2024 Happy Holidays from HKfamily5

What a year it has been for our little family. A year filled with adventures and a few changes thrown in here and there. The year began with a lot of sad moments of family and friends who passed, including the passing of Clem’s brother ChrisAnd has ended with a lot of love towards family but also our move back into the amazing HK5corner house. Our contractor Mario and his team have truly built an amazing home for our family. Amazing craftsmanship and lessons  throughout the project, are the highlight of the HK5corner instagram account.

I think the most excited family member for the return to the corner house is the dog! Yes, the dog. A close second are the kids, while the dog is running all over the backyard, non-stop. The kids have been planning and planning over the past year and half, the move back in and how life will be like in the new house. Margot is over the moon from everything, from waking up in her own bedroom, to doing sleepovers in the Harry Potter closet. Margot had a fun filled 2024 year. She performed in Midsummer Night’s Dream in the Spring with her brother as members of the mechanicals. Margot was Bottom, and Lochlan was Flute. If you are familiar with the play, then yes our twins not only got to perform in drag, but as star crossed lovers. Margot went the stage solo in the elementary school talent show again. She brought her guitar and sang a song she wrote her self and arranged the music. We were so proud of her sitting up there and playing in front of 100+ people.

Margot and Lochlan finished 5th grade in style and both jumped into middle school, super excited for new friends and new experiences. She is also looking forward to joining the middle school field hockey team in the Spring. The twins returned to camp at Kennolyn for their 7th summer at away camp. Margot return to rec soccer and even tried out for middle school team. All three kids jumped back in the pool for the summer and improved all their times from last summer. Lochlan especially excelled this swim season, his favorite moment was getting picked to be on his age groups medley relay team at the championship meet. Lochlan was all sports in 2024, from spring little league baseball, swimming and joining the boys middle school cross country team.

Lochlan is our runner and going into middle school, he was looking forward to two things, joining track and making new friends. We had to school Lochlan on cross country and it took a few tries to get him interested. After the first practice, he was hooked. After the first meet, he wanted to quit. He’s a sprinter by heart, but learning longevity, was our first hurdle. He struggled his first race but learned the importance of training with your teammates and pacing himself. By the end of the season, he improved in each race, and there is the success! Looking towards 2025, he’s most excited about joining track and field.

Lochlan enjoyed summer camp and made new friends, but Paley is the one who made great friends this summer at camp. This was probably her last summer at camp, because she is now a junior in high school. Which means her next adventure after her high school days, is getting closer and closer. But she continues to blossom at not only as a student but in her love of the stage. The stage continues to be first love during these school days. She performed in the district Theaterfest, reading an original poem. And this holiday season, she was on stage performing in Little Women as Beth March. We attended each performance and tears were present at each performance. Truly proud of her performance and passion for not only acting but writing.

Paley is already working on two plays for her senior cap stone project and she’s not only nervous about her senior year but have something she wrote, performed on stage by friends and peers. Paley opened our eyes this summer as we did college tours. Watching her during interviews, asking questions at info sessions, and perseverance to introduce and talk to other potential college friends was amazing. While she might not feel grown up yet, she exhibits so much more confidence and maturity than I did in my junior year. And if I am being completely honest, her mischief is managed compared to me at 16. She’s working hard at school and looks forward to getting her drivers license in the new year.

Clem celebrated 26 years at Apple and also celebrated his 55th birthday on this planet. He got a new toy and has been enjoying it all year, a Rivian truck. He’s embracing a more aerobic lifestyle, little by little, getting up early with Brian, 6-7 days a week to do a mile+ walk in the mornings and long hikes on the weekends. He’s looking forward more and more to our family vacations and traveling, but truly enjoys the kids and all the sports and activities after school. Our hope is to ship overseas next summer to visit friends and explore some of the places Brian’s dreamed about for years. The trip is a celebration of Brian’s 50th Birthday which is coming up later this week.

In preparation on his half century celebration, he had two procedures this year, just a reminder of getting old comes with more health hurdles. The first procedure, following in his sister, mother and grandmother’s footsteps, he had his gallbladder taken out. The other was just your typical getting old maintenance! With the twins departure from elementary school, so came the end of an era (11 years) of volunteering for the PTA. With the house being finished, you would think there is more free time. But alas, there is more work to be done in the new year. There is a hope for a next chapter/career, but he’s still trying to figure that out.

As a family, we headed to the east coast for family vacation and special trip. Paley and Brian left for Ohio the monday after the school year ended for 10 day orad trip, exploring colleges. We rented a car and drove throught 7 states and visited 11 schools. In the middle of the adventure, we returned to Provincetown, MA for a week long stay in our new favorite place. And a short 5 night stay in New York City. We had a chance to visit with a few friends in NYC and Connecticut and enjoy two shows, Yes we took the kids to see Cabaret with the amazing BeBe Nuewirth and the remarkable SUFFS Musical which had Paley floored! What did Paley think about the schools she looked at, we will share more later in the New Year.

This years holiday portraits, were taken up in Lake Tahoe before Thanksgiving, by our amazing friend Rachel Capil. She started shooting the family once month after the twins were born back in 2012. Being up in Tahoe during the month of November, was very reminiscent of Brian’s childhood, when the Tejada’s and Kincaid’s spent every other turkey day up in the snow. So many fun filled trips, with food, snow and sledding. We even did a special nod to those days, bringing back the family apple. Yes, we forgot to grab one at the house before left, and thanks to photoshop, Rachel was able to add it in. We spent the weekend with Ama joining the fun and Rachel’s family and got to me some of the fun neighbors. Ama also got a chance to take some photos with the kids and family as well.

HKfamily5 up in Tahoe and this photo is nod to the many years of Tejada/Kincaid’s thanksgivings up in Tahoe.

As we move back into the corner house and spend the holidays with friends and family. HKfamily5 looks forward to more years in their not so little corner house and having more adventures. We are blessed and happy with the new adventures ahead. Don’t worry, the house warming will be happening, we are just need to wait till the front yard is finished. That phase of the project is slated for the Spring/Summer of 2025. We will continue post about the HK5corner project, so please check back soon. You can also follow the progress on our special HK5corner Instagram account. More importantly, you can see all the family posts on our HK5family instagram account. Enjoy the holiday movies, hot cocoa and all the yummy holiday food on your table. More importantly, enjoy the company! We want to wish all of you a wonderful holidays season.