A Spring "Break" with Kids...and more kids.

When you have kids, especially multiple children, the terms "break" or "vacation" that used to cause such excitement when they followed "spring," "summer," or "winter" take on a very different meaning. They require quotes when said by parents. Observe:

Parent at School: How was your Spring Break?

Mimi: Good! I went to the museum, and then skiing, and then I played outside. No homework!

Steve: Spring "Break?" Yeah, uh, it was good. Yeah, good. I think. We did a lot of stuff. Um, is today Tuesday? I honestly don't know anymore.

While school breaks and vacations no longer hold the same excitement for parents as they do for their kids (the week after the week off ironically becomes the week off), they remain just as much of an adventure.

Our Spring Break began early, but just on Saturdays. Mimi had recently graduated from Kindergarten in her Saturday Japanese school. That meant she had a few Saturdays free.

We took advantage of this with a family hike to Cascade falls here in Marin. Kuri and Mimi did a great job scampering up the hills. Sumie, strapped down with a baby, still managed to take her tea with her. There's no stopping certain addictions.

With Mimi off Japanese school, that meant her cousins in Japan were free as well. And they were on their way. Sumie's brother arrived with his wonderful wife and four kids. It's always a special time when the cousins get together. For some reason, they liked staying in our house. I can't imagine why...

The weather was gorgeous, but it still got a bit cold at night. It's amazing how many kids can fit under a kotatsu when the temperature drops.

We took advantage of the great weather with a trip up to Napa and picnic out at Paradise beach.

Christopher, Shuhei, and I even woke up early on Sunday to take the Porsche to Cars and Coffee. This was really special for Kuri. Not only did he get to see cars, he got to enjoy them with his cousin idol. They really earned those cookies that morning.

Mimi still had school while her cousins were visiting. As they took a trip down to LA, the family gathered together at Mimi's school to share in Author's Week.

 And, of course, with the sun out and Spring finally in the air, we had to take the top off the car..

...and ride bikes in the back yard.

Just before Mimi was set to go on Spring Break here in the states, her Japanese school started back up. We went to Mimi's entrance ceremony for first grade...

...and then went home and played with Ooblick!

Before we knew it, Spring Break started in earnest. It wasn't just for Mimi. Mariko had a week off from daycare and Kuri, well, there was no way he'd go to preschool if both his sisters were at home. The only one who didn't have time off was Sumie, at least until Thursday and Friday. On Tuesday I took all three kids up to Sacramento to visit their Great Grandmother. Unfortunately, with just me on duty with three kids, I forgot to take pictures!

The following day my mom came over to celebrate her birthday a few days late. We decided to go down to the Discovery Museum...

...and fill up on fish and chips at Fish in Sausalito.

Mari approved of the restaurant choice. She was particularly fond of the chips.

We finished off the day with cake back at home. Mari had had so many chips, she passed out before she could get to the cake.

We'd definitely been on the move the past few weeks, but there was still more to do. Early Thursday morning we packed up for a one-night trip to Tahoe. One thing I learned from doing this: if you're going to pack three kids for a trip to the snow, you might as well go for a week. It takes the same amount of time. I took less luggage when I moved to Japan than I did for the family for one night 200 miles away from home.

10 miles from Donner Lake, where we'd be staying, we found Highway 80 closed thanks to yet another significant snow. We decided to brave waiting it out for an hour with three kids who needed to pee, but were rewarded with a warm lodge room and a beautiful view of the wintry storm.

Our room had a great little breakfast nook...

...where little girls could pout for no particular reason.

 After dinner, Mimi and Kuri insisted on a snowball fight. Papa obliged.

In the morning we woke to a crystal clear day.

Mimi and her Papa headed to the ski resort, where Mimi had her first lesson and her Papa, who hadn't skied in 20 years, managed not to kill himself.

As Mimi skied, Mari cuddled with her Mama back at the lodge and Kuri focused on making more snowballs.

Just before we left, we picked up a sled and found a hill. Again, we had to split up. Sumie took the two oldest while I hung out in the Pilot with a tuckered out baby.

We returned late Friday night, but rest was not on the schedule for Saturday. Mimi had Japanese school and I, well, I'd earned a reprieve. Bidding the family an early goodbye, I hopped in the Porsche and joined some friends for an, um, "spirited" drive out on the coast. It was my first child-free moment in almost two weeks.

Normally Sunday would've been our family day of rest, but the Cherry Blossom festival was wrapping up in San Francisco and Sumie had been asked, for the 6th time, to speak at the Japanese Senior Brunch in Japantown. It also being Easter Sunday, we dolled up the kids, cleaned up ourselves, and went to brave a formal brunch and awards ceremony with a six year old, a three year old, and one hyper-squirmy one year old. Here's a spot of Mari, who I had taken out into the lobby so she could point virtually everything and comment in lively babble. It's her favorite hobby.

All three kids made it through the brunch!

In fact, we all made it through not only the brunch, but through what amounted to two jam-packed Spring Breaks. We even still looked somewhat presentable.

To call the past several weeks to a vacation, or even a break, would be a bit of a misnomer. They were, however, quite an adventure. I'm not quite sure where our next round of time off will take us, but I'm sure it's going to be an exhausting, rewarding, memorable time.

A Bit of Life's Blind Luck

Contemplating the "luck of the Irish" (of which I'm a quarter) on this St. Patrick's Day, I thought I'd look back at the role it has played in my life to date. While most of the life my family shares can be ascribed to careful decision making and hard work, there have been moments, instances of blind luck, that genuinely changed our lives and, in at least one case, actually set them in motion.

There was luck in my childhood, but it was of the typical kind. I had parents who looked after me and provided for me. I was able to go to school. Perhaps the most uniquely lucky aspect of my first twenty years is that I met a group of friends (15 or so) that still get together every year, despite living all over the country. Odd that so many strange souls who would call me a friend lived in the same town, but this bit of luck was nothing compared to what happened in college.

The greatest piece of luck I have ever experienced was being hired as a music librarian for my work study job at UC Davis. I felt I was lucky to have the job from the beginning, but it would take a year and a half to discover just how fortuitous my hiring had been.

In my second year, a beautiful woman entered the library. I'd seen her before. She handed me her student ID in exchange for a CD that she was going to listen to in preparation for a concert coming up. She was part of the student orchestra. Two minutes later, she came back to ask me how to work the CD player (this being her second visit, it was the second time she'd asked for help). When she finished, we ended up talking. And we're still talking twenty years later. If I hand't gotten that music library job, chances are I never would've met my future wife and experienced all the adventures that have come with it. In recognition of this, I still ensure that all our audio equipment is overly complicated so that she still needs to seek me out to get it going. It's my little insurance policy.

That music library job led to meeting Sumie and, three years later, resulted in the next stroke of luck. Sumie had come to UC Davis in the middle of getting her law degree in Japan. She finished her school work in California, and then, instead of just staying here in the US, she decided to finish up her degree in Japan. As a result, I ended up having the best year of my life teaching English to a wacky group of kids.

Before I left for Japan I had some very close friends, but they were all on the west coast. After a year in Japan, I came back to California with life-long friends from all over the world. That decision to live abroad had the lucky impact of opening up the world and helping me to take chances. As a result, I wouldn't stay in California for long.

Another instance of luck was that Sumie was accepted to study medicine in New York. For a while, we were looking at living in Hershey Pennsylvania. I could very well have ended up working as a chocolate historian. But as things worked out, we ended up moving to what would become our favorite city in the world. We discovered our first apartment that we actually lived in together on the Upper West Side...

...and fell in love with a tiny apartment, the first real estate we ever bought, on the Upper East Side.

We even had a little girl along the way.

After ten years on the east coast, we thought we'd be there pretty much forever. But then luck stepped into our path again. Sumie was set to sign a contract with a nephrology group back east, but the contract had been delayed by the group's attorney. As a result, when she was contacted by a medical group out here in California, we thought we might as well at least hear them out. Five days later, we'd decided to move to the Bay Area. Virtually blind luck again, but what can I say, it's been good to us.

That little girl in New York has now grown into a toothless 1st grader...

...who has interesting ideas about hats,

but can work hard when she wants to. She recently graduated Japanese Kindergarten.

Over the years, Mimi has been joined by Christopher, our little Kuri. He's the only three year old who can pull off a bomber jacket with shorts and strawberry rubber boots.

He's also very good at looking tough hanging out the top of a 911.

And lastly, there's Mariko, who though only a year old, already has complete control over the entire family. She is the puppet master.

Somehow, amazingly, all of this goes back to that random day when someone thought I'd make a decent music librarian. And, as such, though it paid the least, it will always be the job for which I'm most thankful.