As part of spending time locally, another activity suggested by a friend was ice skating in Central park in Santa Clara. We did not know that they had set up this small rink so close to home.
The kids had a lot of fun skating!
We were happy that those skating classes they took earlier this year were being put to good use!
It is great to have local parks set up rinks like this! There was nice music in the background and the whole festive atmosphere can be felt, thanks to the smiling faces of everyone around, especially the kids!
This rink will be there till Jan 3rd. If you have time to spend with kids who can skate, definitely worth it!
This year Jr. got a visit from her "not so secret santa" and got a new Alto Saxophone to celebrate the holidays. Her old saxophone had a rod and screw drop off after her last school performance. The part is in back order till end of January. Given she has other performances coming and the fact that she has wanted to graduate from a student saxophone to a professional grade one.. we relented! We are also tired of doing the pickup and drop off from her school because she has to haul this large saxophone case to practice. From February she can leave the student version in school and practice on the pro instrument at home!
These instruments are expensive. So this is the last one we are buying her. They tell us this will last 10-15 years. We have nicely informed Jr. that she will be buying her next saxophone with her own paycheck!
So far she loves the sound of the Yamaha YAS 62-III. It is also lighter than her student version. Why a student version will be heavier is beyond me.
The Christmas holiday has started today.
The kids were practicing their music this morning and with a lot of censoring I am pleased to announce that this version has been approved for the blog..
Our entire family wishes you a very merry Christmas and a wonderful holiday!
When we are local and want to engage the kids.. the usual drive through Vasona park or playing indoors inside some Jungle type place are not options anymore.. we now have a "tween" and a "teen"!
They had tried this racing once in summer and gave it rave reviews. So we went again to give it a shot. It is 35$ for two races of 10 minutes each (14 laps where the kids average 35-40 seconds a lap) and a 30 minute break between the races to let other folks go. They treat the first race as a warm up!
The little one likes to compete while Jr. was mostly happy going at her own pace and having fun.
They both yelled at me afterwads because I was cheering them from the side on the long leg where they come straight at me. Apparently it was not a good idea to take their eyes off the track to look at "cheerleader daddy" as it made it difficult for them to turn. How was I to know?! My job was to watch and cheer. Maybe next time I will do a race to figure this out.
Strongly recommend this if you have teens or tweens bored out of their wits and it is cold and raining outside, when the rest of their friends are instagramming picutures from warm and sunny beaches!
