Holiday Dreams 23

 Sunday was our annual Holiday Dreams day in Santa's UHaul. This year was some kind of record: 25 stops, which took a whopping 9 hours and covered nearly 140 miles. Every year Syl tells me this is her favorite day of the year. Mine too. We get to see great people, we get a Christmas energy injection like no other, and we help a lot of kids. What's not to love!?

People are very generous. 

Even elves have to stretch!

We had a lot of four-legged help along the way.

Lunch at the original Dunkin!

We ended with a full load...

...but that was only a fraction of what the organization collects and distributes.

The founders! Always a pleasure to help this family's great work.

9 hours in a U-Haul: Syl earned this massive eggplant parm!

23s Tree

 It has been a busy couple of weeks, but we got the tree up!

November Art

A light output in November, volume-wise, but high in quality and spanning all of Syl's preferred media: 

First, the kid's imagination kills me. The latest in Syl's "Cake Zombie" series, created digitally.

Next, Syl worked for weeks on this memento our our trip to Vegas to see U2 in the Sphere, in acrylics. 

Finally, a pencil-sketch of David Byrne in the Talking Heads' heyday. 

Skate #1!

 SpongeBob the Musical isn't going to win any awards for script or music, but it was fun to see Syl zipping across the stage on her skateboard. And she had a solo! A great job, as always!

What else for this 16 year old?

 Syl would NEVER ask for a car. In part because of that, she is now the proud owner of a cute Toyota RAV4... which she will be able to drive in half a year or so!

The Sweetest 16

 Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later. Sylvie Rose turned 16!

Although it seems CRAZY, we got her some wheels. She cannot drive them yet, but since we both drive Teslas, Melissa and I wanted her to have something to learn on. When Syl finally gets her license, she'll have a sweet Toyota RAV4 waiting in the garage!

For some reason, Syl chose her 16th birthday to lose control of dinner in a way that reminded me very much of her first birthday... 

To celebrate, our sweet young adult only asked that we return to Level 99, the same place we took her last year, for some more fun challenges. So that is what we did. 

Tiramisu cake!

Long ago we told Syl that the most important thing to us, as parents, is that she be a kind person. Well, here we are, long past the point where she'd have turned into a "typical teenager" if she were going to, and, in addition to being wildly talented, wickedly smart, and beautiful inside and out, Sylvie Rose is about the kindest person we know. Guess we did something right! Happy 16th to our "little" girl!

Trick or Treat (for the last time?)