Alright … I have to admit something. Today wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. It was a second Friday in a row that I had cobbled together the logistics to support a day snowboarding in Tahoe — and it was the second Friday in a row that my plans fell apart just minutes before departure.

After gushing over my incredible day snowboarding with Jocelyn a few weeks ago, I have to profess …. My day with Felicia today was equally awesome. After I convinced her that we really weren’t going to see Grandee & Grandpa — or the snow as planned — we had a great time playing games and hanging out. We ate bananas on our walk home from school, we made lunch together (Mac & Cheese out of a cardboard box), we joked around with creative word play, and we watched most of the Sharks hockey game in Detroit. It was really great!

And even though she did insist that we play with our pretend snowboard mountain and resort gondola, she did allow me to listen to “Daddy Music” from Sacramento’s KWOD (my new favorite station, thanks largely to internet radio). We even danced to a little Gnarls Barkley.

And to cap it all off, her favorite Sharks player (Devin Setoguchi) scored twice — including the game winner — and was the “First Star” of the game.

I’d have to vote for Felicia as my First Star of the day today!

These days, Wednesdays are far-and-away our busiest day of the week. Both girls have activities at church, and we provide a carpool for cousin Kiana just to enhance the excitement. Karen actually joins in the fun with Jocelyn’s church bell choir, too.

Toss in dinner with Nana & Papa, a bout with the flu for Aunt Jenni, and a total eclipse of the moon …. and well … let’s just say our life almost eclipsed the eclipse. And the partly cloudy skies didn’t help. We did get to see the beginning of the eclipse really clearly, before it was total. We were also able to see it again near the end of its totality, but not from our house. We had to drive a few blocks away, while we chased the window of visibility through the cloud cover. And we didn’t take any pictures, so you’ll just have to take our word for it.

Fortunately, our worldwide network of blogging “correspondents” (aka family) have come to the rescue. GrandMaMa & GrandPaPa caught the eclipse up in Oregon, and posted a picture on their new website (!). Karen’s cousin Laura also snapped a picture from her vantage point in Maryland.

Since Jocelyn’s school had the day off today, it was the fourth day of our holiday weekend. And since it was a Tuesday, that meant both girls could join me at my weekly Rotary luncheon meeting. Coincidentally, I was today’s speaker finder, having invited San Jose City Councilmember Pierluigi Oliverio to speak to the club.

As the week’s speaker finder, I also have the responsibility of leading the Pledge of Allegiance and providing an appropriate thought for the day. At the last minute, Jocelyn and I came up with an inspirational passage from the book she is reading for her Book Report this month: Helen Keller from Scholastic’s “In Their Own Words” series.

We each looked through the book and selected a passage to read aloud to the club. I went first, introduced the book report topic, and read a selection about books themselves:

Of books, Helen wrote: “They tell me so much that is interesting about things I cannot see. And they are never troubled or tired like people.”

Jocelyn selected something that Helen once said about war and international peace. We both thought it was appropriate for Rotary:

“I look upon the world as my fatherland,” she wrote, “and every war has for me the horror of a family feud. I hold true patriotism to be the brotherhood and mutual service of all men.”

We finished the meeting with a similarly-inspired closing thought, this one provided by Mark Twain in the same book:

Mark Twain once heard a man feeling sorry for Helen because of the “dullness” of her life. Twain was quick to correct that idea. “Blindness is an exciting business, I tell you,” Twain declared. “If you don’t believe it, get up some dark night on the wrong side of the bed when the house is on fire and try to find the door.”

Today was Presidents Day … so we visited the governor!

On our way home today from Roseville, we stopped by the California State Capitol to tour the building and the grounds. It was a beautifully sunny day, and it was fun to show Jocelyn and Felicia some of the places we spent so many hours as YMCA Youth & Government volunteers ten years ago.

Jocelyn got to see the little-known Assembly Gargoyle, and Felicia spent a few minutes canning the official photo of the Senate to find me among the suits and ties. The museum docent eventually suggested that maybe I had a better job.

And for the eagle-eyed, that’s second-cousin Zachary Geeslin’s traveling “Flat Stanley,” tucked into Grandpa’s arms. In addition to being excellent grandparents, they are also great hosts for out-of-state visitors.

This picture is also available on Flickr.

After scouting out a few potential vacation cabins on Donner Summit — and confirming that the holiday weekend crowds are insane — we found a great place to sled at Tahoe Donner above Truckee.

This is a picture of Felicia sliding down a steep hill — sans sled — into Jocelyn’s arms. I really like the joy and anticipation I see in her face.

Felicia and Jocelyn had a great time, and the snow play was great … as was the temperature. It’s supposed to snow again this week, so we hope to return next weekend for the full-on snowboard experience.

This picture is also available on Flickr.

Milestones … milestones … We hit two numeric milestones this week.

Our Volvo XC90 hit 60,000 miles earlier today. It was a fairly ho-hum event, with the odometer hitting the number right after we took Jocelyn to piano lessons. It’s showing its age a little bit, mostly because the standard 60K service left it with a squeal in the front wheels. Yeah, we’ll get that fixed.

We also recently coasted through 30,000 pictures on Flickr a few days ago, sometime during our trip to Canada. It was just a year ago that we eclipsed 20,000, but the sudden acceleration was helped out by nearly 2000 pictures I took in Turkey in July.

Of course, this will also be a big year for birthday milestones, with at least three of us entering a new decade. But we’ve got a few more pictures to take and a few more miles to drive before any of those …

I know what you’re thinking … “Where’s the picture?”

Sorry, but today’s post is an audio feature, assuming the technology works like it should. This week is “Red White & Blue Week” at Booksin School, as coordinated by the student council. Jocelyn was chosen, along with several other members of the group, to participate in a promotional broadcast announcement.

Download if you dare … 2MB WAV File (3:43 long): Jocelyn Announces ‘Red White & Blue’ Day on the Booksin morning announcements earlier today. She was the third student to speak:

Starting on Tuesday, if you are visibly wearing either red, white or blue, you can stop by the student council table at lunch to pick up a pin and a red bead.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t aware of today’s broadcast until just a few minutes before it happened. I was lucky to have our digital camera in the car, so the sound quality is fairly poor. The fact that it was announced over the school’s 1960′s era public address system didn’t help, either.

It may not have super sunny and warm, but we finally had a sunny weekend this winter … just in time for the beach-themed Girl Scout Sweetheart Dance for Jocelyn’s Brownie Troop and nearby service units.

We went with matching yellow “beachy” outfits, and also sprung for the matching light-up hula hoops for affect. After dinner at Sonoma Chicken Coop with a big group of friends, we hit the party and had a great time. Our hula hoops were a big hit with other party-goers, and the girls had fun dancing and running around. It’s possible we also hit the local Yum-Yum Donuts outlet for a late night snack afterwards.

The event capped 36 hours of scheduling madness, which included Cirque du Soleil with Mommy on Friday afternoon, a dad-daughter hockey outing Friday night, and a basketball game followed by a birthday party earlier today.

This picture is also available on Flickr.

In what has amounted to a very busy 24-hour stretch, here’s a picture of Jocelyn draining a basket for her Upward Basketball team during her Saturday afternoon game.

Although it’s not her first basket in regulation, it is reminiscent of her first soccer goal, because the picture was hastily snapped after the fact. That’s Karen’s hand celebrating in the foreground!

Jocelyn averages about three shots and one basket during each game, but she is better known for her defensive skills, on display in the second photo.

In one very exciting — yet unphotographed — series, Jocelyn was bringing the ball upcourt, and lost the ball. She immediately fought to get the ball back … forcing a turnover, grabbing the ball, and passing to a teammate who scored. We were quite impressed.

This picture is also available on Flickr.