Wyatt and Oliver came for a visit...

Wyatt and Emma broke up several months ago.  So far they have been maintaining 50/50 custody of Oliver.  Wyatt had Oliver for Thanksgiving so he brought Oliver home with him.  It was so nice to have them both home! 

Of course, we couldn't get enough of Oliver who is crawling and trying to take his first steps.

He is a very calm, thoughtful, baby.  He wasn't really ever hyper or running all over the place.  He likes to watch Moana or The Tinkerbell movies.  He loves unconventional toys.  The biggest hits at our house were an unplugged phone cord and a large metal spoon.  

 

Wyatt is considering enlisting in the Navy and decided to let us chop his long locks off.

Colter generously gave his room up to Wyatt and Ollie so Oliver could take naps.  It was sweet to see our family baby, Colter, take care of the new family grand baby, Ollie.

November Part 4 Adell and Ollie's birthdays...

 Adell's birthday has been overshadowed by Thanksgiving a few times in her life.   Sometimes we are traveling home, sometimes her birthday is on the same day as Thanksgiving.  This year her birthday was on a Saturday and we wanted to make it special.

Adell started the day getting her hair cut and dyed by Lorien.  No before and after pictures but it turned out cute.  I think she looks like Joan Jett.  

We took a family hike with everyone and enjoyed the foliage.  

  

Wyatt found a petrified tree.  He continues to collect rocks everywhere we go.

  

  

For dinner, Adell wanted sushi.  We went to Pacific Catch and had a delicious meal!

Adell got to open her presents, have cake, and terrible birthday signing at home.  She got concert tickets to see her favorite artist: Mitsky.

  

Sunday morning we celebrated Oliver's first birthday!  Technically his birthday is on Wednesday the 29th but we had him for the Thanksgiving weekend.  He was not super impressed with the toys we got him but he loved playing with the unplugged phone cord and wrapping paper!

  

One more note about Adell and her birthday.  Way back in 2008 we were trying to figure out if we were going to have more kids.  We had three and I was feeling pretty overwhelmed all the time.  But in our heart of hearts we felt like our family was not complete.  I had a long list of things that needed to happen before we could have a fourth child.  

One of our closest family friends, the Lundts, had their third child and she was diagnosed with Spinal Muscular Atrophy.  After they found out about her diagnosis Will felt like it was time for us to have another baby.  Little did he know, due to a miscalculation on my part, we were already pregnant.  Adell was born in November of that year.  

Sadly, the Lundts daughter (Lucy) passed away a week ago.  Her funeral was on Adell's birthday.  Because we already had plans we didn't make the trip over to the other side of the bay but I watched it on zoom.  It was hard and very sad but also so sweet.  What an incredible human Lucy was.  

November Part 3 Thanksgiving!

 Thanksgiving with the whole family was so fun!  Heather and Alan came over with their five kids!  Davis was born in July and we had not met him yet.  It was fun to have Ollie and Davis together and all the other cousins playing.

The meal was perfect and we had lots of time to laugh and talk.  Thanksgiving success!

  

  

November Part 2 Football and Dance...

 Colter worked doing a million jobs around the house to earn money for his own VR headset.  He had been using Wyatt's but wanted one of his own.  Thank goodness for eBay and secondhand sellers so we could get one affordably.  Colter worked hard earning his half and has enjoyed playing on his own headset since.

I also go the best present in the mail.  Wyatt sent me a sweatshirt declaring me a member of the Cool Mom Club.  I cannot disagree!

  

Clare is having the best Senior Year!  She had her fall dance show for school.  Per tradition she got to dance with her boyfriend, Logan, in the guy/girl dance.  Clare's dance was also chosen for one of the D5 dance numbers.  She choreographed and taught the dance.  I didn't take any pictures of the contemporary lyrical number but trust me, it was beautiful!

  

  

Clare and her friend, Sydney, have been dancing together for over ten years!

  

Colter also played flag football for the last month and a half.  Will volunteered as coach and they had fun together every Sunday.  They invented plays and had a scrappy team.

At the end of the season they ended up getting second place in the division!

  

Colter has been asking to play flag football for a long time.  It was good to give him a turn at his favorite sport.

November Part 1 Weddings and Birthdays...

 My best friend got married!!!

I am so excited and happy for her.  I flew out to Connecticut for my best friend, Ashley's, wedding.  Will joined me a day later.  I've known Ashley since Will was a student at Stanford.  Ashley's first husband, Bryan, was a student with Will.  Ashley, Anne, and I became best friends in those Stanford years.

Thanks to Marco Polo we've become closer even though Anne and Ashley live on the east coast and I am still in California.  

Anne and I arrived early to help set up for the wedding.  Anne and I laughed our butts off setting up the arbor and the roadside memorial for baby Tasha.  Kidding!  We did set up the arbor and the entrance decorations.  When we were going a little overboard we thought the entrance decor looked like a roadside memorial.  

The wedding was beautiful.  I am so happy for Ashley and Jamie.  They waited a long time for each other and now they get to be together! 

Will and I had fun dancing the night away!

Mostly it was the best time being with best friends!  Jaime accurately described our dynamics in a conversation with Ashley.  He said Anne, Ashley and I all had similar unhinged energy and he, Rory, and Will had similar low-key energy.  It seems like opposites do attract.  

November 8th brought Lorien and Wyatt's birthdays!  I cannot believe they are 22 and 20 this year.  My babies are so grown up!  They are both living in Utah now.  Uncle David and Aunt Angela took them out for dinner on their special day.  

The IPO that IP didn't...but then did...

Well...they don't call it the solar coaster for nothing?  We have been on this ride for 13 years now and the last year has been the most intense and dramatic, for sure.  

You might recall back in October while we were in Bulgaria for wrestling, Will announced his company was merging with another and going public through a SPAC.  When that announcement was made we thought the process would be over before the end of 2022.  Alas, it did not happen then.  The date was pushed to March 2023 (because the SPAC expired then).  Surprise, it didn't happen then either.  The date was pushed to May, possibly the first week of June.  We needed another quarter of revenue reported and there were hiccups with some of the previous partners the companies had agreements with.  Shocker...May/June didn't happen.  Will spent the entire month of June in Utah trying to get revenue up and robust.  We thought the first week of July...nope.  Finally, truly, madly, deeply, it would be Friday July 14th (Bastille Day).  It was scheduled with the Nasdaq, plane tickets and hotels were secured.  

The week leading up to that Friday was a mess.  It seemed like the deal was off or falling apart at the seams.  I can't articulate the full details.  You can ask Will...he might remember.  Basically, it came down to closing fees and who would pay what.

Wednesday me and all the kids boarded planes for NYC.  Will stayed home...trying to salvage the deal.  He left California as we were landing in NYC.  The deal was not solid yet.  Thursday was spent working and finally Thursday night the "truth" came out.  The SPAC had been stalling trying to raise more funds to cover the closing costs.  But there were no more funds to raise.  It was off.  

                                                               

I can't really describe the disappointment.  Failure so close to the finish line had always been possible.  There had been so many delays...why wouldn't failure be an option at this point?  

We had taken the kids to an observation deck as an activity Thursday.  Will spent most of the event on the phone trying to fix the deal.  On the way back to the hotel, Clare and Adell understood it wasn't really going to happen Friday morning.  They were very sweet and supportive of their Dad.

Still, we had an appointment with the Nasdaq Friday to have a bell ringing and celebration...employees and executives had flown out.  It was time to go through the motions.  

We met in the hall of the hotel and told the kids the truth, this would be a show but hopefully the real closing would happen Tuesday the 18th.  We walked over to the Nasdaq building in Times Square.  

 

We took pictures and posed in front of screens.  Will gave a lovely speech telling the employees and executives that it wasn't happening today...but would happen Tuesday.  Then he got on more phone calls to try to make it happen.  I know this is all super vague but I don't have the language to really describe the full picture.  Some of it was exchanging fees for stock options, some of it was lawyers, some of it was moving money from international banks, some of it was agreeing to who would pay for what and when.  All of it was hard and messy.  But Will did it all.  

These are the pictures from the professional photographer at the Nasdaq.  Even though it really didn't happen that Friday morning, I am so glad we all went out for the show.  I am so thankful my kids got to see their dad do this.  These kids have been growing along with this business their whole lives.  We jokingly call the company our sixth child, right between Adell and Colter.  

Will continued to take calls and try to get the deal closed all weekend.  There were moments it seemed like  it would be canceled all together.  But he never gave up.  Vague, again, I know...

These are just a few of the moments Will was working on the deal.  Phone calls, zoom meetings, meetings with executives who were in NYC for the bell ringing.  On and on.  He worked through the night and every day.  It was hard.  

Some of the calls were with new investors who were willing to invest if XYZ happened.  Some of the calls were with existing investors who wanted to pull out because the promise of going public Friday wasn't met.  It was stressful to listen to some of these calls.  I cannot imagine how Will bore it.  

Will is on the phone in this picture above, he stayed at the entrance of the observation tower and made phone calls while we went through the exhibit.  

I won't say "long story short" because I haven't really told a story.  I've just recounted events as best I could...with the amount of detail I had.  Not a lot.  

Will continued to work on the deal on the trip home and through Monday.  Tuesday morning at 6:00 am we woke up to creep downstairs and watch the Nasdaq ticker.  At 6:30 am PST (9:30 am EST) trading opened and CSLR started officially trading!!!

It really happened Tuesday July 18th.  Sweet Lorien made confetti and threw it when the opening bell rang.  It was darling.  Three cheers for Complete Solaria being a public company!

Fun fact, it is exactly one year ago almost to the day that Will first started talking to the SPAC guys he ended up doing the deal with.  We went to Paris last summer (the last week of July) to meet with them.  We had a "celebratory dinner" in October in London to "close the deal".  Oy.  What a year!