The Adventures of Don Juan & Kyra

Friday, April 30, 2010

April 2010

On the 3rd we had an Easter party for our friends. Kids numbers were down from last year, but we had a good turn out. Our friends Kieran, Robin, Laurie, Steven, Orion, Gavin, Andrew, Gisch, Jenn & Dane all attended, plus two of Tory’s friends (Megan & Kaitlyn). The kids enjoyed the easter egg hunt, in fact, they even found one from years past (one of the missing eggs that Tory hasn’t been able to find). The candy inside was pretty gross, but at least its one less that we have to worry about.
On the 4th (Easter Sunday) Tory and I attended Jordan Sean Mandac’s baptism. It was a lovely affair, without the baby making a fuss. The one big chuckle of the event was when the pastor got his middle name incorrect, so he was baptized ‘Jordan John’ instead of ‘Jordan Sean’. Later that afternoon Eric, Tory and I joined the family for their Easter celebration. It was a lovely dinner of ham, tri tip, mashed potatoes, green beans, green salad, and ambrosia salad followed by cake.
Tory’s favorite drama teacher (Tim Shannon) passed away on the 6th. We’re not sure of the cause, but I suspect that it was either aneurism or a heart attack. He was 49 years old. His death took a toll on the entire school. He’d taught at Fremont from the beginning (25 years), and was a big part of the school. The kids had a vigil for him the night he passed, the school had a candle light vigil the night after, and then they had a memorial service on the 24th. They’re planning yet another service on the 15th of May. Tory’s grief allowed her to write a song for him, called ‘Your Memory in My Mind’. One of the teachers and her husband (Tim & Sue Larson) helped Tory record the song, and took photos. Below are the photos, and I’m going to try to include a link to the song.

I continue to have lunch with Deb and Jordan each week, or as often as I can. Tory was off on spring break the week of the 12th and stayed with Jordan while Deb & Wil painted his room, so that she could get used to babysitting such a small baby. She’s hooked. She told me that now she’s changed her mind, and could see possibly having kids at some point, just not any time soon (thank God).
Tory was turned down for CSUMB (Cal State University Monterey Bay), as she hadn’t all of the requirements to get in. Tory is continuing to finish the English class that kept her out of the running, and will continue to try to gain admittance. In the mean time, we’ve decided against St. John’s in NY and she’s applied to a few local community colleges.
Tory had a dive meet with Wilcox High School on the 22nd and scored First Place for JV Girls. First time she’s placed in a dive meet.
And then we did some more guild stuff. Details can be found at danceanddestruction.blogspot.com.

Monday, March 22, 2010

March 2010

This month started out with a bang! Tory received her acceptance to St. John‘s University in New York. They accepted her as a Liberal Arts Major. Not exactly what she had in mind. She is trying to major in Marine Biology with a minor in Forensic Anthropology.
I’ve continued to have my weekly lunch dates with Deb and Jordan. He’s getting so big, and changing every day. They’ve hit some rough spots, trying to get him comfortable to sleep through the night, but in general he’s doing well.
With our Federal Income Tax Return we went crazy and bought a new travel trailer. I must say that I did an excellent job negotiating it. Our friend, Bill, is still repairing/upgrading the pop-up trailer. Once he’s done we’ll put it up for sale.
We did a lot of things with our ren faire (http://danceanddestruction.blogspot.com / http://www.danceanddestruction.org/) group this month. We had a training with a guest speaker (Sir Ryk Tucker) to talk about heraldry, we completed a school day in Sonora, as well as the Sonora Celtic Festival (we found an excellent camp site within 1.5 miles of the site: Woods Creek Mobile Home Park, where we’ll stay again next year) and the Lompoc Renaissance Faire. Here are a couple of photos from Sonora:

We went to see Alice In Wonderland. We have mixed feelings about it. I think it will be better on home video, if only for the subtitles. Louis Carroll used a lot of made up words, and with some of the accents they were very difficult to discern.
Tory continued to work on her play, Witness for the Prosecution. Because of the work she was putting into it (she was Stage Manager and Set Designer), she was unable to join us in Sonora, but stayed with Aunt Patty instead. Patty and I attend WFTP on Friday night. The set was awesome, by far the best that we’ve seen at her school. The cast did very well, some were having problems with their British accents, so they were fading in and out (volume wise), but over all it was an excellent production. Here are some photos:

Our good friend, Andrew, had a house warming party. Since his mother’s death he and his sister have been roomies in the house and have been remodeling. It looks fantastic. What a drastic change to the interior!

February 2010

On February 6th we participated in a food sort at Second Harvest Food Bank for our non-profit group. Also, Jordan Sean Mandac was born!

Tory was treated to Cirque de Soleil’s performance of Ovo for her birthday present from her Aunt Patty on the 7th.
On the 17th, while Tory was out of school we went to the Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum [www.egyptianmuseum.org] with our good friends Dave & Bonnie. We watched the planetarium show and toured the downstairs areas before we left. They came back to the house with us for Eric’s chicken curry.
On the 18th we headed to Capitola Mall to do a promotion for the Santa Cruz Scottish Renaissance Faire in garb. We were there for four hours.
Tory and I stayed at Cullen & Gwen’s on the 19th (Tory’s 17th Birthday), as we were to attend the Renaissance Symposium on Saturday. Tory thoroughly enjoyed her classes and took several.
We travelled to Ripon for some more difficult dance training with our good friend Jen. We learned one basic Italian dance and two more difficult English Country dances.

January 2010

As indicated in last month’s blog, we started out with a bang…between going to Detta’s to ring in the New Year and then hitting Riverdance on the First, we had a terrific start!
Unfortunately Eric was laid off from the cement plant on the 2nd, so that was a bummer, but he really needed to get a rest after all of the hours he put in. It took quite a while for him to recover from his laryngitis.
Eric and I attended Tory’s school talent show, as Tory and her friend Willa were playing their guitars and singing a song that Willa had written (entitled ‘February’). They sounded fantastic however they didn’t make it into the top four.
We had some friends over the second weekend of the month for our non-profits property repair. That went pretty well fortunately we never have a lot of things that need to be fixed.
On the 16th I had the pleasure of assisting with Deborah’s baby shower. It turned out great… The food was terrific and everyone seemed to have a good time. Deborah and Wil made out. I think they’re all set now.
I finally got Tory in to see a pediatric orthopedic surgeon right before the new year. He prescribed physical therapy (PT) for her shoulder, and thus we spent the majority of the month commuting back and forth to the PT’s in Saratoga. She went three times a week most weeks.
Tory’s boyfriend, Justin, broke up with her three days before the Winter Formal. We encouraged her to go even so. She went with her friend, Thomas, and they seemed to have a great time. With no pressure.
Tory worked on the run crew for the school play (As Bees in Honey Drown), working for her ex-boyfriend, who was the director.
Of note, we went on a tour of CSUMB (Cal State Monterey Bay) at the end of the month. It will be a perfect school for Tory. We’ve got our fingers crossed. The campus is smaller (about the size of golden gate park), they’re still developing their sports teams (right now they have a girls water polo team, but no swim or dive teams). The dorms seem great, they have a policy of no alcohol in rooms that have folk under 21 in them. To keep from pressuring folk they even have dorms that are ‘clean’ no smoking or anything else. If you have problems with your room mate you just say so and they’ll move you. Can’t get much better than that. She won’t even need a car. There’s a target about a mile from the campus, and regular bus service into Monterey. If you catch the bus from campus to campus (there’s a community college in Monterey) it’s free. Seems too good to be true.