{"id":17367,"date":"2020-07-30T16:00:11","date_gmt":"2020-07-30T23:00:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=17367"},"modified":"2020-07-31T08:14:21","modified_gmt":"2020-07-31T15:14:21","slug":"summer-celebrations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/?p=17367","title":{"rendered":"Summer Celebrations"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Just a quick check-in to say, “Hey, how are you?”<\/p>\n

See that cute li’l girl up there? She’s 14 today. Fully a teenager, mature as all get-out, yet still a little kid in so many ways. This is what quarantine birthdays are looking like:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(A little overexposed, but I love this hasty snap taken just a few minutes ago. It’s so very her)<\/p>\n

K has a few of her closest friends over right now, enjoying a social-distanced hangout session in our yard. I can hear snippets of their conversation and it’s like I’m listening to a foreign language. No clue.<\/p>\n

I was looking through some old photos with a vague notion of creating a little digital card for her, but it turned out to be a dangerous time-sucking activity and I was lost in a swirl of nostalgia for hours. I mean:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I remember I got that comforter set from Anthropologie on mega-sale and even though I didn’t love the print, I felt so fancy that I bought something from that outrageously expensive store.<\/p>\n

We used to go to the Olympic Sculpture Park<\/a> with friends all the time (oh how I miss museum outings!):<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

And this one just kills me:<\/p>\n

\"\"I can’t remember what she’s “reading” but M puckers a lot when he reads, and I guess that trait is genetic.<\/p>\n

Right now, I’m making her a Japanese style birthday cake and am waiting for the sponge cake to cool:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

It’s a recipe from here<\/a>, and I didn’t wait long enough to let the meringue create peaks, so it may not be as spongy as I’d like. Nothing a ton of whipped cream can’t fix.<\/p>\n

Last week was M’s birthday and the cake I made was a huge success:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

M loves spice cakes, and the magic was in adding some dark chocolate chips. The cake disappeared so fast, it was as though it was a figment of our imagination. Here’s the recipe<\/a> I used, though I ended up tossing in some Pumpkin Spice from Trader Joe\u2019s instead of measuring out all the different spices. Worked like a charm. It was, as promised, moist and dense and full of rich flavors. Thumbs up!<\/p>\n

Alright, I better get back to the sponge cake. Hope you’re all hanging in there. This month has been rough for us, so it’s been nice to have these celebrations to remind us of the good things in life. Fourteen! I can’t believe it….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just a quick check-in to say, “Hey, how are you?” See that cute li’l girl up there? She’s 14 today. Fully a teenager, mature as all get-out, yet still a little kid in so many ways. This is what quarantine birthdays are looking like: (A little overexposed, but I love this hasty snap taken just a few minutes ago. It’s so very her) K has a few of her closest friends over right now, enjoying a social-distanced hangout session in our yard. I can hear snippets of their conversation and it’s like I’m listening to a foreign language. No clue. I was looking through some old photos with a vague notion of creating a little digital card for her, but it turned out to be a dangerous time-sucking activity and I was lost in a swirl of nostalgia for hours. I mean: I remember I got that comforter set from Anthropologie on mega-sale and even though I didn’t love the print, I felt so fancy that I bought something from that outrageously expensive store. We used to go to the Olympic Sculpture Park with friends all the time (oh how I miss museum outings!):   And this one just kills me: I can’t remember what she’s “reading” but M puckers a lot when he reads, and I guess that trait is genetic. Right now, I’m making her a Japanese style birthday cake and am waiting for the sponge cake to cool: It’s a recipe from here, and I didn’t wait long enough to let the meringue create peaks, so it may not be as spongy as I’d like. Nothing a ton of whipped cream can’t fix. Last week was M’s birthday and the cake I made was a huge success: M loves spice cakes, and the magic was in adding some dark chocolate chips. The cake disappeared so fast, it was as though it was a figment of our imagination. Here’s the recipe I used, though I ended up tossing in some Pumpkin Spice from Trader Joe\u2019s instead of measuring out all the different spices. Worked like a charm. It was, as promised, moist and dense and full of rich flavors. Thumbs up! Alright, I better get back to the sponge cake. Hope you’re all hanging in there. This month has been rough for us, so it’s been nice to have these celebrations to remind us of the good things in life. Fourteen! I can’t believe it….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17367","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-life","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=17367"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17367\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17385,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17367\/revisions\/17385"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sanaeishida.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}