The world shut down shortly after his 7th b-day and here we are, a year later! Thank goodness this boy is easy to please — ice cream, Ramune soda, Lego’s and Pokeballs.

Have to say that we feel grateful and blessed for the immense amount of time that we’ve been able to spend with him these past months… And how proud we are of him for being so adaptable and resilient through crazy times. And yes, we still owe you a stay at Legoland!

Quite some boxes showed up on our doorstep that day and we cannot thank our friends, family from near and far for being so kind and making this boy’s day with plenty of unexpected surprises!

Neighbor A dropped by in the evening to hand deliver a Pokemon haul. Of course they couldn’t help but want to start playing, lol.

Hopefully, your 8th year won’t be spent in quarantine but who knows what will happen… One day at a time. :) Keep up the positivity, joie de vie that we love about you. And thanks for still finding your parents cool enough to want to hang with us. (Think we’ve still got a few years.) :P

Check: last peak in the 5-Peak challenge! Pyles was def the longest one as we had to go up Cowles first, descend a bit and then ascend.

When these two are together though, the miles just click on by. J went with us all the way to the peak while his parents headed down shortly after Cowles.

Birthday haul meant his Lego collection got yet bigger…

Typical Sunday afternoon “recess”. :)

Bring us back to the sheer excitement of a stick!

We helped Daddy move out of his “optional” office in downtown. They are 100% remote indefinitely. We could technically live anywhere but for the time being we might just still pick SD. :) Apparently we aren’t the only ones. Housing market is insane here!

Last chance to take advantage of chess and ping pong perks…

The hills are alive! Can’t take the post Spring showers green for granted as soon they will turn brown come summer.

Haven’t had a coffee shop drink in who knows how long so we treated ourselves with some to-go refreshments en route to Julian for a longer hike over a long weekend.

Vamos a Volcan.

We could see all the way to the Salton Sea.

Provisions at the top! The boys had planned on getting the famous Julian apple pie while in the area but a quick check told us the store closed earlier than we thought. It was a literal sprint to the bottom, making it to the shop 5 mins before closing!

Some chicken sightings after securing the pies. :)

Eyes on the prize, lol.

And Daddy insisted on picking up i.c. on the way back for a la mode. ;p