Our sweet little Nutmeg sadly has had a recurrence of the cancer we helped her fight off earlier this year. She was deemed clear at her last visit with the kitty oncologist in August, but the cancer’s come back. We’ve started another form of chemo, although at this point that will likely only extend her life by a matter of a few months. We’re all saddened by this development, but thankfully her quality of life is still quite good, and we’re trying to make the most of the time she has left with us.
She spends a lot of time these days as shown here: on a little bed Jan’s set up on his laptop/cat warmer.
Anya turns 12! Although Angela and Bree are out of town for the weekend, Angela’s mom comes into town to see the girls and help celebrate Anya’s birthday. She joins Anya, Jan, Liya, and Lyn for a nice dinner out.
Angela and Sabriya headed down to Stanford for Angela’s 20th year reunion. Over the weekend, Sabriya had fun exploring the campus through searching for fountains, Angela indoctrinated Bree into the joys of Stanford football at the game, and both enjoyed (re)connecting with cousins Tom, Aline, Laura, and Jason.
Anya’s trying the school debate team, and today her team attends their first debate contest of the year. The photo shows the teams preparing for one of the two debates. Angela says that Anya acquits herself admirably for her first time debating before strangers.
Liya gives Bree some help with a piano lesson.
Sabriya has her last soccer game of the year on a day that’s alternately blustery and sunny. She tends to hang back in soccer games, and rarely goes into get the ball. Jan tries an experiment, and offers her a reward of a piece of candy for every time she takes possession of the ball. Bree gets possession of the ball 12 times. (Jan even grants her one time where she was basically standing still and the ball ran into her.)
The afternoon is so nice — at least when the sun is out — that on the way home we make an impromptu stop for a quick walk through the Japanese Garden.
The girls’ school holds their annual Halloween costume parade. For the first time since we’ve had kids at the school, the parade is on a sunny day. Sabriya gets to march in front with her designated “eighth-grade buddy”, Sophia. The two of them have become good friends. Bree also holds hands with the school principal (here in a cat costume). Bree wears the Little Mermaid costume she picked out at Tokyo DisneySea in July. With a red wig on, most of Bree’s classmates hardly recognize her. Liya marches in the parade as well, but Anya’s 6th grade class does their own celebration.
Liya dresses as the character of Sheeta from the movie, “Laputa: Castle in the Sky”. She wears a dress that Angela and Angela’s mom made together. Along with Sheeta’s trademark braids, the costume is completed by a little blue amulet that glows at night.
Place the mask over your mouth and breathe normally. Anya dresses as a flight attendant. She’s lucky enough to be able to borrow a real United Airlines flight attendant jacket and skirt from a kind neighbor that works for United. To this, Anya adds a homemade lifejacket and oxygen mask.
This Halloween, we dress up too — in a pair of matching disco outfits Angela picked up.
In the afternoon, we take the Bree and Liya down the street for the neighborhood merchants’ association Halloween trick-or-treat event. (Anya’s spending the night with her friend, Jane.) After dinner, we’re just about to head out again, when our good friends the Nakanishis stop by with their children Towa and Kotoha. The four kids have a great time going around the neighborhood, and it’s a surprisingly warm and dry night — a rarity for Seattle Halloweens.