We're on a Trip, not a Vacation!

Bryce applied and was accepted to a 10-day Design and Digital Fabrication trip for 10 students from his high school. He is the only one who doesn't speak Spanish, so he did a bit of Duolingo prior to his departure. He complained about having to conjugate verbs and that there are feminine and masculine articles, nouns, and adjectives. I am glad he is having such a rich cultural experience, especially since he was on a school backpacking trip when Kyusik, Acadian, and I went to Mexico City two years ago.  He is staying at a Hilton in the Cen tro  Histórico  and has a packed schedule . I dropped him off at the airport on Friday morning. It was the first time he's travelled anywhere without us. We've been getting daily photo updates from the two teachers chaperoning the trip. Samu is the Technical Arts Department Chair, and José is a math teacher.  They are collaborating with a local artist named Dinorah Martínez Schulte , who uses 3D modeling to create sustainable build...

Even though he could barely swim a few laps, Bryce tried out water polo in the fall. Over the course of several months, he worked hard and became a strong swimmer  and one of the better players on the JV team. He also made some great friends. His teammates voted him as the most improved. The team is really sweet with the senior boys taking the frosh under their wings and giving them advice in the locker rooms. One senior hosted the entire team at his family's winery for a sleepover. In a photo at the end of the season, Bryce is doing a speech to honor one of the senior boys with whom he was closest. Bryce has enjoyed the sport so much that he then did club water polo over the winter, which meant that Kyusik and I had to take turns doing a very complicated carpool to Burlingame 4 days/week with 4 other families. It was a 3-4 hour commitment because after driving there and back, the practices were 2 hours, and it was too far for the parent to drive home in between. Bryce is now on th...

We've been so busy that I am just now catching up on this blog and all of the trips and events going on in our lives. Huge thanks to Grammy and Grampy for their generosity in funding our trip to an all inclusive in Punta Cana. The highlights were the private boat complete with slide and diving board booked by Auntie, parasailing for the boys with Siena, and a card game we played on the last night to get to know each other better, during which Grammy won the plank contest and Aunteater proclaimed that she is open-minded.  We accompanied the Hester Marrs to Santo Domingo, where we had a blast visiting a chocolate factory and then experienced a 4D movie about the Battle of Santo Domingo. We didn't know what to expect and after donning 3D glasses, we were led into a private theater, where our seats moved up and down and vibrated and we were occasionally sprayed by mist.   Then it was on to Jarabacoa, where we were supposed to do a canyoning trip. Unfortunately due to heavy ra...

     Day 1: Once we got to the airport, we boarded a bus to our hotel. On the bus, Bryce and I played video games. When we got to the hotel, we checked in and headed towards our room. It was probably the fanciest room I’ve ever been in, as it had two floors. Since we got to the hotel at nighttime, we met up with the Percivals for dinner. We headed to the hotel restaurant for a meal, which was very, very, very expensive.     Day 2: Today was the first day of skiing, but I had to go to a lesson instead of going with everyone else. For breakfast, we ate a set Japanese meal before going skiing. There were about five people in my group, including myself. We got on the gondola and went to the west mountain. After a few runs, we stopped for lunch before getting a little break. Finally, we skied back and were picked up. For dinner, we decided to dine out at a different restaurant, where we ate some hot pot.     Day 3: On our second full day, we ...

On Friday Bryce went to his first high school dance. The theme was Grease, so we made sure he had watched the movie the weekend before. He was out from 7 pm until I picked him up at 11:30 pm. Kyusik's parents arrived that evening, picking up Acadian from soccer practice along the way home. They'll be staying with us for 2 weeks while we are in Taipei for Dave and Tomasz's wedding celebration and will then spend a few days in Yosemite after we return.  Yesterday was insanely busy with Acadian's soccer game, dropping Bryce off for his waterpolo team sleepover, and then heading straight down to Stanford to visit the Rodin sculpture garden, pho at a Vietnamese institution in San Jose, Indian grocery store shopping in Milpitas, and returning to Stanford for a play called Hidden Strawberries about the impact of wildfires on migrant farm workers. The play was written by an Iranian postdoctoral fellow at the School of Sustainability. He is a scientist and playwright and based t...