That is huge!"  He was right - it is a shocking surprise, but mostly it was the absolute delight and amazement on his face that was priceless and I was fortunate enough to experience it right along side him.

We would like to share the same type of childhood wonder with you with these broad strokes - a few pictures and a few words.  Please take a moment and enter the moment with us.

Yes - the little man is still skating and getting better every day!

He is proud of his new moves on ice.

He got us all into Martial Arts - yes, all of us!

He is, of course, one belt ahead of us.

His violin work is going smoothly.

He just had a recital on Sunday.

(listen to his recital here)

We spent Thanksgiving with Heather and Mark.

They just moved to Las Vegas - big transition for them.

(It was a 12 hour drive each way - next time we go by plane for sure.)

We took in a magic show while we were in Las Vegas for Thanksgiving.

David loved it.  He still can not figure out how the magician made those exotic animals disappear.

(Thank's go to Summer's mom for arranging it for all of us).

How could I forget?  We celebrated his birthday - November 21st.  

He is officially 9 years old!

He loves Minecraft toys for any occasion.  Birthday was just an excuse to get more Legos.

(His cousin Tyler, Uncle Tyler, and Aunt Tracy were there along with his friends.)

Thanks Bubbie!  He has been wanting the ferris wheel for some time.

Yes - the time has come - Hanukkah!

What a festival to help close out the year.

The Festival of Lights is a particularly appropriate holiday to celebrate at the end of this year.

It helps us close out the year with light instead of darkness. 

We wish you all well as you enter your own season of festivities and begin a new one 

with hope, truth, wisdom, love, compassion, and prosperity.

It is Hanukkah!

Violin Recital - Minuet - 2015

Minuet - David Fetterman's Violin Recital

David played the Minuet by J.S. Bach at his violin recital on December 6, 2015.  His performance was impressive. He attends the Pacific Piano School in San Jose, California.

Listen to His Performance

To celebrate his performance (and Hanukkah) we ate at Counter Burger and then played Laser Tag.  It was quite the day. What a gift!