Anya will leave home a couple of years sooner than we had expected: she’s going to spend 11th and 12th grades at boarding school. As it turns out, she’s going to attend Choate Rosemary Hall in Wallingford, CT, the same school Jan attended.
Jan’s always described his time at Choate to the girls in positive terms, but has never suggested that they could attend a boarding school themselves. We have tons of fantastic schools here in Seattle, including a really good one within walking distance of our home that Anya and Liya currently attend. But last year Anya announced she wanted to go to a bigger school with bigger challenges, and she had boarding school in mind.
After looking into a number of schools that met her criteria, Jan was pleasantly surprised to see how well his own alma mater held up in comparison. He took her to visit Choate back in September, and she liked it. The campus looks great and the school did an excellent job selling itself. It didn’t hurt that this year they began a new effort to recruit more students from the Pacific Northwest. Anya received her acceptance last month, and this month made the final decision to go. She begins school there on Labor Day weekend.
Sigh We’ll be so sad to see her leave home early! But we also know she’ll have a great time and do well.
Jan prepares bread dough for Easter dinner, and checks to see whether the dough has risen enough.
Bree: “Has it risen?”
Jan: “It has risen indeed.”
Jan’s friend Bruce takes Jan out for an evening of indoor flying at iFly Seattle. (Bree did the same thing with a friend earlier this year.) It’s pretty fun! The actual time flying in the wind tunnel is only a couple of minutes. It was also interesting to watch a group of 4 experienced people practice a “formation flying” routine for an upcoming competition.
Angela, Anya, and Liya go to Taiwan for spring break. The first day, Angela’s friend Suji takes them to Yangmingshan National Park. Anya & Liya want to hike up to where steam and sulfur are venting up, and Angela, dressed for a day riding in a car, gamely (if slowly) hikes up in clogs
At her school’s annual Spring Concert, Bree’s 4th grade class sings “I’ve Been Everywhere” (by Geoff Mack, but best known in the U.S. for its cover by Johnny Cash). The kindergarteners and 8th graders sing a song together, including an adapted version that honors Michael Murphy, the head of school who will step down in June.
After Taipei, Angela and the older girls head to Sun Moon Lake. This is a view from their hotel room.
We bike around Sun Moon Lake.
A quick break on our bike ride around Sun Moon Lake
At the Taichung Museum of Taiwanese Art, we come across fun trails. The older girls don’t like being photographed, but Angela manages to capture this moment of stepping-stone bridge fun.
Angela and the girls in Taichung, where Anya drinks pineapple juice from a fresh pineapple. Sweet!
Liya and Angela explore Taichung. This is one of the more interesting buildings, architecturally!
Angela and the girls have lunch with Angela’s extended family.
Our cats turn 2 years old.
Anya sums up their personalities this way: “Mojo definitely has mojo… but Moxie doesn’t really have any moxie.”
It’s wonderful to hear the girls play their instruments — but even better to listen to a duet. Anya plays the piano to accompany Liya on her cello. The next day, Anya accompanies Bree in a piano duet.
Anya has some friends over, and they’re hanging out in Anya’s room. Bree and Jan walk in. They see a small stuffed penguin dangling by a thin cord from the ceiling.
Bree: “Why is the penguin hanging from the ceiling?”
Audrey: “He asked too many questions.”
Bree and Jan quietly retreat.
For Bree’s Spring Break, Jan takes her on two short back-to-back trips. The first is to Eastern Washington for some camping and backpacking.
Their first stop is Steamboat Rock State Park. It’s drizzling and windy when they get there, and they’re not entirely sure whether to stay and set up their tiny tent or bail and find a hotel. They decide to hike up to the top of the Steamboat Rock mesa. It’s a beautiful hike looking out over an otherworldly valley of water and rock formations. They also see a small group of whitetail deer. The rain eventually relents (although it stays windy), so when they make it back to the campsite, they go ahead and set up camp.
The rest of the campground is full of RVs for various sizes. None of the RV campers ever leave their RVs except to walk their dogs.
The campground seems to have a resident population of wild turkeys. They’re mostly quite, but occasionally erupt into a hideous laughing/choking sound: GLOK!GLOK!Glok!Glokglokglokglok! Bree observes that this sound will probably be what wakes her and Jan up in the morning. She is correct.
Bree/Jan Spring Break, Day 2. Today’s destination is backpacking at Ancient Lakes. The hike to the lakes is an easy 2~3 mile hike up a broad canyon. At the canyon’s head, there’s a waterfall and several small lakes.
After a day hike on the ridge above Ancient Lakes, Bree crawls into her sleeping bag to warm up and read.
Jan and Bree’s second night is clear. It’s especially nice when the sun goes down and the wind abates. They can hear the waterfall at the head of the canyon, and a number of red wing blackbirds calling to each other. (Back at home, they’ll learn that these are male blackbirds staking out territory before the females arrive.)
Bree/Jan Spring Break, Day 3. As she did last year, Bree brings Lego Bree and Lego Dad on this trip. Like their human namesakes, these two are packed up and ready to hike out.
Bree on the banks of the Columbia River.
On the way from the Columbia back to the trailhead, Bree and Jan spot movement ahead of them in the sagebrush. It’s a large fox. They lose sight of it for 10 seconds, then spot more movement at the top of a scree slope far above them. It takes a moment to realize that it’s the same fox. He’s very, very quick.
They drive back to Seattle to wash, rest, then get ready for the next part of Spring Break.
Bree/Jan Spring Break, Day 4. Jan and Bree take a short seaplane ride to Victoria, BC. It’s a beautiful day for a flight.
In Victoria, they have lunch at Murchie’s, then shop for books at Munro’s next door. Bree’s not interested in tourist souvenirs, but picks out a small Lego set instead. After a short rest at the hotel, Jan and Bree take a short boat ride around the harbor.
Bree really likes Roger, a yellow-bellied marmot that lives in a small garden next to the hotel. Every time she and Jan leave from or returns to the hotel, they make sure to stop by and see if Roger’s around.
On the harbor quay, Jan and Bree come across a bronze sculpture of a hand holding a mirror. Next to it is a plaque indicating the sculpture is one of 12 bronzes hidden around down Victoria. The collective work is called, “The Hands of Time”. The plaque includes a map with the approximate locations of the sculptures. So, of course, they have to go find them all.
Some of the sculptures turn out to be well hidden. It takes two days of searching — and a few glimpses at hints online — to find all 12 sculptures.
Bree/Jan Spring Break, Day 5. The morning starts with a walk to Beacon Park to find one of the hidden bronze sculptures. On the way back, discover the park’s great petting zoo. The highlight of the zoo is their goats. Every morning, they have a “Goat Stampede” to run the goats from the goat barn to the goat petting area. This is hilarious.
After a short trip to the Royal BC Museum and lunch at Milestones, they rest back at the hotel. In the mid-afternoon, they have high tea. Bree’s recently decided she likes herbal teas, so she gets an orange/pineapple fruit tea.
After high tea, they walk around downtown Victoria to find the remaining bronze sculptures. They cross over the town’s brand new drawbridge to the western corner of the city, and finally find the 12th sculpture hiding on a rocky hillside overlooking the harbor.
Bree/Jan Spring Break, Day 6. Jan and Bree enjoyed yesterday morning’s Goat Stampede at Beacon Park so much that they decide to walk over and see it again. It’s just as hilarious. This time, they also hang out at the petting area, and duck inside a small nursing barn to see the mother goats and baby kids.
Afterwards they ride a tour bus up to Butchart Gardens. It’s a nice day for a stroll around the grounds. At the carousel, they run into a family from Bree’s school. Bree’s favorite part of the garden is the Japanese Garden.
Back in Victoria, Bree makes one last visit to see Roger the Marmot. There’s a retired couple there feeding Roger carrots. They say they come by 2 or 3 times a week to visit him. They give Bree some carrots, which Roger takes from her hands.
Then it’s back to the seaplane terminal for the short flight home.
One weird thing about having an Amazon Alexa device is that it can’t distinguish between when you’re talking about it and when you’re talking to it. When one of our family wants to talk about the Alexa device in our kitchen — say, to relate a story about something funny it did — the device itself hears the word, “Alexa”, and assumes we’re asking it to do something. After a moment, it’ll say something like, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that.” This can happen even if we’re in a different room.
Our solution has been to start referring to Alexa as, “She who must not be named.”
Jan and a group of his earliest Microsoft colleagues attend a charity breakfast to benefit the Pacific Science Center.
We celebrate our 20th anniversary with dinner at Canlis.