{"id":4686,"date":"2020-12-31T23:59:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-31T23:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/updates.xephalon.net\/?p=4686"},"modified":"2021-01-04T03:45:46","modified_gmt":"2021-01-04T03:45:46","slug":"ghosts-of-christmas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/2020\/12\/31\/ghosts-of-christmas\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghosts of Christmas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Between the holiday season and pandemic lockdown, our work productivity ground to a halt as we limped our way to the end of 2020. We took turns between clinic to spend time with Westley over his two-week winter break, with visits to the allergist, playgrounds, and grocery stores. But mostly, Westley preferred to stay at home to indulge in tablet playing, paper crafting, and Lego building. We continued to feed his Lego crave on Christmas with a new Ninjago Firestone Mech<\/a> and Creator 3-in-1 Pirate Ship<\/a>, Fire Dragon<\/a>, and Underwater Robot<\/a> sets. Our friends and family also contributed educational STEM kits<\/a> and origami paper, while I added 10 rolls of Scotch tape to keep him stocked. We spent our break mostly hunkering down at home over Taiwanese beef noodles<\/a> and Mongolian hot pot<\/a>, and even made time to prepare the “best-damn-meyer-lemon cake”<\/a> for our neighbors. We finished up second seasons of the Mandalorian<\/a> and His Dark Materials<\/a>, as well as Modern Warfare<\/a> and the Spider-Man expansion packs<\/a>, in time to embark on the Ghost of Tsushima<\/a>. Set in feudal Japan, the open-world samurai adventure combines the immersive storytelling of the Witcher<\/a>, the stealthiness of Assassin’s Creed<\/a>, the acrobatics of Tomb Raider<\/a>, and the sword play of Dark Souls<\/a>. Between bamboo strikes, composing haikus, and Mongol standoffs, I did manage to repair Westley’s bicycle kick stand and mud guard, as well as my Nikon 35mm prime lens<\/a>, which required some intricate soldering action. On New Year’s Eve, I watched the ball drop alone while Melody and Westley slept, and reflected on this very tough year. In 2020, Melody battled insomnia while I discovered back pain. But this year also marked new beginnings for Westley, from learning to bicycle to basic math and reading. With the two of us finally receiving our first doses of the COVID vaccine, we look forward to a better year ahead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Between the holiday season and pandemic lockdown, our work productivity ground to a halt as we limped our way to the end of 2020. We took turns between clinic to spend time with Westley over his two-week winter break, with … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4686"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4702,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4686\/revisions\/4702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.xephalon.net\/updates\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}