Christmas Means Music

So much of the Bankhead family Christmas experience revolves around music. The high schoolers travel all over the community with their choirs giving holiday concerts, and we host an annual singing party that might be Paul's favorite party of the year.

Sadie and the Madrigals bringing festive joy to elementary school kids.

Our friends who can handle singing choir music in our living room.

Singing for the Ladies' Auxiliary

Amos and the A Capella choir singing for the city employees Holiday party.

Family Backpacking Trip in Point Reyes National Seashore

With the extra days off school before Thanksgiving, we backpacked along the ocean to a lovely campsite. Amy and Paul are grateful the children are big enough to carry all their own stuff, set up their own tent, and not whine too much when we required that they attend this family adventure.

A big chunk of the 5-mile hike is right along the water.

Sadie took a break in a patch of ferns.

Amy and Amos hiked an extra mile to get to this waterfall.

Amy Turns 45!

To celebrate her birthday, Amy planned a day of all her favorite things:

A movie with the fam

Hiking with friends

Long walk to the beach

Attending James' choir concert at UCSC

Halloween 2025

Frog and Toad

Ward Trunk or Treat

Candy trading sesh

 

Canyonlands White Rim Trip

Amy and Paul adventured with several other couples to Canyonlands National Park, where we biked, camped, climbed, and hiked through the spectacular landscape.

Day one, we biked down into the canyon

Gorgeous skies at night

Cool rainbow

The rainy weather made for cool clouds for our ride

We climbed a desert tower called Washer Woman

Another view of our climb up Washer Woman

Back on the ground, another view of Washer Woman behind us

Kind of hard to comprehend the enormity of this place

Rappeling

Cool overlook

We cut our trip a day short because of rain: if the road gets washed out, you can't leave, so we braved the mud to avoid an extra few days in the canyon.

October Fun 2025

 

With his E-sports class, Miles took a field trip to Electronic Arts. He had more fun than this photo suggests.

Sadie and Amos sang in a Renaissance Concert (Amos not pictured).

Miles and Sadie did lots of yard work at the swamp.

Sadie became a National Merit Scholar Semifinalist.

Some of the fam saw Les Mis in San Francisco.

Amos spent a good deal of time with this cool plant.

Sadie's Senior Year: Homecoming

Sadie was nominated for the Homecoming Court, which means she spent Homecoming week making videos, attending assemblies, participating in lunchtime antics, waving from a fancy car in a parade, and generally drumming up school spirit with the other nominees.

Her enthusiastic participation paid off, because during the Friday night Homecoming football game, Sadie won the most votes and became Homecoming Royalty.

Sadie attended the actual homecoming dance with her favorite friends.

Back to School for James

The University of California, Santa Cruz starts the school year much later than many other schools, so James began his sophomore year as a Banana Slug after his siblings had been back in school for nearly six weeks. Because of scheduling conflicts, he opted to drive to school this year instead of walk, so Amy and Miles helped him load up the truck and move his stuff into his new dorm room, which still overlooks the ocean.

This is everything James took to college, Miles not included. Miles was guarding the stuff while James went to get his key.