May Highlights:
- Mother’s day
- Lilah’s volleyball team gets instruction from pro volleyball player
- Memorial Day weekend BBQs at my parents and friends where we get a nice view of the city from their new house
- Kids celebrate their cousin Trevor’s graduation and acceptance to USC
- I book end month with two races – placing third in one and second in the other
Family & Friends
May is a special month: the weather is terrific, school begins to wind down, graduation ceremonies begin in earnest, and the Memorial Day holiday brings family and friends together, putting everyone in a happy mood as we anticipate the home stretch into summer vacation. We had a lot of those feel-good moments this month.
It began with a Mother’s Day BBQ for all the Guerra mamas and all that they do. Instead of cooking we ordered some takeout BBQ from Bandits so that the moms could relax even more knowing that they wouldn’t have to cook. The moms smiled a lot and enjoyed their homemade wine punch or maybe they smiled a lot because they drank the punch…hmmm.
The next big event was Trevor’s birthday and graduation party. I like getting together with Cathy’s Persian side of the family because they remind me so much of the large extended family gatherings in Chile where all the generations get together to celebrate important events. Trevor is a special kid who has had to overcome a lot to get to where he is today, including the loss of his mother, Linda, to a heart condition (from complications with her bout with cancer) at a very young age. It’s nice to see that through his own perseverance and dedication, as well as the support of his family, he has succeeded in becoming an intelligent, thoughtful and engaging young man who will be a nice addition to the freshman class of USC this fall — Linda would be a very proud mommy indeed. Even Lilah was impressed with Trevor and marveled at how mature and how smart he was, which is saying something as she usually does not interact much with her boy cousins, preferring instead to hang out with cousin Rebecca. That’s what’s great about occasions like this. Sometimes you can go to gatherings for years with some of the kids not really clicking with each other, but then something sparks their interest and a connection is made.
Later in the month, we attended back-to-back BBQs during Memorial Day weekend. The first stop was a get together at Marcy and Dave’s new place. We’ve known them for about 8 or 9 years as our girls swam together and also became good friends during their years together in middle school. Sadly, their daughter Sabrina will be going to a different high school but hopefully the connection between our two families will remain and we’ll have many more reunions in the future. We definitely enjoyed hanging out at their new pad which included a great panoramic view of the city, the ocean and the Channel Islands on a clear day.
BBQ number two took place at my parent’s place. My dad’s friend Pato was also their with his niece. Pato is a long-time friend who arrived who left Chile with my dad when they were both about 21 to come to this country and start new lives for themselves. Here is picture of an image Pato carries around in his wallet, showing him, my dad, and two other roommates they had when they first came to this country (my dad is on the very left, Pato is next to him on the right, and to the very right are the other two roommates — my dad’s brother Mario and to his left is family friend Roly). Pato now lives in Chile but he typically comes out to the US every few years to visit. This year he is staying at my dad’s house for 4-5 weeks, which I think is good for my dad especially after having lost two of his closest long-time Chilean friends in the past year. Having a friend around with that type of history, who knew you when you were young, and saw you successfully build your life in a foreign land…ah, what can I say, that’s the kind of relationship and bond that can carry you for a lifetime. In addition to Pato, other old-time friends, Hector and Rosemary, also attended the BBQ to make it a happy and festive occasion for everyone.
The Kids
The kids continue to grow as was revealed by their first physicals in nearly two years. Both kids are 90 percentile for their height. Luke continues to stay lean (17th percentile for weight) but his doctor said not too worry about it because his chart has always showed the same trend — tall and skinny. He has become a little more conscious of his looks however as I’ve seen him grab some of Cathy’s weights to perform his own secret workouts in our bedroom. The other day he asked me how much I though he weighed now. He’s been at the borderline of crossing 70 lbs for as long as I can remember so I guessed 71. He then proudly told me he is at 72.5 lbs, which is good news as he knows he needs to be 75 lbs to get on the zip line in Lake Tahoe when we go there on summer vacation. Luke also asked if we could take him to have his haircut, which I don’t think has ever happened. I gladly took him to get the deed done and he looked good. A week or two later he nonchalantly asked me (in his typical low-key way) if he thought his hair looked okay when he styled it up in the front. I told him it looked good and left it at that — he doesn’t like you making a big fuss over him.
Lilah is also not one you want to make any big display over. After dropping her off at her volleyball game one Saturday morning, I decided to covertly set up a chair to watch and photograph her games. Of course, she saw me and when she went to the sidelines for a break she quickly told me “you need to leave cause you bring me extra bad luck.” Not just bad luck, but “extra” bad luck…lol. Like I’ve told others, I take this stuff in stride. She is just going through that teenage phase where we all try to assert our independence without yet realizing the irony that we still heavily rely on mom and dad for food, shelter, and a ride to and from just about everywhere. One day she will realize it too. Until then I humor her and realize that underneath that teenage bravado she still knows I am there for her and love her. Lilah continues to do well in school and she only has a few more weeks left before she is out. And although she complains a little about it, she is already signed up to take one summer school class. I think the biggest complaint is about school starting at 7:30 AM, which is a big deal for someone who likes to get up at 10 or 11 AM during summer break.
May was also the month of school open house where the kids had the opportunity to show off some of the projects they had worked on during the course of the year. However, on our way to the event I learned that I was apparently a little “too relaxed” in my dress as Luke pointed out I was wearing sweatpants and flip flops and Lilah added that I could have at least worn shoes. Oh well, I told them I would try not to embarrass them too much. At the open house Luke showed off his PowerPoint story which relies on the reader to choose different options to complete the story — choose the wrong option and you end up dead (I remember Lilah had to do the same thing in fifth grade too). I liked the opening line of Luke’s story:
You are a sheriff on duty and it’s an average day, you’re out getting a doughnut and coffee for the morning.
Way to perpetuate stereotypes Luke – of course, he’s too innocent to know that’s what he’s doing. The first slide of his story continued with the following lines:
Suddenly your radio goes off. You dash to your car and you hear that there’s a bank robbery close by that’s being robbed. You can be stealthy and run or make noise and drive.
Luckily, I chose the stealthy option of running and that led me to through the hero’s path of completing the story by foiling the bank robbers. Mom and Lilah, on the other hand, weren’t so lucky ;-). The other thing I noticed at the open house is that a girl who was a ways away from us went out of her way to say hi to Luke. Of course, Luke didn’t hear her and proceeded to keep on walking. I asked him who the girl was and he said her name was Eva and that he talked to her sometimes. That was all he said. Hmm, maybe that’s why he was asking me how his hair looked earlier in the week.
Lilah wasn’t too into the open house this year, but she did show me her Katie Perry picture scrapbook and another book she created where she illustrated the lyrics of a song (I See Fire by Ed Sheeran – not a surprise as she is a big Hobbit fan). When Lilah refused to cooperate during my picture taking, her friends backed me up and told Lilah she needed to pose for a picture with them so that her dad could take a photo — thanks for coming to the rescue Lauren and Tory!
Early Season Racing Success
After a long off season from racing, I finally competed in my first race at Bonelli Park, taking third place in my age group. I’ve been training hard in preparation for National Championships in August so it was nice to see the hard work pay off in a good performance, still knowing I can improve more. I had originally only planned to do one race in May, but my friend Greg asked if I would join him at the Admiral’s Cup, a local race that is held at the Naval Base. I quickly agreed as racing with a friend always makes for a more fun time before, during and after the race — not to mention the price was right and the field was small, leading me to collect my first ever second place medal. I was happy with the result. I was also happy to know that I was less than two minutes behind the first place guy. One of the benefits of racing with a friend is stopping by a good breakfast place on the way home to talk about the race, life, and anything else that comes to mind. And that’s exactly what I did to end the month.
That’s all for now…more next month!