Castles and Fires

Kristin playing. She set up her castle and wanted to take a picture of it for Papi.

This is ash from the Santa Cruz fires covering everything. It is all over the patio, the cars, everything. We are in no danger from the fires, but the smoke and ash blocked out the sun for most of the day and make it seem like it's snowing.

Thumbs down for Debbie Meyers Green Bags

You've seen the commercials for those green bags that are supposed to keep your fruits and vegetables fresh several times longer than normal?

They don't work. I put an eggplant in one and two days later it had fuzzy mold all over it. The instructions say the bags are not to get wet and if they do (if the fruit or veggies perspire) to wipe them out. I put strawberries in a bag and they sweated so bad they turned to mush in two days. My tomatoes rotted in the bag in 5 days.

Do NOT buy this product.

Summer Camps

There's a good article at MSNBC about summer camps for kids.

It includes a link to My Summer Camps, which is a listing of over 18,000 camps for kids! Definitely worth bookmarking.

The 3rd Annual Blogging for LBGT Families Day

Well, it's time for the 3rd annual Blogging for LGBT Families Day, so here goes.

Most regular readers already know us. We are two dads and a 5 year old girl.

I originally created this blog as a way to just put our family life down in an online diary. Not surprisingly, life takes up so much time, I seldom have time to blog anymore. I babysit one of my daughter's classmates for about 6 hours a day, so it keeps my hands full. I thought perhaps some of the time they could play together in her room and then I could get stuff done. Anybody with more than one child knows it doesn't work out that way though.

Summer is coming up and I look forward to teaching our daughter how to swim this year, and also enroll her in ballet class or soccer, her interest between the two seems to switch frequently.

We are in California and my partner and I will probably get married, although we will wait until after Nov. just to make sure the voters don't amend the Constitution. I can't imagine anything more frustrating than to finally get something only to have it stripped away again. Since we've been together almost 24 years, we feel that emotionally we are as married as we can get, so for us it would just be about the rights and privileges. I would like some new ceremony though, someday, just so our daughter can experience a family-affirming experience. From some of her classmate's parents we are already encountering bigotry and it is upsetting to know that in this day and age in this country, adults would subject a kindergartener to such bigotry and deprive them of friends because of intolerance. These bumps along life's path aside, I know that our community will continue to move forward and make progress as time goes by.

Back down on a more individual level, we just keep chugging forward and trying to make ends meet, just like every other family out there.