Dear Matteo, 70 Months Old

We’re back in international travel mode. As the timing works out, I’ll cover the first leg of the trip in this letter and pick up with the rest of the trip in Eliza’s.

Before we left, I should mention that we tried out Scott’s new eFoil at Bella Bella beach. Incredible! I was able to stand and ride it my first session out, and you got to body surf it. Those things are legit and on my short list for unnecessary summer purchases.

Back to this trip. We left a few days ago for London via Reykjavik. We left on a Sunday afternoon, which was awesome because we could take our time over the weekend packing and re-packing to make sure we didn’t miss anything. Of course, I forgot my electric razor. Compared to what could have been left behind, I’ll take it. Your Mom and I were bullish on traveling light, and we got everything into backpacks for each of us and one rolling duffel. Mom and I got new Cotopaxi travel backpacks, and they are worth the hype. The organization compartments are helpful and they carried a 20-lb load well.

On the 7-hour Icelandair flight over to Reykjavik, you two settled quickly into screen time on your Kindle Fire devices. I watched the third season of Succession, and I’m sure that Mom was watching Good Girls. After about four hours, Eliza went to sleep. Just like at home, you fought sleep for the first hour and eventually gave in. I carried you off the plane at Reykjavik to our connection. We didn’t have a long layover and jumped on a flight to Gatwick airport. You two were on the Kindles while Mom and I slept open-jawed.

We landed in London, the first time for all of us except your Mom who made the trip once for a job interview with the Church of England in Norwich. That’s a whole different story. I have to say that it’s comforting landing overseas where everyone’s speaking English. I wasn’t nervous for this trip but am not conditioned like I was for foreign travel before the pandemic. It’s a little easier getting around some place new when you can talk and read without depending on a translation app. We made our way by the Tube to our Airbnb in Kensington Park. After struggling a few minutes with the key lockbox we made it upstairs to our second-floor flat with luggage and sanity intact.

We fought jetlag by hitting the streets after unpacking by walking to a neighborhood Greek restaurant for dinner and then playing at Diana Memorial Playground. By “playing” I mean that you chased pigeons for hours. You also tried to go after some swans near a pond, but we got you out of there before you got in real trouble. Swans fight back. There’s something about chasing small animals — bunnies, birds, squirrels — that you really dig. We later got some flower-designed gelato cones, made a quick stop at Whole Foods (so exotic) for groceries, and finally called it a night.

The next day, yesterday, we went big. We jumped back into the Tube toward Camden Town and spent time at the market there, which was bohemian and grungy. We loved it. We walked around the shops and famed umbrella-ceiling alley. We saw the Amy Winehouse statue and ate street food in a domed outdoor table across from Village (as he proudly introduced himself, Village Idiot), an 89-year-old from Isle of Wight. We capped the outing with more gelato and caught the Tube south toward London Bridge. We jumped out south of the Thames and went to Borough Market, much fancier than its northern cousin and clearly the spot for Instagrammable food. After being tempted by a tub of paella, I went for the cod and chips. Yum. From there, we went to the Natural History Museum. That one was high on my list and informed our stay in Kensington Park because I knew you, young man, would be most excited by the dinosaur exhibit. It didn’t fail, especially the animatronic T-Rex. After exploring that world, we went to an Indian restaurant, Dishoom, for dinner. That didn’t fail either. You fell asleep on the booth, and I carried you back (barely) to our flat for the night.

Those are the highlights with so many details in between that I’ll leave to photos, memories, or lost to the sea of travel. We’re having a great time, and I am high on gratitude to be able to travel like this again with you. Being able to experience and share this big wide world with you is what it’s all about.

Love, Dad

Dear Eliza, 90 Months Old

Ninety months for you, 480 months for me. That’s right. Your old man finally turned 40.

I enjoyed holding my 30s over your Mom the last 2.5 years of first-digit difference, but I am finally, inevitably joining her on the fourth floor. I can remember when my parents turned 40, and I was about 18 years old then. That just goes to show the difference between having kids younger and later in life and what you get to observe.

I admit this has not been a milestone that I’ve looked forward to. There’s just something about being classified as “over-the-hill” that doesn’t align with my perpetually youthful outlook and self image. Forty-somethings jog and run marathons (like Uncle Scott). They complain about aches and inexplicable pains (like your Mom). They lose their hair and hearing (like me.)

Of course, this birthday like any other is a celebration of living and growing. I chose that we celebrate in Whistler for a family-and-friends ski trip.

The skiing was fantastic. We put you and Matteo in an all-day “Whistler Kids” lesson so Mom and I could run all over the mountain and ski some bigger areas. We had an incredible powder run on Blackcomb Glacier, accidentally skied a chute, and otherwise had a great day. I think that was the best I’ve ever seen your Mom ski. She looked great, too, of course. When we picked you up at the base, you were 30 minutes late due to some gondola delays and totally wiped from the long day. Everything worked as planned.

The next day, we skied as a family through a lot of clouds and low visibility in the morning. We ate a late breakfast at the Crystal Hut (aka Waffle Hut) and ended up skiing well into the afternoon. We took a dip in the Chaffee’s hotel pool that overlooked the base area, ate dinner with the group, and planned for a final ski day before heading home.

That final ski day, a bluebird, sunny day, never happened. You and Matteo both caught the stomach bug. I spent the night catching puke in a kitchen pot and garbage can as you took turns and occassionally sychronized getting sick. Mom took the morning shift. You had it worse than Matteo and got sick 12-14 times. That was tough to watch. We got a late check-out to delay the car ride home, and you got sick one more time on the twisty Sea-to-Sky Highway.

We also had a delay at the border because your truthful Mom offered to the border agent that we brought a couple satsuma oranges across the border and back. Transporting citrus is a no-no, so we “got secondary” for an additional security check.

We got back home in one piece, just a couple days before my actual birthday. We were in the clear for my real birthday, or so we thought. I got sick that night. I wasn’t looking forward to turning 40, and certainly not with that kind of start to the decade.

Eh. I’m just starting at the bottom and it’s all up from here.

Love,
Dad

Dear Matteo, 69 Months Old

Here we are, in Fort Wayne again for Easter.

It’s been well over a year since we visited, and Easter seems to be the sweet spot with weather and Spring Break at school. We tried to make a trip earlier in the year, but the winter weather wasn’t cooperating.

It’d been a little too long since our last visit, and your young mind didn’t remember the house. Of course, you can get comfortable quickly and aren’t intimidated by seeing Grammie with her oxygen nose tubes that help her since one of her cancerous lungs failed.

I’m amazed and shouldn’t be surprised by how you and Eliza can quickly entertain yourselves in a new environment. Eliza found an old doll in a wicker box that she named Lisa and has drug around with her everywhere. Your Mom bought you a football that we’ve spent hours throwing and kicking. It all goes to show that you don’t need much in life to have fun. Perhaps the less you have, the more imaginative you are for the better.

Once again, we had an Easter egg hunt, and the Easter Bunny was flush with cash this year. You and Eliza each found eggs totally $44. I have no idea why you hit that unround number. The ATMs must be different out here.

Your Mom is also having a good time and started with a bang. At the car rental facility, she coyly suggested we upgrade from a small SUV to a more fancy Lincoln Navigator and negotiated a remarkable discount for us with the willing Enterprise employee. We are riding in style this trip! Otherwise, she’s helping organize and disgard around the house, as she usually does. On our rides around the city, she points out houses where her friends grew up, and many of their parents haven’t moved.

Ty, Amber, Abby, and Mason visited over the weekend. You got your share of time playing football and soccer with Mason and Abby, who ran you ragged. Or maybe vice-versa. Your Popa Roger sat on the porch most of the day to take it all in — the rare occassion that the extended family is together. That doesn’t happen so often, neither good or bad. The reality is that distance and life stage keeps us apart, and that will continue as your cousins mature into independent adults. What matters is that we enjoy the time when we have it.

Your Mom and Uncle Ty also prove that you can stay close even when the visits are infrequent. That is one of the most important and underappreciated qualities to build. Fortunately, you can see how that’s done first-hand here in Indiana.

Love, Dad

Dear Eliza, 89 Months Old

Last night we went to Bella Bella beach to catch the sunset. These winter days are getting a little warmer and a little longer, so we put on our puffies to head to the beach after dinner at your Mom’s suggestion. As you know we’re locked in by trees at our house(s), so horizons take effort.

Automatically, you grabbed your circa-2013 Sony Cybershot camera, checked the batteries, and stashed it in your pocket.

We are a lot alike and nothing proves that to me more than your art and taking up phorography with gusto. You have asked for your own camera since you could talk. We got you a "little kid" camera at first, but it wasn't great. What it did in durability didn’t make up for the lack of pixels. You asked for a Polaroid camera but that paper is expensive, so I graduated you to the Sony, which was a handheld marvel in its day. Now it's worth about $30 on eBay.

You've since been running around with camera and taking selfies with you friends. For events like our sunset beach walk, you pay attention to the details and capture them: a dog’s footprints, a stranded starfish, a stork that you chase for several minutes at a time. You run over and playback the pictures with a big grin as we look at the imperfectly perfect short series.

I uploaded the first batch of your images from these past months to our Google Photos account so we can always and easily access them. It’s fun seeing our world from your point-of-view, and I trust I’ll get to see more and more of that. Just keep shooting.

Love, Dad

Dear Matteo, 68 Months Old

Our vacation schedule is heavily influenced by the school calendar these days. We spent our mid-winter break in Palm Springs visiting Gigi, who has been slowed by some heart valve issues in recent weeks. Thankfully, she returned to playing tennis while we were there.

I’m glad we made the usual visit, but it was a lot colder than we expected. Sure, we had the desirable 75-and-sunny weather, but we also had some days in the days in the 60s and a high winds day. That all made for a couple fewer pool days than we expected and a little more time at The Living Desert Zoo, where we once again have an annual pass. It is nice to walk the zoo and not have to hunt for shade. We also had more comfortable late morning hikes up to the cross. The weather was so bonkers that we drove through snow on the way from Palm Desert to Ontario airport.

That flight home, by the way, was an absolute haul. We got to the airport just fine but our incoming plane was struck by lightning, so our flight was delayed and eventually cancelled, or so we thought. Lightning strikes are common, as I learned from some quick online research. Most commercial planes are struck by lightning once or twice per year! You and I spent the delay time at the airport throwing a soft football. The gate area gave us a solid 50-feet to throw back and forth and you have an arm now to cover that length with accuracy.

We rescheduled to fly out the next morning and took our free hotel stay and food vouchers. By the time we got to the hotel and walked across the parking lot to a Denny’s knock-off, we checked the flight schedules and learned our flight was never actually cancelled. At that same time, I saw open seats on a flight later that night, so we checked out of the hotel and headed back to the airport. We made the flight.

Door to door, it was a 14-hour travel day. You and Eliza were champs. Good news: that’s about as long as we’ll take to get to Europe in the spring. In that light, this was just good practice.

Love, Dad