Dave and Cathy's Family Blog

December Highlights:

• Mom celebrates another birthday and so does Cat
• Get to Mammoth for first snowstorm of the season
• Many trips to beach to get waves and sunsets
• Christmas with the kids
• Zach comes to town
• A visit with grandma Carol, Benny, and the cousins

A Month of Dramatic Sunsets, Waves and Weather

The first winter storms arrived in earnest this month. Relatively heavy rainfall — at least for southern California — meant Mammoth had an epic snow storm in which they received 6+ feet of the white stuff in 4 days. Luke and I were on hand to experience the first great day of the season. Well, kind of great. Snowboarding in a snowstorm has it’s challenges as you go higher up the mountain.    (more…)

November Highlights:

• Visit Lilah in Santa Cruz and we go see our first concert together
• Luke gets his first new surfboard
• The Hill fire gets close but never threatens thanks to our location away from winds and chaparral
• We visit grandma
• We celebrate Thanksgiving and Lilah is with us for quick break

Seeing The Damned with Lilah in Santa Cruz

Some time in October Lilah sent me a text letting me know that The Damned, a punk band I used to listen to, was going to be playing in Santa Cruz, apparently touring for their new album. I jokingly suggested I should come and take her and a friend to the concert. She did not seem put off by the idea so I took two days off work and took her to the show.   
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Dad Celebrates His 75th Birthday

Despite his sometimes gruff exterior, my dad is a sentimental guy. Slowly he has come into the modern age through the help of his smartphone, my mom (who helps him configure it), and the various apps he uses to communicate with his peeps back in his homeland. But his favorite app by far has to be WhatsApp — it is the app that pretty much our entire Chilean family uses to send messages and make old school phone calls. On his birthday, his day is typically filled with phone calls from friends and family. And being that he’s retired, he has the luxury of answering them all, relishing in the love he receives from his sisters, brothers, nieces and nephews. 
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September Highlights:

• Start month with birthday – my gift is picking up Lilah at UC Santa Cruz
• Went to see The National – and brought Luke with me (it was his first concert)
• Celebrate my sister’s birthday
• After what seemed like a very brief stay, Lilah goes back to school to start the fall quarter

Lilah’s Initial Impressions of College Life

The big highlight of this month was picking up Lilah from school. It provided me with a chance to see where she had been living for the past 5 weeks, meet her roommates and new friends, and also hear about all her new experiences. I already had a feeling things had been going really well as the only times I heard from her was when she would respond to one of my e-mails or texts.  
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July Highlights:

• Celebrate Nicholas’ and Lilah’s birthdays
• Uncle Mario comes to visit
• Lilah leaves for Summer quarter at UC Santa Cruz
• Do some serious eating at HG Data annual BBQ in Goleta
• Luke spends Summer days solo at beach learning to surf

Lilah Goes Away to Summer School

Not one to have a big party for herself, we convinced Lilah to let us throw her a small family get together at our local Toppers’ pizza. The reunion was a late birthday party as well as a family send off for Summer school at Santa Cruz, which lasts 5 weeks. When we got together she seemed to genuinely be in a good mood — maybe because she knew she would be leaving in a few days ;). My uncle Mario also joined us for the occasion giving it just an added special touch.   
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April Highlights:

• Celebrate Luke’s birthday
• Lilah and fellow seniors get honored in senior swim meet
• Luke’s team gets second place in last volleyball tournament of the season
• I start the triathlon season with a 2nd place finish at Bonelli Park triathlon
• I visit Google campus for the first time
• Cathy creates inspiring fitness bio for YMCA

Volleyball and Swim Seasons Nearing an End

Luke is Having a Great Season
For a kid who didn’t start playing volleyball until the end of last year, Luke has done remarkably well in his first season with the freshman volleyball team. In their last tournament of the year, his solid play in the middle led to some great momentum shifts for his team. Not only was he able to block or deflect shots (what middle players are expected to do), he was also able keep a few points alive with quick reflexes that kept the ball in play and gave his team a chance to score. The coach even singled out Luke’s play as being one of the keys to their success in the tournament. It was kind of cool to just sit back as a parent and hear the coach speak about Luke in glowing terms.
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Feb/March Highlights:

• Lilah and I tour UC Santa Cruz and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
• Lilah begins her last year on high school swim team
• I meet Amelia Heinle and Thad Luckinbill, of Young and the Restless fame
• Luke makes it onto freshman volleyball team
• Luke wraps up season with his Big Bear snowboard team (video) & we make three trips to Mammoth to snowboard in pow

Touring Universities with Lilah

Cal Poly San Luis Obispo
The reality of Lilah soon leaving the house to pursue university studies got a little more real this month with a visit to two of the universities she was accepted into – UC Santa Cruz and Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. I managed to get us an official campus tour for San Luis Obispo and our hosts did a great job of showing us around, complete with intermissions in which they mixed in some corny jokes to keep things light and fun. The tour was an 1.5 hours and we learned a lot about the university, including the fact they have the largest recreation west of the Mississippi, a very robust agricultural studies program where you can raise chickens and other animals, and a direct connection to NASA for students in the aerospace/engineering program (thanks to a professor who started teaching there in the 50s or 60s).  
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January Highlights:

• Luke’s snowboard team gets their team hoodies
• Luke tries out for high school volleyball team
• We take a trip to Mammoth and see some of the Olympics qualifiers, including Chloe Kim who Luke meets in person
• Lilah plays at winter recital – she played her own composition, City of Stars (La La Land), Somebody to Love (Queen)

Lots of Snow Trips with a Detour into Volleyball

Last year, I think I remember our team snowboard trips being every other week, but this year the schedule has changed to pretty much every week which meant we took 4 trips to the mountains in January. We did, however, mix it up a little bit by skipping team one week and driving up to Mammoth instead to take advantage of some powder conditions. We were pumped when we heard a storm was approaching our favorite mountain, but unfortunately it only dropped about half the amount of snow originally forecast. Still, it meant we were able to test out my new all terrain tires in the snow (they did great) and get a few morning runs in the fresh powder before it all got spread out and carved up. 
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