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Today I had a happy time in the park this morning! Running with slow Walk Human. So many smells. Delicious odors of coyote poop. No leash. Left the park through the top exit that I'd never smelled or seen before. Met Cusco Friend. Cusco Friend started out snarling and barking at me, which was scary, but he had his human on a leash so I just ran away and then came back and played at him until he started playing with me. He was good at wrapping his human up with the leash! Walk Human did blah blah with his human. She said they named him Cusco because they were in Cusco, Peru when they first saw his picture, I think? Something like that. Humans do too much blah blah, not enough playing. Walk Human gave me a new toy! It wobbles around and drops out treats. Sometimes I can get it spinning and it throws a bunch around. I can just barely get the top in my mouth to carry it around. See my first time playing. Even when it stops dropping treats, it is fun to play with. Yesterday Walk Human...
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San Francisco to Auckland

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Two of the five of us are in New Zealand.   It took a lot to get here. There were countless choices and decisions to be made.  Only the first two were easy.  Decision 1: I (Munazza) will be traveling to NZ to attend the first in-person Ren Xue retreat since Covid.  Decision 2: Kestrel will be coming with me to the retreat. Everything else was hard.   Air New Zealand cancels the flight and moves departure date up by two days to Oct 29th and puts us on United Airlines without telling us.  I discover this because I happen to be checking in on my itinerary.  Air NZ customer service takes a while to respond but finds space for us and also moves our return date up by two days.  A few days after this and three days before the trip I discover that Kestrel's passport has expired and this is after checking to make sure it wasn't.  We stay up most of the night researching what to do.  Looks like we have to call them when they first open (...
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Halloween

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   It doesn't feel like Halloween this year.  For me it is a bit of a bummer because I like Halloween.   We did not try to replicate Halloween because it wouldn't work and wouldn't feel good either.  So we made it up on the spot.  I"ll start with the least exciting part of the day. We just came back from a walk.  It was a 10 minute walk however since I was there too it took about 30 minutes to finish it.  That's my current speed.  Hopefully Cedrus will take a speedy shower so we...I can go to bed on time! I was pleased to see that it was mostly quiet.  We saw some groups.  They were outside, generally had a fire pit going and were *not* socially distancing.  They were giving away candy but it was usually placed much further away in a bowl. We did dress up.  Boys used their dance costumes from this year's June show.  I had picked up the costumes back in June but boys opened them today.  One of Ke...
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Fall 2020 Classes

 Kids no longer bring bags and bags full of projects they did at school.  It was a lot of work to sort through everything but also really fun to review and save memorable projects.  I still haven't completely sorted through the stuff from kindergarten!  What I liked about the mounds of schoolwork stuff was the way I could track what boys were up to.  With homeschooling almost everything is online and it is hard to capture the feel of the year.   Before we get too far into the school year I want to capture what boys are up to this fall.  (If you intend to continue reading this blog post, some of the more interesting stuff is at the bottom.) Kestrel Classes Social Studies: A History of US: 1855 – 1900 With a focus on primary source analysis, critical thinking, and interactive web tools, students will explore the story of America from the Civil War to the divisive class, race, gender and economic struggles of the developing United States at the a...
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Introducing My Book!

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(Mom, Dad and Auntie Fudge already know most of this, but I thought Grandma and Grandpa might appreciate an explanation...and some writing! I have somehow managed to not get around to this, even though I've been trying for about a year or so, but I finally succeeded at the most difficult task of hitting the publish button. Hooray!) Introducing my Book! I'm sure my immediate family can tell you how many times I would announce that I have a new book idea, and promptly start working on it like crazy. However, in all the (looooooooong, extensive, ten) years I have been alive, has anyone read a finished, or even partly finished book I've written? Fortunately, it appears I have a guardian angel (or devil) in the form of Wattpad. I can write a few chapters of a book, but I will eventually lose inspiration, because I have this nasty habit of wanting results. Clearly other writers had that problem, since Wattpad was created. A free site on which you can publish your stories t...
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Truth or Lie?

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Sometimes we play a game we call Truth or Lie.  You are supposed to say a couple of things about yourself and the listeners have to figure out which statement is true.   It is a hard one for Kestrel and Cedrus to play because I mostly know what's happened in their lives thus far but Cedrus stumped me on this one.  This is an exact copy of Cedrus wrote on paper: 1) I once temporarily paralized a cat by farting on it. 2) I cheated a test in 1st grade 3) I cut a portion of my eyebrow off when I was 4 or 5 Which one of these statements would you think is true?  And do you like what Cedrus is up to in the photo below?
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Cedrus Wet The Bed

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Cedrus Wet The Bed.  This is what Steve announced at the breakfast table yesterday.  No, Steve was not eating breakfast at that time but the rest of us were.  Therefore, he apparently has no issues with bringing up such topics while the rest of us are trying to enjoy our breakfast. Steve does not eat breakfast these days because...well, I think he can't bear to see our faces first thing in the morning.  Or maybe it has something to do with intermittent fasting which he claims is good for you.  I've heard it too but only from people I've decided I don't need to listen to anymore - which is not to say that intermittent fasting is a bad thing.  All I am trying to say is I have no NO clue.  Anyway, back to Cedrus wetting the bed.  Steve starts work early these days and Kestrel, Cedrus and I eat breakfast together.   So this was big news because Steve actually emerged from the office to tell this to us.  We all looked at Cedrus. He was...
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