It has been a big 6 months. The world is returning to normal – or at least the new normal. There was a new variant after my last post called omicron, but it has since passed. You and your brother are now fully vaccinated! Really fun too, taking you to do that…

You are thriving in the second grade. Reading every day, and a model student. You have Mrs. Zito and you love her. You are also still very into art, but taking a liking to soccer as well. Just look at these pics and you will see how much older you now look, it is incredible.

We went to Tucson for Thanksgiving and stayed with Boppie. Aunt Maddie and Nonnie also came down, and we had a great time. We went to Colossal Caves, the Sonoran Desert Museum and spent a lot of time at Boppie’s house just checking out the desert and wildlife. We spent a week down there and were all ready to come back at the end.

The big new though, the highlight of the last 6 months, and hopefully you remember it because my god it was expensive was… DISNEYLAND! We spent 3 days at the parks.

We decided it was time. You were nearly eight and your brother was five, and thought that it would be great ages for your first experience. Not only did we take you, but we surprised you on Christmas Day with the trip. We had you do a scavenger hunt with clues (you had to read them to Ethan) that eventually ended back in the formal living room where we gave you gifts with Disney shirts and swag and let you know we were going. We left January 3rd.

You were still on Christmas break so you didn’t miss any school. We got there Monday night and then did Disneyland the 4th, California Adventure the 5th, and then both parks on the 6th and flew home that night. We stayed at the Grand Californian Hotel which was attached to California Adventure.

I don’t think I can list all the rides we went on, but let’s just say we covered almost all of them. Your favorite ride, to my surprise and delight, was Space Mountain. We must have gone on it 3 or 4 times while there. ED loved Splash Mountain and Autotopia. We also had dinner one night at the Blue Bayou and watched the Pirates of the Caribbean ride go as we ate dinner. Corn dogs were a popular meal, as were the Mickey waffles each morning for breakfast. One afternoon/evening we hung by the pool and ordered food to our chairs while you both played.

We brought a stroller along to haul the two of you, and the first day one of the wheels popped and lost all its air. I took it to the stroller distribution place there at Disneyland, but the air pump was broken, which meant we (me) just had to push it the whole time with a flat tire.

You and I went on Indiana Jones together by ourselves as Ethan was not tall enough, and we were both underwhelmed. We also went on the ferris wheel in California Adventure, and I almost passed out as my fear of heights had grown significantly and I didn’t know it.

It was an amazing, expensive and exhausting trip.

We have been skiing a lot together and you continue to improve. I am hoping by next year that we can just head up and I won’t have to worry about you anymore (still have some work to do with Ethan).

On a personal note, my company (Vacasa) went public in December! I even got to be on the big screen in Times Square (actually twice, and yes that is Layla – couldn’t fit the whole family so had to choose). Now that we are public, I have started to entertain new job opportunities as I don’t really have a desire to work for a public company.

You are still just as loving, caring and wonderful as ever – I hope it never changes. You have a ton of friends, get along with almost everyone and are incredibly mannerly. Couldn’t ask for more from an eight year old.

I love you more than you will ever know.

Love, Dad